Matrox FAQ's and consistency?

[Gurm]

Hi. I just went and read the Matrox FAQ on tweaking your BIOS settings.

Most of it looked good except for the part where they recommend setting video cache mode to UC instead of USWC. Kruzin and myself (as well as others) have definitely seen a speed increase in USWC, so is there something we don't know or are Matrox just being overly cautious?

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Jorden]

Might've been a typo on their side as well, Jason. Or yes, overly cautiosness.

My G400 works better with the setting to USWC as well. I might want to edit that in the FAQs here

Jord.

[Haig]

Just playing it safe Depending on which of our cards you use and on which motherboard, your system may not be too stable when enabling USWC.

Haig

[Jorden]

Haig, could you tell me about those mobo's that do and those who don't do USWC?

[Zwisch]

USWC should be disabled if you are using a Pentium Pro. If not, then leaving it enabled should be just fine

[Jorden]

I had an answer from Haig and added it to the FAQ forum thread on UC/USWC.

If you can tell me what he said you 're goooood

Here to go to Haig's answer

Jord.

[Jorden]

Aye, you're goooood

Thanks for the explanation, greg. I used it in the FAQs if you don't mind

Jord.

[CannyOne]

Actually, there is another area where the FAQs aren't completely accurate. VIA strongly recommends installing drivers in this order:
1. Video card drivers
2. Install the latest version of Direct X
3. Install their AGP Miniport

The FAQ seems to reverse this order. I did things as VIA suggested and have had no difficulties. But I'm concerned that the information given at the two sources is inconsistant. This can be very confusing for people unfamiliar with upgrading their system, or setting one up from scratch.

PS. I also have the feeling that Matrox is falling back on the "pat answer" here. Which is kind of disappointing!

[gbm]

I am gooood, I will tell you...

The problem occurs only with old Millennium and Mystique card (before G-series). It doesn't affect the Mystique 220 cards.

There is an error in many BIOSes that causes them to believe that accelerator register space on Millennium/Mystique is Video RAM space. These stupid BIOSes (note for Haig: the BIOSes are made by S..... Y..... C........) set WC for accelerator regiters instead of video RAM. They do even more harm to all S3 cards .

Matrox addressed this problem in newer chips, starting from MGA1164SG (used in Mystique 220) by reordering the RAMBASE registers in PCI config space, so if anyone has this kind of problem with contemporary cards, only the CPU or motherboard design should be blamed.

[Zwisch]

Via's technique gave me some problems. I like better the :
- Put DirectX
- Install the darn patches
- Then install the drivers for all your devices... including the video card.

[Zwisch]

.... and directX should be installed BEFORE the video drivers, so VIA also has some problems in their procedure... I would not trust it.

[This message has been edited by Zwisch (edited 17 April 2000).]

[CannyOne]

Well, Zwisch I guess I really do end up installing DirectX multiple times. It's similar to a "bad twitch"! Must have come from reinstalling the OS a few too many times!! I don't really care about the order, and haven't had problems doing it the way "I understand" VIA recommends. It's just that some might find this inconsistancy disturbing. I just got done emailing VIA for confirmation on the issue. I'll let Jorden know the outcome.