Drivers 5.25 : Graphical corruption

[ArchieMan]

I downloaded version 5.25, deinstalled the old drivers and installed. I am disappointed to find that not only are some aspects of the Powerdesk are not very nice (like editing video modes - far too much clicking required, and lack of virtual desktop - even though there is an excuse for that), but they caused crashes and graphical randomness on the screen.

OpenGL screensavers froze the whole machine if invoked either in the Display Properties, or as full screen, or ran for a short while then froze, certain operations (like Quake 2 install program, don't ask me why) caused the screen to freak out in a display of random corruption, with some of the pixels following the mouse pointer, and my G200 Millennium got shockingly hot (the G200 chip that is).

I uninstalled and then put in Powerdesk 4.51, and what a surprise, no problem.

I may be taking a simplistic view here, but display drivers are pieces of software that I *expect* to work. Such episodes only serve to undermine my confidence in Matrox's ability to supply me with a fully functional product.

If anyone's interested, my system is

AOpen AX59Pro motherboard
AMD K6-2 3D 350MHz processor
128Mb 100MHz SDRAM
Seagate 8.4Gb HD
Maxtor 6.4Gb HD
Sony 32x CD ROM
Mitsumi 8x 4x 2x CD ReWriter
Matrox Millennium G200 8Mb AGP
Diamond Monster 3D II Voodoo 2
Creative/Ensoniq PCI64 sound card
Diamond SupraExpress PCI 56k modem

I hope I'm not the only one who's had these problems.

Thanks for reading

ArchieMan


[This message has been edited by ArchieMan (edited 09-23-1999).]

[DigitalWelfare]

I have almost same specs, and dont have any troubles.... dont know what to tell you dude. have you thought maybe getting some Processor patches to FULLY support OpenGl?????? www.3dfxgamers.com has one I believe, as well as you may need to check each game you play....

------------------
a digital display of evolution (G200 with aid of Diamond Monster 3D II)

[HedsSpaz]

Try using the 5.13 drivers instead. I've notice a few problems on my system with the 5.25 drivers but I never had any trouble with 5.13. I'm considering dropping back down to them myself. I haven't noticed much in the way of improved performance anyway, and in some obscure cases hinderances.

HedsSpaz

[manxcat]

I have also had problems with 5.25 and 5.20. They caused random overheat locks, vxd errors, and windows boot failures. I have gone back to 4.51 to fix the problems. My system contains: K6-2 200, Voodoo II, Mill G200. I wonder if there is a connection here.
Jeff

[mayor]

I have had problems with the 5.25 (actually 5.2X) drivers as well - different from ones mentioned though. For me, when the "bus mastering" is enabled the mouse does weird stuff - scroll bars lag behind the pointer, and then programs sort of lock up while you wait for them to SLOWLY catch up with the pointer... Its weird. With the 4.X drivers, bus mastering didn't work for me at all, so at least there's some progress here...

[Natnek]

I am actually glad to see I am not the only one with these problems. Until now I couldn't trigger the problem with the glitches on my screen. I see you all installed a previous version of the driver to solf the problem.
Great idea. I would like to mention i do also have an other configuration, except for the diamond voodoo II 12mb. maybe they don't like each other anymore??

Indeed the 5.13 drivers solved the problem.

Correction: the 5.13 drivers did not solve the problem, now going to try other drivers/bios. Results coming later.
[This message has been edited by Natnek (edited 09-30-1999).]

[This message has been edited by Natnek (edited 10-02-1999).]

[RMW]

G400, opengl, 3D screensavers and Quake2:

This is a copy of a post I put into the
"G400 and OpenGl problems" thread in the "Matrox Gaming" category of this forum, I hope that it helps.

For your info the infamous screen saver lockup when Win9* 3D screen savers are selected (other are fine) is an exact repition of one of my own promblem with Matrox G400, opengl and Quake2. get this working before trying to lauch into Q2.

Someone mentioned Q2 install?? not sure which thread. With respect to the Q2 install - run it from start>> run>> * rather than double clicking the program icon on the game cd. And finally WRT to Q2 gameplay, if it does crash and you can't get it up again, move the config file from the Q2 directory and restart the game using the default settings. this seems to sometimes fix Q2?? I did that and the game appears to now run perfectly (no crashes for hours of demo run loops and some game play.

I hope the post below proves to be of some help.

posted 10-01-1999 02:10


I have also had problems (big problems) getting my Matrox G400 (16mb oem), opengl and Quake 2 to work together under Win98.

The first thing that I have found after installing/reinstalling everything (drivers, OS's, Direct X. opengl ICD) was that some very strange, unexpected and unpredicatble
results can occur.

At the end of all this I managed to get the whole shebang to work although to this day I do not know what combination of changes actually did the trick.

Firstly with respect to opengl, it does not work in 24 bit mode, opengl does not support 24 bit, therefore set your desktop colour depth to 16 bit.

I have found a very good check to see if opengl was working was to try one of the standard 3D screen savers that come with Win95/98 - controlpanel>> display>> sceensaver>> etc etc. I used the 3D text (which displays the word "opengl" by default), if this works and does not hang than you are halfway there. In my case this
would cause my PC to hang.

Secondly, check that your Direct 3D hardware acceleration is enabled for Win98 - start>> systemtools>> system information >>tools >>direct X etc etc. Also check control panel>> system>> performance (? I think) >>graphics >> and check that hardware acceleration slider is all the way up.

Finally Matrox drivers, this I haven't managed to fully resolve and I hope that some in this forum can shed some light.

What works for me is driver version 5.25, NO opengl beta ICD, and 16 bit colour. My understanding is that for drivers greater than version 5.13 have a full opengl ICD built in and the open GL beta ICD found on Matrox's website is not needed. I stumbled across this (NO openGL beta with drivers greater than version 5.13 information somewhere, and I cannot recall or find the site, so I don't how reliable it is).From my experience I could NOT get opengl to work WITH the Beta ICD and driver version 5.25. However tech support from matrox says I need this?!

Finally when reinstalling drivers make sure the previous driver set are FULLY removed (unistall using matrox utility provided, than scour hard disk and registry for any remaining wisps of matrox stuff, find - mga* g400* usually works).

If anyone can shed some light on Matrox's beta opengl ICD it would be greatly appreciated.

regards rmw


addendum:

Intermittant crashes still occurred and resolved by forcing AGP x1 (from default AGP x1 fallback only). So the above fix plus restting the AGP (Matrox Users Downloads, Reghacks zip) seems to have (finally) resolved my G400 problems.

rmw


[This message has been edited by RMW (edited 10-06-1999).]