Star Wars Pod Racer

[dave m]

Is the Matrox G200 supposed to support Star Wars Pod Racer, or did I just destroy half my machine's functionallity while installing DirectX 6.1 and latest Matrox 4.33 drivers for nothing (While sobbing quietly)? Any help would be appreciated!
Dave

[dave m]

OOps, I just re-read my post and it seemed a tad aggressive, sorry, I'm new to posting, same question, can these new Lucas toys (eg pod racer) work with Marvel G200?

[DLewis]

I've played the Pod Racer Demo on my Mystique G200 with no problems. I have an AOpen AX59Pro (Super 7) motherboard with and AMD K6 II clocked at 300 MHz. What "functionality" got destroyed? Also what kind of motherboard/CPU are you using?

On a side note, the CPU in my system is actually 333 MHz. I had a problem with the Pod Racer game when it was clocked at 350 MHz. The game would abort after a few minutes of play (this happened with quite a few different games too!). I've now got the CPU clocked at 300 MHz*, and the game demo runs great!

* 100 MHz bus speed x 3 clock multiplier = AGP clock of 66 MHz.

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Mystique G200 - BIOS version 2.2 - Driver v. 4.11.01.1000 - PowerDesk v. 4.51.010

[dave m]

Loss of functionality: Avid Cinema is now sulking and says something else is using my video input, before it wouldn't capture audio, now it doesn't want to play at all.

The AGP Marvel is on a P5A Assus motherboard with onboard sound, with an AMD K6 350 cpu (at 350Mhz) and 128 Mb RAM.

[Helevitia]

dave m,

I've also played the Pod Racer demo with an Asus P5A mobo. I have the Mystique G200. I am using the 4.51 drivers from Matrox. Give that a shot. make sure your BIOS is up to date as well.

Dave

[NotEd]

I have the Marvel G200, too, but haven't tried Pod Razor (tho' I have a demo). I would be careful about using the 4.51 drivers, as they are designed for the other G200 cards and not the Marvel (much to my chagrin, as I can't play some games well with my Marvel due to that little limitation). Frankly I'd consider unistalling and reinstalling the Powerdesk drivers and see if that solves the problem with Avid. Also might want to make sure you are using the latest Video Tools, as well. Helevitia did have the right idea though and I agree that you should update your BIOS.

[dave m]

Thanks for the tips. I posted because I didn't want to delve too deeply unless there was a chance I could get it working, looks like there are things I can try. I need to see if I have the courage to upgrade the bios!
BTW, I just tried a demo of Ulead Media Studio, it worked perfectly, I think the Avid cd is going in the bin.

[Trav]

Hi Dave M

I've got a Marvel, and have been running version 4.51 of powerdesk for about 4 months without major problems.
Only hassle I did have, is like you with version 4.33, My capture wouldn't work after initially installing 4.51.
I had to reinstall version 1.21 of the video tools then everything worked fine.
Let me know if it works for you!

Trav

[dave m]

I flashed my bios to 2.33, reinstalled Avid (no luck), reinstalled the onboard sound patch (might have been a new one, I downloaded it again from avid), All works well on the capture front. I haven't yet tried the games!!
Thanks for your ideas!
Dave

[dave m]

Turns out this wasn't a Matrox problem at all (after visiting the Lucas Arts site today where they have a new "patch/update"): apparently Star Wars Pod Racer often won't run if you have a 4 way USB hub, (particularly if it's hanging off the back of your monitor). Guess what's hanging off the back of my LG Flatron 17" monitor with my mouse and webcam plugged into it? (Lovely monitor by the way) I unplugged the hub,took the mouse off the monitor and plugged it into the USB port I just freed up, Racer runs fine! Oh well, I've learnt a lot about all my peripherals in the meantime while trying to work out what was causing the problem. Anyone heard of "unplug your USB hub" as being a patch/update before? Anyway they're looking into finding a real fix.

Dave

[danfoss]

I have starwars racer, and no probs at all,
runs perfect with everything set to max

D

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Celeron 300A@450,Abit BX6,128MB,20GB U66 Maxtor + 8.4GB U33 Maxtor, MillG200 8Mb B2.3 PD 5.13, SB PCI128, W98 DX6.1