G400, trouble in 3D mode, works fine in 2D

[hej]

Hi!

Every program/ game I run in 3D mode makes my newly bought MAtrox Millenium G400 card
act very strange. Even the Demo game from Matrox works bad (the intro screen picture looks odd, not to mention the actual demo, where the terrain blurs out totally, and the computer hangs). Small flickering lines also appears.

I have downloaded the latest drivers from MAtrox and installed them, without sucess. Please help me out...

Any settings i migh have forgotten?
* I do NOT use 32 bit z-buffering
* I have grapghic acceleration det to maximum value

Those above I have also tried to set up differently, but without success. I have also tried changing resolution, and Hz for my monitor (MAG DX15F) without luck.

My system is a Pentium II 400
130 MB RAM
Matrox Millenium G400

PLEASE HELP

/Mike

[Kruzin]

1. Run in 16 bit or 32bit color depth. 24bit will not work with 3d.

2. Make sure the G400 has an IRQ assigned to it, and that it is not sharing that IRQ with anything ('cept pci steering)

3. Try setting the graphics aperture in your BIOS to 256

4. If none of these help, give us more details...system specs, OS, etc...

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PII-450(112x4.5=504), Asus P2B(1010), 128meg PC100, MillG400 32meg DH (5.??/1.?), 3com 3c905b, SBLive!value, (2)USR 56k v.90(multi-linked), WD 6.4&8.4gig, CL PC-DVD, Mitsumi CD-RW, and some other things...

[This message has been edited by Kruzin (edited 08-13-1999).]

[hej]

I will try the steps you mentioned, but how do I assign an IRQ to my G400?

/Mike

[Kruzin]

Most mobos today will assign an IRQ to the video card be default.

Some have an option in the bios "Assign IRQ to VGA". If you have this option, enable it.

While you're in the bios, see if you have a video boot order (AGP/PCI), and make sure AGP is first.

To check your IRQs, go to the windows Control Panel, Sysem, Device Manager tab. Double click on the "Computer" icon at the top of the list. This will show you what IRQs all of your devices are using...

[hej]

I tried changing from 64 in graphic aperture to 128 yesterday (without greater luck), but never tested 256. It will be another 5 hours until I will be able to test your hints (do you still think it can be the aperture problem, knowing I tested 128 yesterday?)

Please Mr Kruzin stay with me on this one, your expertice is very appriciated (especially from someone like me that do not hardly know the difference between a CD-ROM and a Floppy drive heh heh, ohh ehh it aint really that bad, just overexagerated a bit....

[Qeteb 768]

Hey, Kruzin! i am a worthless newbie and i was hopin u could point out to me how to change that graphics apperture.

I have a g400 regular but soon swappin for MAX!! (yay) well, i have a Gigabyte GA-686BX mobo. please help, since i read a tweak on Kingpin (it runs reeeeaaall slow) and it said to change the video apperture in the BIOS.

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PII 350 64MB, G400 16mb DH DVD 5x

[Chaotic Neutral]

Qeteb 768,

Just go into your BIOS setup when you boot up your computer by hitting the DEL key while your system starts its self-checks. Then go into your Chipset Features setup - you should find a setting for Graphics Aperture Size in there.

I read somewhere that it is best to set the Aperture Size to half your RAM (i.e. if your RAM is 64MB, try setting the Aperture Size to 32MB). However, I have also seen suggestions to just push the Aperture Size all the way up to 256MB. For me, half the RAM seems sufficient and stable.

If you only have 64MB of RAM, though, you might want to consider getting an extra RAM stick. For gaming these days it's a good idea to have at least 128MB of RAM... besides which, RAM is pretty cheap now. You will probably get a bigger performance boost from the extra RAM than from increasing the Graphics Aperture Size.

C|N


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Celeron 333 o/c to 416MHz, 128MB RAM (non-ECC), Asus P2B mobo @ 83MHz (BIOS: 1010 beta 6), AGP = 2/3 BUS speed, 64MB AGP Graphics Aperture, G400 SH 32MB (PD 5.13), SB Live! Value sound card (SB LiveWare 2.1), CTX PR711 monitor, USB Intellimouse, Kenwood TrueX 42X CD-ROM drive, Quantum Fireball ST 6.4 & 4.3GB HDs, PCI Network Card, Internal 56k Modem. Win98, DirectX 6.1, etc. No IRQ conflicts.