Overlay resolution problems

[calle42]

I'm having a problem with overlay in the following setup:

- Gigabyte 7ZXE mainboard
- Duron 900MHz
- 768MB RAM
- 6x9, 1x18 GB U2W SCSI HDD
- SCSI CD-R, DVD-ROM
- Symbios SCSI
- Adaptec Firewire
- Realtek NIC
- Terratec Cinergy600TV TV tuner card
- Matrox G400 Dualhead 32MB, secondary display set to 3.5MB to enable overlay on the primary display.

- Windows 2000, latest VIA drivers, latest DirectX, latest Matrox drivers (5.86.32), all applicable MS service packs and hotfixes

Whenever I try overlay of any kind (Quicktime, Divx, DVD playback, TV via the tuner card) that overlay looks pixelized, as if the resolution in that area is halved (each pixel blown up to a 2x2 block). It happens both in fullscreen and windowed mode.

I have tried different drivers and resolutions, but it happens all the time.

Any ideas?

[WyWyWyWy]

Hi...

1. Is it because of the original video file? (obvious but I'd ask anyway)
2. Have you tried setting 2nd display to 16mb?
3. Do you have DVDMAX enabled?

[calle42]

1. No, it also occurs with plain old TV viewing.
2. With 2nd display to 16MB I get no overlay at all. I needed to set it this low to get Overlay on the *primary*, which is where I want it.
3. No, but I just want it in a window on the primary anyway, so I don't need DVDMax.

Thanks for the reply.

[Vervamon]

Have you tried using the DivXG400 filter ?
Maybe you're experiencing the "not dividable by 32 problem" which leads to no hardware overlay on certain videos depending of their width and height.

[calle42]

Isn't that just for DivX playback? I'm experiencing the same thing with all overlay applications. Or is there something about that filter that I don't know yet?

Thanks.

[Goc]

DivxG400 works as a filter with any kind of video using overlay... Go give it a try. It can't hurt.

[calle42]

Ok, thanks for the info. I tried that tool, it installed properly etc, but it didn't help. More testing led to interesting results though. If I turn hardware acceleration completely *OFF* in for example Windows Media Player, then I get a clear picture. So it definitely is an issue with hardware overlay. At 1024x768 then I get a clear hardware overlay with no problem. So it seems the card doesn't want to do it properly at 1280, which is my normal resolution. Is there any way around this?

[Vervamon]

Probably linked to the dualhead functions taxing too much memory or horsepower of the card...

[Vervamon]

Hehe, I was right :-)
Look at this recent post from Haig here (very recent topic too) : http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40057

This is the important part :
Haig said "the G400 supports overlay upto 1024x768 on the 1st head where as P supports it upto 1600x1200 on 2 outputs since it can do 2 overlay surfaces."

Here's your answer.

[calle42]

Yes, I saw it... kinda sucks, but at least fullscreen DVD and such is working, I don't need the high resolution when doing that. Now I just have to wait and see what to buy for my new system... The Parhelia features Haig mentioned sound great, but I would hate to get this banding issue.