G400 MAX: Direct3D is blank?????

[Arne]

Hi folks,

yesterday I received my G400 MAX. I eagerly replaced my old G200, installed the 5.25 PD, the G400 ICD, and the 1.04 BIOS upgrade ... and was deeply disappointed :-(

The 2D desktop and software is working as is OpenGL (at least QuakeII). But every Direct3D software crashed, even the G400 tech demo. In most cases the screen went blank with only the mouse cursor visible. Has anyone an idea what might have gone wrong?

My config PIII500, 128 MB, SB Live! Value, G400 MAX, Win98

[BigBug]

have you tried disabling busmastering
in powerdesk options?
see other threads, among them http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum5/HTML/004628.html

[Arne]

To Maggi:

Yes, my desktop is set to 24bpp. What is wrong with that? What should I set it to?

I uninstalled PD 5.25 (G200 version) thoroughly before installing it for G400.

To Big Bug:

Why should I cut down performance by disabling busmastering? I thought I'd get a really fast card with best performance in Direct3D. If your solution is the only working one, I might consider to give back the card and buy myself a TNT2 Ultra. :-(

[Speedy]

Arne: CHange your Display settings to 16 or 32 bit, cause it doesn't work in 24, also if it will not work go to bios and set AGP aperture (or samething similar) and set it to max u have there, if that will not work, try disabeling busmastering, if that will not work, get PD5 hack from murc website. and force AGP 1X, and if That will not work, try reinstalling all of your system drivers (not windows, like
"AGP to PCI bridge" etc, and if That will not work (last thing helped and 16b halped, and AGP 1 helped on my machine) than i dunno

[Maggi]

yep, Speedy is right ...

24bpp is NOT hardware accelerated !!!
(read the readme.txt of the drivers )

Just set to 32bpp for truecolor apps and 16bpp for 16bit games/apps.

Have Fun !!!


------------------
Cheerio,
Maggi
________________________
Asus P2B-DS @ 103MHz FSB
2x P3-450 @ 464MHz
512MB CAS2 SDRAM
Millenium G400 32MB DH

[Jammrock]

Did you completely remove the old G200 drivers before you installed the G400? If you haven't you may want to remove all of the matrox drivers (instructions are on Matrox's web site). And the 24 bit color thing could be the problem too.

Jammrock

[Star F.]

One of the saddest consequences of Extreme Matrox Bus Mastering (EMBM) surely is that it leads otherwise totally normal folks to waste their time on total BS (obviously a dangerous and destructive variant of BM). I have to include myself here, I'm afraid, after 3 or 4 days of futile 'trouble shooting'.

But this one really hits the bull's eye (or ass): 24 bit color NOT HW-accelerated -- Maggi, WHAT are you reading? (I was stupid enough to search the Readme files for '24', only to find '[10]24 [x 768]' -- caught again by BS[E ?].)

First: the legendary Matrox 24-bit mode is just a roadblock to the proper function of a legendary Matrox card called G400 ?

Second: the color depth is set by 3d applications themselves. Even that silly Tech Demo can easily be started from a 1600 x 1200 @ 24 desktop and invariably comes up in 640 x 480 @ 16 (if it does so, that is). Same with all games I know: they have their own config options for setting color depth and res.

Third: my current favorite, the Re-Volt Demo, allows you to set 24 bit (a unique feature among today's games). And it runs happily with it and is not noticeably slower than with 16 or 32 bpp. -- Well, it runs until that darn EMBM (acronym explained above) locks it.

Fourth: I start all D3D applications from my usual 1600 x 1200 @ 24 desktop (except Ubi Soft games, which require that you set 16 bpp before -- but that's another issue). They start up fine, but crash later.

Fifth: What Arne is facing is just a stronger form of the bus mastering problem. While I can play at least some games (though not safely), he doesn't even get to the first 3d screen.

Sixth: Disabling bus mastering for the G400 is NOT a solution. It's like sex without a woman -- or man, as you'd prefer.

Never mind. I can understand only too well that such things can drive you nuts.

[CitrixSCU]

EMBM?? Extreme Matrox Bus Mastering? Are you serious? Bwahhhhhhh

------------------
CitrixSCU

P2-400, Intel MB, 14.5 Gig IBM Deskstar, Tekram DC-390U2W SCSI controller, 9.1 Gig Baracuda, SB Live!, G400 MAX, 19" Hitachi, 128 Megs PC100, etc.

[Kruzin]

Star F.-

24bit color has never been hardware accelerated for 3D in any card. Most cards out there don't even offer 24bit as an option. This is not something new to G400. We had the same situation with the G200.

Matrox's famed 24bit was in the old days, when our Matrox cards where 2D only, and 24bit was a good choice for a desktop setting. This is 1999 now. Set it at 32bit, and be happy with it. It will outperform 24bit anyway. G400 does all internal calcs at 32 bit, then has to dither the colors down to 24bit, making 24 slower than 32.

And not all games set color depth in the game. Q2 comes to mind. It will play in whatever depth your desktop is set to. Try it with a 24bit desktop, and you will end up in software mode.

The only thing I can agree with in your post is that disabling busmastering is not a reasonable solution. It's helpful for trouble shooting, but no good for a long-term fix.

[franksch3]

32 bit offers no extra colors compared to 24 bit. It is very simple. First there was 24 bit color 2D. 8 bits for each primary color. But the problem is that memory chips deliver their data in 64 bit chunks. So the chance that you need two reads for a pixel is quite large since your pixel is just 3 bytes.

So they came up with 32 bit color. Each pixel still has 8 bits for red green and blue, but 8 non-used bits are added. So we sacrefice memory for an enormous speedup. Now each pixel is 64 bits, so it takes one access to read it.

For textures the extra 8 bits can be used for a transparency channel.

I hope this clears some misconception up.

[Star F.]

Kruzin,

sure I know most cards don't offer 24 bit. And no card has it for D3D, not even Matrox. In fact that Re-Volt 24 bit mode IS dithered, but I do not want to make an argument as to whether it is HW-accelerated or not. -- Might be accelerated in 32 bit and then dithered down non-accelerated. --

24 bit is still a good choice for 2D and measurably and perceivably faster than 32 bit. The visual difference is absolutely null. Must be, since you only have 3 channels, R-G-B, with 8 bits each, makes 24 bit -- right? Those additional 8 bits are empty, and are there only for the sake of bus architecture -- as far as I understand it, but I don't understand much of these things. (BTW: I remember reading somewhere that the TNT does internal 3D truecolor calculations in 24 bit.)

All that, of course, is far from the point of this thread. The problem here is that D3D cannot be started. And it is not because the desktop is in 24 bit. (If you don't believe me, set your desktop to 24 and call the Tech Demo.) It is most likely because of the G400's incompatibility with standard bus mastering. -- Q2, btw, is not D3D, is it?

[Maggi]

errrm ... could it be that your desktop is set to 24bpp ???

Another reason could be that there are some leftovers from previous driver installations ...
Use the uninstaller, reinstall the drivers and see if it hepls.

------------------
Cheerio,
Maggi
________________________
Asus P2B-DS @ 103MHz FSB
2x P3-450 @ 464MHz
512MB CAS2 SDRAM
Millenium G400 32MB DH

[This message has been edited by Maggi (edited 09-24-1999).]

[Perception]

curious, but am i missing a 1.04 bios upgrade, i have no ****in clue what that is but if it solves my probs i want it =P

[Arne]

Here is my next problem: after setting to 32 bpp, upgrading motherboard BIOS, setting AGP aperture to max nothing improved at all.
(Btw I cannot find those .vxd and .dll files that are supposed to be on the Win98 CD. Anyone to help me with that?)
Finally I switched off bus mastering. That was a step forward: I can start D3D games now.
HOWEVER, after some seemingly random time the whole system freezes so badly that I have to cold start the PC again. This happens sometimes after 30-40 minutes sometimes after 15 seconds. It seems to be independent on the actual game (Drakan [EBMB looks so cool!], Shadowman, Lands of Lore 3,..).
Matrox Hotline (in Germany) has no real suggestion but the card may be faulty. I doubt that, since other people seem to have similar problems with the G400 MAX.

Anyone with a better solution?

(PIII500, 128 MB, Siemens ATX D1156 motherboard, Phoenix BIOS 4.06 rel 1.03.1156, SB Live! Value, Win98+SP1, DirectX6.1, G400 MAX PD5.25 + BIOS 1.5)

[Maggi]

the bios is here:
ftp://ftp.matrox.com/pub/mga/unified/bios/bios_104.exe

And Matrox must have taken out the note about 24bpp being not hw-accelerated ... sorry for pointing to a false reference.

------------------
Cheerio,
Maggi
________________________
Asus P2B-DS @ 103MHz FSB
2x P3-450 @ 464MHz
512MB CAS2 SDRAM
Millenium G400 32MB DH

[This message has been edited by Maggi (edited 09-27-1999).]