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RRG Install Experience - not good

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  • RRG Install Experience - not good

    I have been using Matrox video cards almost exclusively for six years now. And, even though driver updates tend to be few and far between the cards themselves are pretty darn solid. There price performance ratio is unparaleled. Why bother even looking at another manufacturer?

    I have just been reminded that you can't take anything for granted in the computer industry.

    How did I re-learn this lesson, you might ask? Simple. I bought a Rainbow Runner G-Series to go with my Millenium G200. Are drivers, and software supposed to be this difficult to install? Despite my experience with M$ products, I'm pretty sure the answer is no. Or, perhaps I'm a fool. Because, I assumed that the driver CD Accompaning my new toy would contain working drivers.

    Sigh...

    I followed the install directions to the letter, and was rewarded with three crashed installs. After, much reading on the net I learned that this was a common problem. I'd really like to know why. This product has been out for over a year! To continue supplying bad drivers with a shipping product for that lenght of time is entirely irresponsible. To make matters worse, I purchased my RRG from Matrox itself. Had I acquired this product from another retailer I might be able to forgive them for carrying old stock. Not so in this case.

    At any rate, the solution provided by Matrox was to download new drivers for both the RRG and the Millenium G200. Once again, following all instructions to the letter resulted in a crashed intall of the RRG. A second attempt worked - sort of. The Quick Connect applet froze, requiring a hard reboot, but the drivers were installed.

    So what if PC-VCR crashed with a "vidpres.exe" error 90% of the time? I can still access the card through other programs, like VirtualDub. Or, can I? It seems that "Line" sources are MacroVision protected. Even the ones that arent.

    Deep breath...let it out slow....

    Ok, hit the net, do more reading. download a fix. It works, and I'm in business. But our saga does not end here.

    Having gotten a taste for VidCapping, I decided to repartition my HDD to consolidate free space. But, since my RRG experiences have left me parranoid, I decided to do a clean install of Windoze. As an extra measure, I installed all my other drivers and apps first. I spent hours working out any bugs, or gliches to ensure that the system was clean and stable. This way I could be sure that no other software would overwrite my display, and RRG driver files and their dependancies.

    The drivers installed perfectly. Although the RRG driver wanted to overwite a system DLL, I let it. With great trepidation I inched my cursor over to the PC-VCR icon, and gave it a good double click...

    "error in "vidpres.exe"

    ARRRRG!

    Ok, don't panic. Maybe I need to run Quick Connect (don't know why, since all the options can be set in the driver config dialogs, but whatever). Of course Quick Connect hung. I got it un-hung, and "vidpres.exe" didn't give me any more lip - a very wise choice. I have managed to run PC-VCR three times now. All in a row even. Will wonders never cease...

    So, the moral of this story kiddies is buy a different VidCap card[1}. Unless your willing to trade off the RRG's lower price for headaches and hair pulling. I also have serious doubts about any of the Matrox all in one Video cards since they use the same capture drivers.

    Are you people at Matrox, listening? If you don't get your act together you are going to lose customers. I, for one, will think thrice before buying any more of your products.

    Maybe I should have followed the Mac road, I here they'er plug and play.

    [1] To be fair, when it works, I'm very happy with it.

    =========================================

    Mattman

    Who thinks that
    He really didn't need
    All that hair anyway

    =========================================

    Tyan, Trinity 100 s1590, with VIA chipset
    AMD, K6-2 3D 350MHz
    96MB SDRAM
    Maxtor, DiamondMax 17GB HDD
    Matrox, Millenium G200 16SD, AGP
    Matrox, Rainbow Runner G-Series
    Creative, SoundBlaster AWE64
    Linksys, EtherFast LNE 100TX
    Jaton, Explorer 56K External
    M$, windoze98 SE <--- SE = bug fixes
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