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  • Teething problems with G400 16MB

    Hi guys,

    New to this board, so firstly apologies if any of the below problems are much asked questions. I DID make the effort and search, found some posts that answered / fixed a few probs, and found a couple of similar problems, but no fixes.

    Quake2 : Very dark. I found a post on this not so long ago (but for a G200), added the suggested lines in the cfg file, but no luck for me. The Mortyr Demo is also far too dark. To the point where you can't see anything! Any other suggestions?

    Unreal : Very poor performance. I enabled Direct3D in the advanced options, and in the timedemo was getting as low as 14fps @ 1024x768, with (obviously) VERY noticable skipping. Not sure of the colour depth. Considering the way it ran on the old V2 (albeit in a different API) I am a little shocked by this performance drop?

    Tribes : Very poor performance, and some major graphical glitches. I did see a post on this and know I'm not the only one having this prob. Can anyone shed any light if it's going to get any better via patches / drivers?

    Desktop / General : This is a wierd one that I think I may have already fixed. But after installing the card, my desktop seems to have a mind of its own. It's quite bizarre and I'd laugh my head off if it wasn't so darn frustrating. Basically, when I'm trying to type, such as posting this message, hitting m will minimize, hitting r will bring up the run dialogue box, hitting e will load explorer, hitting f will bring up find files. You get the idea. It's almost like a key was stuck. Also, while sitting at the desktop, my select icon would flick at inconsistent intervals between the my computer icon, and bringing up the start menu. As if my machine was possessed. Like I said, I think I've fixed it as I have a mix of CAS2 and CAS3 RAM. I tried running @ CAS2. I've turned it back to 3 again now because of the above. Opinions please, you think that was the problem?

    I am using the latest everything for this card (BIOS, drivers) and perform the correct uninstall procedures for my G100, and Voodoo2. Running Win98 on a Cel300a@464, BH6 with KG BIOS, 192MB RAM blah blah. Oh, and an Acerview 76c 17" monitor, with the correct .inf installed.

    Anyway, I'm off to watch the G400 tech demo AGAIN . I'm happy with the card, a bit buggy at present (to be expected) but this thing shows more potential than any other card on the market, IMHO.

    Thanks for any help. It is much appreciated.

    Clint

    P.S. Hi Maggi / Manoj, it's Clint from 3DFiles BB

    [This message has been edited by CBW (edited 08-17-1999).]

  • #2
    Hi CBW,

    I recently upgraded to the G400 16MB card too. I came from a Permedia 2 and dual VooDoo II's in SLI. In Quake II is it just the backgrounds and corners that are dark, or is it the bad guys in your face too? Your brightness all the way up on monitor?

    At first I thought Quake II was too dark with the G400, but with the autoexec.cfg file tweak, it helped brighten it up. Coming from VooDoo II's that gave me washed out colors and uniform lit backgrounds had me convinced the card was a mistake, but not anymore.

    As far as mixing memory like that it is not a good practice, better to have only one speed or the other. While you can get some extra speed by tweaking it in BIOS, it can lead to instability. Better off to leave it to "By SPD".

    All I can help with, good luck and stick with it, the card is worth it.</a>

    SCompRacer

    Comment


    • #3
      Hi SCompRacer,

      I tried a few more demos last night and had quite a few more games that were just too dark. Odd I thought, since the Tech Demo, Q3, and desktop were the right brightness. I played with the monitor anyway (brightness was a bit low), still have a bit of tweaking within Q2 to do, but generally now I could say that problem is fixed. Desktop seems a bit bright now - I'll get used to it.

      Forget about Mortyr - stupid demo won't play sound now. Bah, didn't even like the demo anyway. To me, it was considered a compatibility test for the G400.

      I played around with heaps of settings in Unreal, and am still getting very poor performance. My V2 kicked the G400 with this game. Can someone please confirm if this is a known issue with the card? Or if I am the only one suffering this problem?

      Unfortunately, slowing the RAM down hasn't solved my "ghost" problem either. Anyone have any ideas here?

      Thanks,
      Clint

      Comment


      • #4
        Hi Clint:

        How are things? Is your card working fine now?

        Back to the top!

        Regards,
        Manoj Mahtani
        Northwood 2.26ghz @ 3.0Ghz (air cooled!!)
        Asus P4T533
        512 megs PC 1066 - 32bit (Samsung)
        Matrox Parhelia (Retail)
        Seagate Cheetah 18Gigs 15K RPMs 8megs Cache SCSI (Drive C)
        Maxtor 36Gigs 10K RPMs 8megs Cache SCSI (Drive D)
        Adaptec 29160N SCSI Card
        Aopen 56x CDROM
        TDK 40x 12x 48x CDRW
        SB Audigy Platinum EX
        Creative Inspire 5.1 Digital 5700
        Samsung 22" SyncMaster 1200 NF (Flat Screen CRT Monitor)
        Lian-Li PC 70 Full Tower Case (7 fans in the case)
        Enermax 650W power supply Microsoft Office Keyboard
        Logitech Dual optical mouse
        Microsoft Windows XP
        ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


        Consoles: Dreamcast, Playstation 2, XBox, Panasonic GameCube (DVD & VCD support)
        ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Comment


        • #5
          Hi Clint:

          How are things? Is your card working fine now?

          Back to the top!

          Regards,
          Manoj Mahtani
          Northwood 2.26ghz @ 3.0Ghz (air cooled!!)
          Asus P4T533
          512 megs PC 1066 - 32bit (Samsung)
          Matrox Parhelia (Retail)
          Seagate Cheetah 18Gigs 15K RPMs 8megs Cache SCSI (Drive C)
          Maxtor 36Gigs 10K RPMs 8megs Cache SCSI (Drive D)
          Adaptec 29160N SCSI Card
          Aopen 56x CDROM
          TDK 40x 12x 48x CDRW
          SB Audigy Platinum EX
          Creative Inspire 5.1 Digital 5700
          Samsung 22" SyncMaster 1200 NF (Flat Screen CRT Monitor)
          Lian-Li PC 70 Full Tower Case (7 fans in the case)
          Enermax 650W power supply Microsoft Office Keyboard
          Logitech Dual optical mouse
          Microsoft Windows XP
          ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


          Consoles: Dreamcast, Playstation 2, XBox, Panasonic GameCube (DVD & VCD support)
          ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

          Comment


          • #6
            Hi,

            My G400 16 runs Unreal nicely... mind you I don't run it 1024x768...

            G400 is faster then G200... I am happy.
            G400 looks better then G200... I am happy.

            Andrew

            Comment


            • #7
              Hi CBW,

              Don't know about the ghosting, but I just had to accept the fact that going from 2D to Quake II needed a brightness adjustment of the monitor. Back to 2D, turn it down. Small price to pay though for what you get in return!

              Same with Unreal. I have not tried it with the G400, but I will and report back.

              SCompRacer
              ---------------------------------------------
              Remember,
              Luck is where preperation meets opportunity, blind luck is the absense of one or the other or both!

              Comment


              • #8
                I think Matrox cards are always a bit on the dark side. You can use a third party utility like PowerStrip to adjust gamma (or select predefined color settings) on the fly. PS can overclock your G400 too, so Unreal shouldn't be much of a problem at 1024x768. (FWIW, I'm running it smoothly at 1152x864x32, that's on a MAX though)
                P3@600 | Abit BH6 V1.01 NV | 256MB PC133 | G400MAX (EU,AGP2X) | Quantum Atlas 10K | Hitachi CDR-8330 | Diamond FirePort 40 | 3c905B-TX | TB Montego A3D(1) | IntelliMouse Explorer | Iiyama VisionMaster Pro 17 | Win2K/NT4

                Comment


                • #9
                  Hey thanks for the replies. I can safely say all the "niggly" problems are solved (besides of course the "ghost" problem). I feel stupid but I do honestly think I just had the monitor too dull for the other games, but with Q2 there was a problem as the brightness slider didn't effect the gameplay, only the menus. Re-installed drivers and it now works as it should ...

                  I've been told on another board that D3D within Unreal has been "broken" with the latest patch. Some people are also experiencing VERY poor performance on TNT2's when using D3D. This will be fixed whenever they decide to release the next patch for Unreal (anyone's guess ). I think the latest patch is 225F, which I am running. Is this the patch you have Scytale?

                  Hi Manoj, thanks for putting this thread back up top. I noticed the board got a little "flooded" this morning, my time.

                  Guys, I am so happy with this card. These problems were of course expected. BTW, I was running AvP at 1280x1024(? - the max res it would let me), 32bit colour and it was still VERY playable!

                  Thanks for the comments.

                  Clint

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    back on top ... fukking DF31 & loserants

                    ------------------
                    Cheerio,
                    Maggi

                    Asus P2B-S @ 112MHz FSB - Bios 1009 final
                    Celeron300A @ 504Mhz
                    128MB 7ns SDRAM
                    G400 DualHead 32MB SGRAM @ 201 MHz memory clock
                    Despite my nickname causing confusion, I am not female ...

                    ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional
                    Intel Core i7-3930K@4.3GHz
                    be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 2
                    4x 8GB G.Skill TridentX PC3-19200U@CR1
                    2x MSI N670GTX PE OC (SLI)
                    OCZ Vertex 4 256GB
                    4x2TB Seagate Barracuda Green 5900.3 (2x4TB RAID0)
                    Super Flower Golden Green Modular 800W
                    Nanoxia Deep Silence 1
                    LG BH10LS38
                    LG DM2752D 27" 3D

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      CBW,

                      I tried Unreal and it bombed. It will play in safe mode but thats it. Got a string of error messages otherwise too long to print or research!

                      I got it as a gift and I just can't get into it anyways, so I may leave it at that.

                      They have a 224 patch out though. http://www.unreal.com/



                      [This message has been edited by SCompRacer1 (edited 08-18-1999).]

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Heya, Clint !!!

                        I just noticed your PS ...

                        did you already try V2.25 of Unreal ?

                        ------------------
                        Cheerio,
                        Maggi

                        Asus P2B-S @ 112MHz FSB - Bios 1010 final
                        Celeron300A @ 504Mhz
                        128MB 7ns SDRAM
                        G400 DualHead 32MB SGRAM @ 201 MHz memory clock
                        Despite my nickname causing confusion, I am not female ...

                        ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional
                        Intel Core i7-3930K@4.3GHz
                        be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 2
                        4x 8GB G.Skill TridentX PC3-19200U@CR1
                        2x MSI N670GTX PE OC (SLI)
                        OCZ Vertex 4 256GB
                        4x2TB Seagate Barracuda Green 5900.3 (2x4TB RAID0)
                        Super Flower Golden Green Modular 800W
                        Nanoxia Deep Silence 1
                        LG BH10LS38
                        LG DM2752D 27" 3D

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Hey Maggi! I'm not up to speed with the Unreal patches, I know I'm using the latest which is v225F. I'm going to reinstall it and see if it runs as it should without any patches at all. I might even get A3D support back too I think!

                          Hi SCompRacer, thanks for posting your results, guess I'm lucky it even runs huh? I know what you mean, I bought Unreal and hardly played it. Now though, I've managed to get into it, but I really don't know why!

                          On my "ghost" problem. I think (hope) after all that it was a sticky key after all. That was the 1st thing I checked (the Win key) but it did it again today and I hit the Win key REALLY HARD (temper, temper) and it went away instantly. The only other way I've been able to get rid of that was to reboot.

                          Anyway, my G400 is running great. I'm VERY happy with the card. Looking forward to my overclocking attempts .

                          Thanks,
                          Clint

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            To fix Q2 put these settings in an Autoexec.cfg file.

                            set intensity "1.0"
                            set vid_gamma "0.9" (anywhere from .4 to .9)
                            set gl_saturate "0"
                            set gl_modulate "3.5"(5 is the max gets rid of shadows)


                            Paul
                            "Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself"

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Hi Clint,

                              Nice to get to know you

                              If any further 'ghosting' occurs, check if you have Windows accessability off (the magnifying-glass and all features for the handicapped).

                              I've had this problem as well, and it bugged me..
                              Was some automated feature in Win Access...

                              Jorden.


                              ------------------
                              ------------
                              Some of this message may have been Copyright 1999, Slartibartfast (tm). All rights, lefts, ups and downs reserved.
                              ------------
                              Holly Reigns !!
                              Love Reigns...
                              as does Stupidity Reign (still)
                              -----------

                              Jordâ„¢

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