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Commodore64 2000-11-19 01:19
Well, I finally bit the bullet and replaced my G400 Max with a GeForce2 and a GeForce2 MX PCI for what I hoped to be *proper* dual monitor support under Win2k, and as a nice bonus, a test bed to start playing with XBox programming. As of yet, I'm *FAR* from satisfied.
If anyone can point out what I'm doing incorrectly, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, let this message serve as a warning to others who may be considering this combination.
First, let me begin with Windows 98. Two words: Train wreck. Neither card will allow me to go beyond 640x480. I'm provided with the OPTION for other resolutions, of course, but Windows is unable to actually switch to them - every time it attempts, it stays at 640x480. This happens whether the AGP or PCI card is the first to init. I tried a fresh install, and after a few reboots, I'm back to this same situation. I will point out that I use to own a pair of i740's, and they worked just fine.
This problem had the potential to be *real* annoying, but I was willing to let it slide - my intend for quite some time has been to abandon Win9x for Win2k, anyhow. Otherwise, I would have been quite happy with my G400 Max.
But alas, Windows 2000 has it's own set of problems. First and foremost, OpenGL will LOCK MY SYSTEM after random amounts of time. This would be a crippling were I a "mere" Quake player, but considering I'm PROGRAMMING IN OPENGL, this has rendering my machine *#(@ing worthless!
Additionally, I cannot get the "advanced multimon support" to work, either, with the 6.18, 6.31, and 6.34 drivers. If I turn it on and try to run a simple OpenGL test app, I may get hardware accelerated GL on one monitor with garbage when moved to the other, garbage on both, or MY SYSTEM LOCKS UP. Take your pick. :(
As for D3D, I haven't experimented with it for very long - for all I know, it may exhibit the same locking problems. I grabbed the DX8 SDK, and am unable to run most of the demo's while I have both monitors running - I have to disable the second, which once again rendering my setup pretty useless for 3D graphics coding (my primary activity with my machine).
And, as a final nail, I'm getting occasional garbage on the AGP card in Win98, Win2k, *AND* DOS - pixels will occasionally be miss-colored in graphic modes, and text will occasionally show improper characters or colors. Note that this is only happening on the AGP card - the PCI MX is unblemished.
I am fairly certain these problems are not due to a bad GeForce2 - I've plugged in two different cards from 2 different manufacturers (Creative's and an OEM part, both reference designs) with similar results.
Both the AGP and PCI cards are sharing the same IRQ under Win98 and Win2k (yes, I'm running MPS 1.1), and nothing I can do will get them to do otherwise - if I set the IRQ for the PCI slot, the AGP is happy to follow. :( This appears to be causing ANOTHER issues - on occasion, if I change a setting for one of the cards, the system will *start* to apply the setting, and then lock.
My system:
Dual Processor BX motherboard (Epox's)
2 Celeron 366@550
128 Meg PC100 RAM
Standard 100 MHz bus (so the AGP and PCI buses aren't out of spec)
Aureal Vortex2-based Sound card (Diamond MX300)
Tekram SCSI controller
Generic Firewire card
Linksys 10/100 network card
PS/2 keyboard
PS/2 mouse
In an attempt to free IRQ's, I also have the serial ports and parallel ports disabled. Also, as I mentioned earlier, I'm running MPS 1.1 - the Epox board I've got has problems with MPS 1.4 and APCI. I've got to send away to get the 2 meg bios chip so I can grab the newest bios that resolved these issues (as my current board has the #*(@ing 1 meg chip).
Also, if it helps, my previous G400 Max (excluding known dual monitor issues) worked just fine in Win98 and Win2k.
This is truly frustrating - I thought I was finally going to get the dual monitor behavior I've always wanted out of Windows 2000. $350+ dollars later, and I'm even worse off then I originally was.
(a very unhappy)
C=64
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Shadey 2000-11-19 17:19
I am having the same problems with a TNT2 Ultra and a TNT2 M64 on my development machine. I figured that 2 of the same manufacturer would work out better, but I was horribly wrong. Everything appears fine except for the random freezes.
It freezes in VC++ even if the second monitor isnt being used. It freezes in IE if I go to certain pages. It freezes if any movies are played. If I physically remove the TNT2 M64, things work ok.
Here's a website that freezes my machine 99.9% of the time: http://www.cvs.org/
Please, If anyone else has two Nvidia boards, try that website a few times (closing and reopening IE) and let me know your config if it doesnt crash.
BTW, I rarely notice any traffic on multimon problems with the nvidia usenet group that nvidia monitors. Do they even know about these problems?
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Christian Studer 2000-11-19 22:21
The website works fine here, but I have other problems with my Nvidia cards. Using Win2000, 6.18 drivers and a TNT2 as primary, TNT for second monitor, and a 3Dlabs Permedia 2 for the third monitor.
After playing lots of videos, I get random freezes. Sometimes it can be cured by popping up task manager, sometimes I have to reboot.
When I disable both secondary monitors, I loose DirectX acceleration on the primary monitor when re-enabling them.
BTW, later drivers cause even more problems on my system, I tried them all, up to the 7.17 release. I also have a dual-CPU system, maybe that's part of the problem...
Christian Studer
www.realtimesoft.com
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Commodore64 2000-11-20 07:55
Shady, I tried the web site a few times as well - Didn't have any problems with it, though the web site's flash intro says the site is currently closed...
I got around to doing some Direct3D test under Win2k, and sure enough, my machine locks there as well (using the DX8 demo apps).
One of my cards is a Creative, so I called up their tech support. No help, I'm afraid. The only real solution I can attempt is to get the newest BIOS for my mobo (Epox's KP-BS). UNFORTUNATELY, as I mentioned in my previous post, my board's got a 1 meg bios chip installed, and the most recent bios requires a 2 meg bios chip...
All the issues I'm having under Win2k occur whether or not my second card is physically installed, so I know there is SOME kind of underlying problem outside the world of multimon. However, the Multimon lovin' I was hoping for ain't there, either. Christian, you may want to mention my configuration in the OpenGL FAQ, and the apparent difficulty I have of recreating your results using any driver from 6.18 and up. Your difficulties would be a helpful addition, as well.
Out of curiosity, am I the only one of us who sees visual corruption on his AGP display?
For the time being, I've tossed my G400 Max BACK into my box, paired with the PCI GeForce2 MX. They seem to be getting along alright - I'll post back with more information after I've done some more through testing. An interesting thing to note is that the G400 *DOES* have hardware acceleration on it's display while paired with the MX, and even allows me to drag the rendering window onto the second display with (what I assume to be) software rendering kicking in as appropriate. So... the G400 is getting along BETTER with my MX then the GeForce2 did! :(
I'm begining to think you're right, Christian our dual proc machines may not be playing very nicely with our nVidia's cards. Argh. I'll have to pull one of my celery sticks out and experiment.
As always, if anyone can point out anything I'm doing wrong, I'd *really* appreciate it.
(an even unhappier)
C=64
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Shadey 2000-11-22 07:06
I swapped out my ASUS P3B-F motherboard for a Soyo 6VCA. (The 7VCA is on the W2K HCL, but the 6VCA is the same board just Slot 1)
P3B-F uses Intel 440BX. 6VCA uses VIA Apollo Pro 133A.
Win98 changeover was smooth except for a bump with it thinking it had 2 network cards. It is using the 6.31 drivers. No freezes or visual crap.
Win2k required a last minute swap back to make a few registry changes and extract some drivers. Like Win98, it also thought I had 2 network cards. I am currently using the 6.18 drivers. No freezes. I'll keep quiet on visual crap because there was some, but I didnt remember seeing any after I installed the VIA AGP fix for W2k.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/recommended/q261606/default.asp
Before, things were highly unstable with multimon and mildly unstable with only 1 AGP card in W2K.
Now, it didnt crash all night in either OS. I didnt get much time to test, but I'm going to walk out on a ledge here and say that W2K's AGP support isnt there. I'll put another update after I get more time to break it again. :)
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