Help with setting up my G400 MAX

[Quartermile1]

I just couldn’t wait any longer. The wife gave me permission to get a new video card, so I ordered a G400 MAX. I have been a long time Matrox user, and no other company has come close to the video quality that Matrox has. My first system had an original Millennium with a Voodoo 1 card. Next came my G200 with 2 Voodoo 2s in SLI mode. That lasted quite a long time. Currently I have a PIII 500 w/128 MB ram, Viper 770 Ultra video card, 10 gig Maxtor Ultra ATA 66 hard drive with a PCI Ultra ATA 66 controller card, Sound Blaster Live Value sound card, using an Intel SE440BX2 motherboard. This is where the G400 MAX is going. I remember seeing a while back on this forum several tips for getting the most out of the G400. Should I even bother to install the drivers that are on the factory CD, or should I do a clean install with the latest drivers? Which are better, the latest certified drivers, or the latest beta drivers? Which Power Desk version is the best? Are there any motherboard bios settings that I need to play with? I remember something about AGP memory something or other… I almost got a Voodoo 5 5500, but I just couldn’t do it… I was able to get the G400 MAX for approx. $100 less! I figure this will hold me over until the G800 is out… I heard that the G450 isn’t any faster than the G400 MAX, so I figured what the heck… Any info, tips, tricks, settings, etc… would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[skeoch]

the best fastest/stable drivers. Thats a tough one but I would go with 5.55

Up the agp apeture to 256mb
make sure the bios assigns an irq to vga
get the max on a high irq, preferably with nothing sharing it.
Also uninstall all the existing videocard drivers.
get the most recent drivers for the SBlive.


Hope this helps

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P3 700Mhz cB0 stepping, G400MAX,Abit BE6-2 RV Bios,Quantum KX 7200 13Gig,256Mb 100SDram,Asuscom ISDN,SCSI 100Mb zip int,SB Live Value,Tosh 6702, HP 9110i.

[skeoch]

woah 91 post I'm almost a murcer

Woot Woot

[xortam]

Re: IRQ, the G400 should be on its own IRQ at 9 or above: The highest priority, being at 9. I would recommend installing the latest released drivers, 5.52 (there is no 5.55 for the Max). If you notice some anomalies that are addressed in the beta drivers, then proceed to update if you're impatient for the release (unless you want to help Matrox test drivers). Try the TurboGL mini-ICD for OpenGL apps. Its yet to be seen if TurboGL will be the superior gaming ICD in the 6.x drivers.

[box]

Personally, since this is a first time install, I would go for the latest beta 6.01. Theese drivers work perfectly, and there won't be any messy 'removing previous drivers' problems.

BTW In BIOS you should set your 'AGP Aperture' to your amount of system RAM.

[This message has been edited by box (edited 03 August 2000).]

[Quartermile1]

"the best fastest/stable drivers. Thats a tough one but I would go with 5.55"

5.55? I didnt see 5.55 for the MAX... 5.52 was the closest...

"Up the agp apeture to 256mb"

I noticed that your system has 256mb ram, is that why you suggested 256? I only have 128mb so should I set the agp apeture to 128?



[This message has been edited by Quartermile1 (edited 03 August 2000).]

[xortam]

5.55? I didnt see 5.55 for the MAX... 5.52 was the closest...

That's what I pointed out in my post.

I have 128MB RAM and I set the AGP aperture to 256 ... no problems. Matrox stated in their release notes that users should universally set the aperture to 256MB.

[Ali]

Nope, set AGP to 256 no matter what. Even if you only had 64Mb.

Do a search back though the forums. This has been covered before, and is the official word from Matrox (or was it Haig?).