Hacking drivers: how to run Marvel G400 TV with latest drivers

[VS_]

For apparently popular demand, (received 2 mails about that, do you beleive it !) I will explain here the little trick I've done to run the latest drivers (5.72) with the Marvel G400.

The problem is the Marvel is not "supported" by the latest drivers, that is the card is not detected by the setup program, and consequently the drivers do not install.

The problem is indeed really simple to solve, the only thing you have to do is to make the setup program recognize the card.

All the detection process is based on particular PnP hardware identifers (cabalistic strings identifying the card) that are compared to those stored in the .inf installation file. So I compared the latest Marvel official driver .inf file (5.39) with the latest drivers, the only differences are the missing IDs for the Marvel in the latest drivers.
So basically it was just a game of cut'n paste Marvel IDs from the 5.39 into the 5.72 one.

I'm not at home for now, so I will post the final "hacked" (how pretentious) .inf file later, but I'm sure you can figure out by yourself.

Now the results, the 5.72 now install properly on my Marvel, and I've not experienced problems so far.
And by the way, no problem concerning the TV tuner has well, which shows there is no special "tuner enabled" driver for the Marvel. Either tuner support is indeed in all drivers, or TV tuner management has nothing to to with the driver layer.

I'll post the .inf file has soon as possible. Be prepared!

[VS_]

hehe...everyone is waiting for my little file, isn't it ?

[torhelge]

thanks, thanks, thanks, and once again: thanks

I really needed some drivers for my card, therefore this "hack" really rocked. Until now everything has been working fine, and that's includes many situations where the Windows 2000 driver made my system crash.

I have sent alot of mail to Matrox Customer Support, recieving the same old answer. Isn't possible because of the MJPEG chip and etc.... This just isn't good enough

Thanks for fixing this .inf file. It really makes my life much more easier (at least my PC-life)

Tor-Helge

[VS_]

Since we are in a customization thread, do you have suggestions about which OpenGL ICD to use ?

The only remaining problem now is the very poor OpenGL performance in Win2K (suppose XP too)

Post your suggestions here !

[lrvalley]

Marvel G400 TV and XP!!!

Your post on modifying the 5.72 driver was very much appreciated! Your modified file didn't work for me, but it did show me how to make the mod for my Marvel G400.

Interestingly enough, I have never been able to install either the 5.39 display drivers, or the latest video tools. I always got a message stating the GA-G400 was not supported (5.39), or that there was no Matrox video editing hardware installed (video tools 2Kvt204).

The latest driver that worked with my G400 was version 5.20, so I copied the necessary string from there. I had to modify the following string:
%Str15%%ENG%=IN10.ENG,PCI\VEN_102B&DEV_0525&SUBSYS _3693102B

to:

%Str15%%ENG%=IN10.ENG,PCI\VEN_102B&DEV_0525&SUBSYS _04001458

for the driver to work.

Would the fact that your standard mod didn't work for my board have anything to do with why I can't install the 2Kvt204 video tools? If so, is there anything you can think of that would fix this issue? I can load the older beta version of the video tools, but these don't work properly with the 5.72 driver, and it crashes with 5.20.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[j0e]

the file worked great for me.. Im now running my marvel g400 in windows XP with display drivers 5.72 and final video tools 2.04 for windows 2000.. Video capture works great.. Havent tried out mjpeg yet but it can work more than likely.

Irvalley try running your driver and video tools install file in windows 2000 compatibility mode.. I had v5.39 and video tools 2.04 installed and running before I upgraded to 5.72.. Right click the setup files, go to properties, then compatibility and set it to run in windows 2000 compatibility mode.. That should make xp shutup I think..

[lrvalley]

Compatibility Mode didn't work

I tried the compatibility trick, and it still does the same thing. The actual message says

"No Matrox video editing hardware is detected. Make sure your Matrox hardware is properly installed. For more information, see your Matrox manual."

Actually, the 2Kvt204 version never would load on Windows 2000 for me either - I had to use the beta version. Any ideas anyone?

[VS_]

lrvalley:
Looks like your Marvel is registered in the system as a GA-G400, which means I think a very special and quite rare Gigabyte G400 card.
This card came from a very special agreement between Gigabyte and Matrox, which allows Gigabyte creating a G400 based card, providing it run only with special drivers (so 5.39 do not support them apparently) and only attached to a Gigabyte board.

So an explanation should be that one day you flashed your bios with a GA-G400 bios by mistake, so it's recognized as a GA-G400 since. Well, that's my point....maybe you should flash your graphic bios again with the right one.

[Kruzin]

I doubt it's a Gigabyte card.
For one thing, I don't think they ever made a Gigabyte version of the Marvel.

Another point is that the Gigabyte G400s have no BIOSes. The BIOS of those cards is on the motherboard, meaning you had to have one of their mobos to run one of those cards.

[mrtj1]

i tried to install the 572 drivers and it worked perfectly, no problems at all. until i tried to capture with hw mjpeg. it just wouldnt start. no errors, it just wouldnt start. capping yuy2 or whatever worked perfect tho. i put the 539 drivers instead with the final vt's and now i can cap with hw mjpeg and yuy2

[lrvalley]

GA-G400

I doubt that this is a Gigabyte board... It arrived in the original Matrox packaging, came with Matrox CD's, and says Matrox on the board.

I've already tried reflashing the bios (yes, the G400 does have a bios), I even tried it with an older version of the bios - all to no avail.

I can tell you this - I will never, ever, purchase a Matrox product again. They have never responded to any of my e-mails, nor returned any of my phone calls. The support they have shown me on this product since I purchased it has been nil.

Anybody want to buy a cheap board?

[Rags]

Re: GA-G400

Originally posted by lrvalley
I doubt that this is a Gigabyte board... It arrived in the original Matrox packaging, came with Matrox CD's, and says Matrox on the board.

I've already tried reflashing the bios (yes, the G400 does have a bios), I even tried it with an older version of the bios - all to no avail.

I can tell you this - I will never, ever, purchase a Matrox product again. They have never responded to any of my e-mails, nor returned any of my phone calls. The support they have shown me on this product since I purchased it has been nil.

Anybody want to buy a cheap board?

I find that very hard to believe. Matrox has the best tech support bar none.

I wonder if Haig has any info on what happened with your emails...

Rags

[Haig]

Hi,

as of last Monday, email support has dropped due to the popularity of our forums. Anyone who emailed our general email queue should receive the following:

Dear client,

Thank you for contacting Matrox Graphics. This reply is to confirm that we have received your email.

***Please take the time to read this email.***

......Due to the popularity of our technical support forums and its faq forums, please post your problem on our support forums, located at http://forum.matrox.com/cgi-bin/mgaforum/Ultimate.cgi , where our technical support staff are constantly monitoring and answering questions......

Regarding callbacks, I don't know what # you called nor who you talked to but our TS phone queue has no answering machine nor do we do any callbacks unless one of my people has to do a quick test for the client. If this is the case, I would like to know who you talked to in TS so that it won't happen again.

If this isn't the case, then what # did you call?

Regards

[Rags]

Thanks for clearing that up Haig!

Rags

[Haig]

np