Frequently Asked Questions
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compiled by Matrox Technical Support |
Select a topic: General, OS/2, Windows NT , 3D, MGA Win 95, Matrox Hardware, Millennium Hardware, Millennium Windows 95, Windows 3.1, Drivers For probems with Matrox Mystique please click here. |
General | |
Q: | How do I use PKUNZIP? |
A: | From a DOS prompt, change your directory to where pkunzip.exe is located
(normally c:\pkware)
From there type: PKUNZIP -D C:\path\filename.zip C:\destination directory |
Q: | What is an IRQ? |
A: | An IRQ is an interrupt which temporarily halts CPU execution. Most add on
cards require their own unique IRQ. |
Q: | When accessing your ftp site, what should I do when I'm asked for a user name and password? |
A: | To access our site, just log-in as an anonymous user and use your e-mail
name as your password. |
Q: | What does it mean when the Matrox ftp site gives me the following error - "limit of 100 users"? |
A: | This error message tells you that the server is presently overwhelmed by a
large number of users trying to connect to the site. In this event, try connecting again a little later on. |
Q: | During the installation of the version 2.xx MGA Windows drivers, I select a monitor from the monitor selection dialog box and my screen goes black. (Does not apply to Millennium) |
A: | There are 2 possible solutions to this problem. The first is to remove the
SETVGA.EXE utility, which was installed with the MGA drivers, from your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The second is to verify if you have a memory manager such as
EMM386 installed. If so, its installation should be modified to exclude the
memory range C000-C7FF. This is where the VGA BIOS resides.
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Q: | How can I use 3D Studio version 3.0 or 4.0 with my Matrox board? |
A: | Drivers for Matrox graphics accelerators are supplied with 3D Studio.
Select them during the install of 3D Studio. For earlier copies of version 3.0,
you may not have support in the box for Matrox products. Contact Autodesk for an update of the 3D's inline driver which contains support for Matrox. This driver is also available on Vibrant's web site as a free download. Take note that the Vibrant driver cannot use the monitor file mga.mon from the latest Windows '95 drivers. For these drivers, you must select your monitor using the dos monitor selection program provided on the CAD driver disk. |
Q: | After installing your Microstation driver, Microstation will not start. |
A: | If you installed version 1.64 or earlier, your system may not have enough
DOS memory to run the MGA configuration program while running the Microstation
configuration program. A new version of our Microstation driver, version 2.0
solves this problem while adding new features such as support for back and
store, and 3D acceleration.
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Q: | When I run the MGA DOS setup program, why does my system lock up? |
A: | The DOS memory manager is causing a conflict. This can be circumvented temporarily by rebooting the system and pressing F5 when the "Starting MS-DOS" message appears. This will bypass the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT allowing the DOS setup program to work. Once the setup is finished, reboot the system. |
Windows NT | |
Q: | How do I configure my system to run dual-screen Windows NT with Matrox boards? |
A: | To do this, you must be using two Matrox boards and Windows NT 3.5 or
higher. The boards do not have to be the same models unless you are using
Millenniums. Once the two boards are installed in our system, (remember to
disable one of the cards vga's via the dip switch selections on the card - this
does not apply to the Mystique) boot Windows NT 3.5 and run the Display applet.
Windows NT will automatically detect the 2 boards. From the resolution list
double-up resolutions, for example, 2560 x 1024. Simply select one of these
resolutions and restart NT. Both screens must operate at the same resolution
and pixel depth.
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OS/2 | |
Q: | When running a full-screen DOS or Windows session in OS/2, my system hangs. |
A: | The Matrox board needs to have its RAMBIOS.SYS utility loaded for the
session that is hanging. This is accomplished through the OS/2 settings of that
session.
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Q: | While running the System Setup for OS/2 Warp, I accidentally changed the resolution to one that is not supported by my monitor (i.e. 1600 x 1200). How can I change it back when I cannot see anything on the monitor? |
A: | Reboot the system and press CTL-F1 during the reboot, then press V for VGA.
This will restart the system in VGA mode, allowing video to appear on your
monitor. Then re-install the tibibwom. MGA drivers do not restart OS/2 after the installation is completed. You will need to go to the System Setup and choose a resolution that your monitor can handle. Then, complete the system setup as you would normally. |
3D | |
Q: | What is Direct 3D? |
A: | Direct 3D is a portion of Microsoft's Direct X application. Direct X
provides a way for hardware manufacturers to bypass windows GDI calls and access
their advanced drawing engines directly. |
Q: | My Direct X application says that there is no hardware acceleration available for the Millennium. Why? |
A: | The Millennium's 3D engine is not capable of some of the 3D functions that
Direct X requests. Most notably these are texture mapping and fogging. The type
of texture mapping that the Millennium chipset is capable of isn't compatible
with the type of texture mapping that Direct X requests. Fogging on polygons
isn't supported by our chipset either. The Millennium provides the following 3D
functions: Flat shading, Gouraud Shading, Rendering, Zbuffering & double
buffering. These functions will aid and help accelerate most Direct X
applications.
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Q: | I've just installed Direct X 2 and it tells me that the Millennium drivers aren't Direct X compatible. WHY? |
A: | Now that the hardware abstraction layer for the Direct 3D is present in our
drivers, you no longer have to switch between Microsoft drivers & MGA
drivers. Please note that these drivers haven't yet been Microsoft approved for
Direct 3D, but they have been submitted. Once this has been completed, the
Direct X install will no longer tell you that you have Direct 3D incompatible
drivers. Added features are support for all Direct 3D fullscreen resolutions
upto 640x480x32bit.
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Most Direct 3D applications are games. Most of these games only run on full
screen mode. When a full screen mode is requested, the Direct 3D driver verifies
the maximum resolution available for 3D. (On a 2MB card this is 512x384x16bit) | |
In the event that a Direct 3D application supports a Window (opposed to full-screen), the double buffering and z-buffering is allocated according to the amount of offscreen memory and the size of the window itself. Note that if you enable 3D acceleration via the control panel, Direct 3D ignores this and will run with or without the feature enabled. Thus there is no real need to have the 3D switch enabled to enjoy Direct 3D acceleration. |
Matrox Win 95 | |
Q: | Where can I find drivers for other Matrox products? |
A: | Drivers for other Matrox products are included with Windows 95 and are
installed automatically.
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Q: | I start Windows 95 and my monitor does not sync properly. What can I do? |
A: | This probably happens because the MGA driver is trying to boot in a
resolution that your monitor does not support. This could occur if you had
never selected a monitor, or if you physically changed your monitor without
informing Windows 95 (or the MGA Monitor Program).
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To recover from this problem, reboot your system (by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del twice). When the screen displays "Starting Windows 95", press F5 to enter Windows 95 in "safe mode". In this mode, Windows 95 will boot in VGA at 640 x 480, and you will then be able to lower the resolution in the Display Properties dialog box. Pull it down to 640 x 480 and reboot again to get a display of 640 x 480 in Millennium mode. Then take the appropriate actions to check and correct your monitor type. |
Matrox Hardware | |
Q: | Why does my system hang when I try to run my Matrox graphics accelerator, but runs if I remove my network adapter? |
A: | Your network adapter's interrupt or I/O address should be changed.
Interrupts should be set to a value below 10. If you are using an NE-2000
compatible adapter, it should be set to a value between 2 and 5. I/O addresses
should avoid values in the range of 0x300 to 0x310.
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Q: | My Matrox PCI board is not recognized by the system when I try to use one of the MGA-supplied drivers such as Windows? |
A: | There are 2 common problems. The first is that during boot-up, the system BIOS did not complete the configuration of the MGA correctly and is not been enabled onto the bus. This can be detected by our MGABASE.EXE utility which will indicate the board is installed at an address of 00000000. Correct this by using MGABASE.EXE to give the MGA card a valid address greater than 1 Mb and not conflict with physical memory or devices. A typical address would be A0000000. The MGABASE.EXE utility can be found on our BBS or in our forum on Compuserve. For Millennium, use the PCIMAP.EXE utility which is supplied with our drivers. The second problem is that the system BIOS has assigned a base memory address to the MGA which is used by another device or is reserved for use by the motherboard chipset. Again, MGABASE.EXE (or PCIMAP.EXE) can be used to solve this problem. It will tell you what the current address is (causing the conflict) and allow you to change it to another address. Try changing addresses by altering just the first digit in the base address. A real fix to this problem is to get a new system BIOS from the system or BIOS manufacturer. |
Millennium Hardware | |
Q: | Why don't you provide support for low resolution vesa modes in the Millennium bios? |
A: | The vesa 2.0 specification is ambiguous in it's description of modes below
640x400. Add to this the limited space in our bios to store these modes. Based
upon the preceding 2 statements, it was decided not to provide vesa BIOS support
for these modes. If we were to provide support for these modes, other vesa modes
would have to be sacrificed. As we advertise our product as being an accelerated
"high resolution" graphics adapter, it wouldn't be prudent to remove
support for 1600x1200 & 1280x1024 just to provide support for 320x200 etc. |
SciTech's UNIVBE driver has support for the Millennium & provides
access to vesa mode resolutions lower than 640x400! They run flawlessly! Here
are the results on benchmarks on 0.91 of Quake.: (Intel Endeavor P133 16mb 512k
7n cache with Matrox Millennium & UNIVBE drivers)
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standard vga: | Vesa Modes: | ||||
320x200 | 29 | 320x200 | 28 | ||
xstyle modes | 320x240 | 25 | |||
320x200 | 27 | 400x300 | 20 | ||
360x200 | 26 | 320x400 | 17 | ||
230x240 | 25 | 320x480 | 15 | ||
360x240 | 24 | 512x384 | 15 | ||
320x350 | 19 | 640x350 | 14 | ||
360x350 | 18 | 640x400 | 13 | ||
320x400 | 17 | 640x480 | 11 | ||
360x400 | 16 | 800x600 | 8 | ||
320x480 | 15 | 1024x768 | 6 | ||
360x480 | 14 | 1280x1024 | 4 |
Q: | Why don't you provide 32 bit drivers for the Media-XL? |
A: | The device drivers for the Millennium are 16-bit drivers for Win 3.1 and
Win 95, and 32 bit for Win NT and OS/2. The VxDs which handle hardware
interrupts for Win 3.1 and Win 95 are 32 bit, and the DirectX portion under Win
95 is 32 bit.
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The only add-on board for Millennium is the MediaXL. The MediaXL has its
own set of associated drivers and application which are the Video Presentation
application, DVMCI driver and low level code. These are all in 16-bit segments.
This is so since under Windows 95, Win32 code (32 bit) can NOT access hardware
devices directly; you have to go down to the Ring0 level of the processor for
this. 16 bit code, on the other hand, can access hardware devices in Windows
3.1 16-bit compatibility mode.
| |
In any case, making a 32bit Win95 driver is unnecessary since in order to
play MPEG, data is sent to the decoder - the software is not required to do any
parsing or synchronization in software since both tasks are taken care of by the
CL-480 decoder. Therefore, any performance gain with a 32bit MXL Win95 driver
would be minimal. | |
Problems with Premiere 4.2 and the MediaXL are currently being
investigated. | |
As for a MediaXL driver for Windows NT, this is also being investigated. | |
Q: | Why can't I get video output from the MEDIA-XL? |
A: | The Media-XL wasn't designed to provide video output. |
Q: | When I use the MEDIA-TV tuner, the reception is not as good as what I see on my T.V. What's wrong? |
A: | This might be due to your cable company using the HRC carrier frequency
instead of the standard. If this is the case, you can remedy the situation by
modifying the following line in the dvmcimil.ini file, found in your windows
directory: [Carrier] CarrierType=0 CHANGE IT TO: [Carrier] CarrierType=1 |
Q: | Why doesn't the bios update 2.0 work with Cyrix CPU's? |
A: | A modification to a program called progbios.exe is incompatible with the
Cyrix CPU. The previous version of progbios.exe (available in the previous
driver section as
bios19.zip)
will work. |
Q: | Will you produce a daughter card that will provide improved texture mapping support on the Millennium? |
A: | No. The 3D acceleration of the Millennium is hardwired in the silicon on
the Millennium chip. It is not feasible to modify the functionality of the
chip.
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Q: | Why does the Millennium have an interrupt? |
A: | The Millennium does not require an interrupt, however the Media XL does. As the Media XL is an add on product to the Millennium, the interrupt must be mapped via the Millennium. If your system refuses to map an interrupt for the Millennium, you will have to use the utility provided on our web site (in the Media XL area) to force your system to map one. |
Millennium Windows '95 | |
Q: | Windows 95 reports a display adapter hardware conflict upon booting. I thought Windows 95 was Plug and Play! What can I do? |
A: | This does sometimes happen. If you have changed display adapters,
especially non-PCI ones, you should let the Windows 95 hardware detection
program take the appropriate steps as suggested; this might solve your problem.
|
If you have not changed any adapter, running this program is of no use.
Instead, run the System application in the Control Panel, then select Device
Manager, then Display Adapters. If you can't solve the problem here (or if no
problem is reported), try re-installing the Millennium driver from the original
diskette. To do this, open the Display Properties window, click on Change
Display Type, then re-select the MGA Millennium.
| |
Q: | Where can I find drivers for Matrox Millennium? |
A: | There is a driver on the Windows 95 CD ROM in the \DRIVERS\DISPLAY\MATROX
directory. If you did not receive Windows 95 drivers with your Millennium, you
can also obtain our Powerdesk drivers for Windows 95 from our
FTP Site, our BBS or from
Compuserve.
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Q: | How do I know if the Millennium drivers are correctly installed? |
A: | The display properties sheet will have MGA settings and MGA monitor tabs. |
Q: | Can I uninstall the MGA PowerDesk for Windows 95 software? |
A: | Yes, but not by using the standard Windows 95 Install/Remove Applications
in Control Panel, since PowerDesk is so fully integrated with the display
driver. Here is what you must do (this should only be attempted by advanced users): |
Make sure you are not using a Desktop area that is larger than the Display
area (look on the MGA Settings sheet in the Display Properties dialog box).
Run \Matrox\Millen\Paneloff.reg to remove the MGA Settings page. Edit \windows\win.ini to remove mgactrl.exe from the load= line. Remove the MGA Millennium PowerDesk folder from the Programs flyout of the Start menu, then delete the \Matrox directory structure. Click on Start, click on run, type REGEDIT in dialog box, click on ok. Double click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, Double click on SOFTWARE highlight and delete MATROX. Open the display control applet, click on change display type, click on change adapter type, click on show all devices, select standard display types/vga , apply the changes and reboot. | |
Q: | I have a problem with an application that I suspect is caused by the display driver. What should I do? |
A: | You can try using the application with the standard VGA driver, or
alternately, try using the Millennium driver, but with hardware accelerations
disabled (see below).
|
To restart in VGA mode, simply open the Display Properties dialog box
(right-click on the desktop background), and change the Display Type to VGA.
You will have to reboot.
| |
To restart using the Millennium driver with hardware accelerations off,
click on the System application in the Windows 95 Control Panel, then go to the
Performance page. Select Graphics, then move the Hardware Acceleration bar to
None. You will have to reboot as well, but you will still have the same Display
area and Color Palette. This is often better than using standard VGA, as some
applications exhibit problems, specifically in High Color or True Color modes.
| |
Q: | Are the PowerDesk for Windows 3.1 features compatible with Windows 95? |
A: | No. After upgrading from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, you cannot use the programs in the Windows 3.1 PowerDesk group. We actually recommend that you de-install the Millennium software prior to upgrading to Windows 95. If you install Windows 95 over Windows without first de-installing the old MGA software, you should delete the PowerDesk group folder and all its icons, then install the Windows 95 version of the Millennium software. |
Windows 3.1 (All hardware) | |
Q: | Occasionally when I start a Windows program or try to connect to a drive from Windows for Workgroups, I get a message "Low on Memory" which prevents me from starting the application or connecting to the drive. |
A: | This is indicative of a lack of DOS memory (below 1 megabyte) and is
usually caused by having many drivers and/or applications running at once.
Since the MGA's drivers provide many more features and performance
enhancements, they also occupy more DOS memory than standard VGA drivers. There
is 3 possible solutions to this problem. The first is try and minimize the
number of applications you open at once. The second is to reduce the number of
drivers and utilities that are loaded when Windows is started. The third is to
make use of third party utilities that free up DOS memory by fragmenting it.
One such utility is called MoreMem which is available on Compuserve.
|
Q: | When I run the 24-bit or Modeswitch drivers for Windows, one or more of my Program Manager's groups contains black icons. |
A: | Windows allocates a fixed amount of memory for storing resource information about icons regardless of how many icons are to be stored for each group or how many colors are being displayed. When operating in 24 bit color or with Modeswitch, the icons will require 3-4 times the amount of memory compared to when the display operates at 256 colors (8 bit color). If a group has a large number of icons, then insufficient resource memory will be available to store the icon information. The solution is to break the groups into smaller groups with a dozen or less icons. |
Drivers | |
Q: | I have a far east version of Windows 95. Are specific drivers available for double byte fonts? |
A: | Japanese drivers for windows 95 are available for a nominal fee from a
company called Force. Their phone number in Japan is: 813 3225 4301 (phone) 813
3225 4302 (fax)
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Q: | I have unix or x windows and you don't provide drivers. Where can I find them? |
A: | Xwindows or unix drivers are available from X-Inside @ 303-384-9999 or info@xinside.com web page at www.xinside.com |
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