G200 D3D/OPENGL Locking System

[bhuni]

This seems to be a veeeery old problem .. I am unable to run any game in the opengl or direct3d mode. I have tried Quake, Unreal, Half-Life. Things go smoothly for some time, and then suddenlt the system locks up.

My systems specs are AMD K6-2 300 MHz, MGA G200 AGP 8 Mb(Driver Version 5.13). I have NEVER had any success with the Direct 3D and Opengl modee. However, after the few glimses I had of the OpenGL/D3D modes, I cannot think of playing in the software modes again.

I will tremendously appreciate any help in this regard.

Cheers

[Phil MURC]

Could you detail your system Specs please...

G200's aren't the best behaved boards in Super Socket 7 systems (esp. VIA MVP3) and there are well documented workarounds for users of these systems (albeit with marginal performance loss for most users)



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Phil (MURC's G200 : WWW.G200.COM

[Wombat]

Try things with the case off. Sounds like overheating. System specs would still be nice, though.

[bhuni]

Phil is right on the dot ... I do have a VIA MVP3 Motherboard. Does that mean I will be unable to enjoy the D3D/OpenGL modes?

Cheers

[Wombat]

I've never had any major problems. Do you have all the latest drivers and BIOS?

-Wombat


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503+ rev 1.2a, 128MB PC100 RAM, K6-2/350@400,RH6 & Win98,G200 Millenium (SGRAM), no plans to buy a G400

[Holerith]

Actually the ALI boards tend to be "quirkier" than VIA.

Make sure you have all the drivers loaded, and in the proper order. Likewise check for current BIOS/driver version levels.

My G200 SD 16M works fine and at AGP2x on a Tyan 1590S/AMD k6-2/400.



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Dean
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PDP-11, Dec-writer & ZD-11 Terminal Unit, RSTS-OS

[bhuni]

I have FIC motherboard (VA-503+) with MVP3 chipset. I have all the latest drivers and bioses for the VIA chipset as well as for my G200. However, the motherboard bios may be a bit out of date - version 1.1A. Should I upgrade to 1.2A ? I am a little uncomfortable about changing the motherboard bios - seems there's a high risk of things getting screwed up beyond repair !

I also read somewhere that were some problems with K6-2 and G200, and Matrox had released a fix for it. Is it true ? The driver was supposed to be present in the matroxusers download forum. However, I didn't find any such driver.

Cheers

[Wombat]

I don't know why none of us thought of this sooner, but go into your BIOS settings. Somewhere (under chipset?) you will find options for "Read Around Write" and "Write Pipeline cache". Disable both. See if this helps.

Good luck,
Wombat

[mragsdale]

Hi guys,

Wombat is correct make sure "Read around write" is disabled in your bios (after you have flashed your new bios), but leave the write pipeline cache enabled for the time being, this will give better performance if you can get it to work. Uninstall your G200 drivers using the matrox utility, switch to standard pci display adapter, reboot install the via agp drivers in normal mode, reboot, install your IRQ miniport drivers, reboot, install your G200 drivers, and reboot. Test the stability of the setup if all is okay, then you're done, if you get garbled display or lockups, then disable the write pipeline cache in your bios. I have a 503+ ver 1.1a and it runs fine with just the read around write disabled, and I can still use busmastering.

Rags

Oh, and I almost forgot, make sure you have DX6.1 installed. =)

[This message has been edited by mragsdale (edited 08-11-1999).]

[Wombat]

Bhuni,
1.1a isn't your BIOS version, it's your board revision. You unfortunately do not have the latest version of the 503+ (1.2a). However, this is not something that can be changed w/o exchanging your motherboard.
The BIOS version is shown during boot-up, when your system is busy checking your RAM. It will look something like ##JK## or ##JE##.
Yes, that is probably worth upgrading. The latest version is available off of FIC's website.

-Wombat


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503+ rev 1.2a, 128MB PC100 RAM, K6-2/350@400,RH6 & Win98,G200 Millenium (SGRAM), no plans to buy a G400

[sixpac]

I usually tell people that all the time
guess I'm slooow today LOL.I always have them both disabled,maybe I'll try just
enabling the pipe and see what happens

<marquee behavior="slide" loop="1" marquee align="bottom" bgcolor="white"
<font color="#FF0000" size="1" face="Comic Sans MS"><em><strong>sixpac</strong></em></font></marquee>





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Amd K6-2 350@452,Fic 503+ 1.2a,64mb Mushkin Samsung GHcas2,Maxtor 8.4gb,G200 Mill.8mb Sgram,Yamaha sound

[johnpaul]

!!!! IMPORTANT !!!!


For all VIA based Fic motherboard,
you have to install a patch available
at the fic website in order to have
win 95/98 working with an agp card.

the last patch is called Vx29.
Have a look at fic web site.