I'm looking at a gainward Geforce 2 MX400 Twinview VIVO grapics card (what a mouthful) as an alternative to a Matrox so I can also have some 3D power for games as my computer is general purpose any thoughts/opinions/problems would be welcome.
PCPro, I think, did a review of this card six months or so back, and were quite positive about it.
Bob C
i got one of these recently and after a few problems at first which may have been down to me not realy nowing what i,m doing its great.
one thing about games i found was a couple of games didnt work(solider of fortune being one) i dont know if this was down to the card or my computer as i gave up trying to install it.but the other games that do work(deus x looked fantastic) worked fine.
Also i now use premiere with it over the two screens and it makes life a lot easier being able to leave bins open so you can see whats in them.I,m very glad i brought it even if it did cost a bit more than i wanted to spend .hope this helps
simon
Thanks for your replies.
I've taken the plunge and ordered it.
Does any one know much about detonator drivers, how they work and if the newest one will still support the older card and twinview function.
Simon what sort of problems did you have/things for me to watch out for.
Paul
Hmm
I can't get any pictures with mine in the premier monitor window if I use Twinview. Someone mentioned that this was an overlay problem.
I use the Dv Storm at work with the Nvidia Quattro2 MXR. do you have a fix that it will work accross twin monitors?
Andy
Andy,
Not sure if I fully understand your comment but...
...These cards, including those of other makes, don't seem able to display a Premiere preview on the secondary monitor, only on the primary.
In other words, if the problem is with Premiere's preview window being located on the righthand monitor, try dragging it over to the left.
Bob C
quote:Originally posted by Stompie:
Thanks for your replies.
I've taken the plunge and ordered it.
Does any one know much about detonator drivers, how they work and if the newest one will still support the older card and twinview function.
Simon what sort of problems did you have/things for me to watch out for.Paul
just getting my desktop set up getting the monitors the right way round in the settings also my second monitor is only a 15inch but my main one is a 17inch.i also get the problem in premiere that when a clip opens on my 15inch monitor i cant see it but i just drag it over to the 17inch monitor or put it in the preview window then it plays fine.
the other thing was a few games didnt seem to work very well but i didnt look into that so much.
also at the moment i,m having some work done by a mate and were doing a dual boot set up between 98 and 2000 on my computer and we cant get the two monitors set up yet but theres other problems(i will be putting up a post about this in the next few days) so we havent looked at it yet.
hope this helps.
Ah, just bought an Nvidia Card to update my trusty ATI Xpert @work . Can't get the overlay surface to work in Premier (with DV500), only Primary Surface. Does this relate to your problems? Also I note that I now have to assign an IRQ to the AGP slot in the BIOS where I could get away with not doing so with the ATI card. Guess this relates to the extra 3D bit? This then causes a conflict with sharing IRQ with Sound card which won't be forced elswhere.........
Other than that fine.
The Nvidia Twin view have serius problems with Hardware OverLay. At last the Quadro 2MXR based model I had to work with had them.
Starting the second monitor wll forfit all Hardware Overlay and switch to software mode. (what will strain the CPU, Crappy quality and such).
You can read about my impressions of it at my site..... 
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Hi Scuba
I would agree with that sum up of the Quadro at the moment. No display at all in the premiere monitor when in twinview mode, on either monitor.
Is this true for just 2 RGB monitors or would it be different if using 2 digital flat panels. they seem to have a lot of different setup options see below:
TwinView Display Options
NVIDIA TwinView supports a variety of output combinations* including:
· Two digital flat panels
· Two RGB monitors (with second RAMDAC)
· Two analog flat panels
· One digital flat panel and one analog flat panel
· One digital flat panel and one RGB monitor
· One digital flat panel and one TV
· One RGB monitor and one TV
· One RGB monitor and one analog flat panel (with second RAMDAC)
· One analog flat panel and one TV
*Actual combinations supported on a given board-level implementation will vary.
Didn't tested but I will guess that with both analog and DVI.
(As far as I know) The Idea in Hardware Overlay is that the Video editing card can send the raw video stream directly into the Display card via DMA/Bus mastering.
From that moment one the display card will use it's own resources to size the video into the correct size and display it in the correct place.
Windows display is all created using Direct Drow so as far as I get it:
The card is a excelerator for 2D-3D that create a direct drow picture for the display. in OverLay mode the part that do the direct drow do two diferant streams of data on the same time. one for the window interface and one for the video overlay.
BTW this need double the amount of on board memory.....
When the Nvidia card is in one display mode it uses some Extra resources for the second stream. When you are in Twin View mode it need this resources for the second display and this is why we don't have the overlay at all.
To the original question,
This got nothing to do with the data going to DVI output or RamDac for VGA display.
BTW several people are having good resoults with GF-2 MX models. NOT Quadro 2MXR models like the one I tested. The modifications put into the Quadro line have probably the thing that killed the OverLay.
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www.highvid.com
Sorry its taken a while to come back but I've been busy. Have got the card and installed it and with a bit of fiddling got the two monitors working as well as trying the monitor+TV option. and all worked fine.
I've watch a VCD movie on the TV out (can't have been that busy I hear you cry) and used the twin view for Excel & Word. A few games were also "tested" for the 3D power.
I havn't as yet tried Premier having only recently got this I arn't completly sure how to set it up for twin monitors. Is their anything in the program that I need to change to get the most out the two monitor system or is it just a case of drag & drop.
I'm not quite sure about all this overlay stuff mentioned above, can I get a simple explaination anywhere.
Thanks for all the comments
Paul
stompie
the way i got premiere over the two screens was i just minimized the premiere window grabbed the edge and pulled it across.did the same for the top and bottom.
i must say the first few times you use it its feels a bit strange sending your mouse pointer over to the other monitor but you soon get used to it.
simonphw
Just to not, Pinnacle just aproved the ATI Radeon 7500 for HW OverLay on both monitors at least at res of 2048X768.
I was promised that they will test more res soon.
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www.highvid.com
The asus 7100 Geforce twin view card is giving me no surface (hardware) overlay in twin view mode. In single monitor mode it is fine.
I have tried 3 drivers including the beta. They are all the same with my dv500 (win2000).
Primary overlay works ok,but seems to cause the system to hang due to the extra demands on the pci bus (via chipset).
Now I am at work (sigh) I have found that hardware overlay works fine on my DC1000/matrox g400 combination.(never looked at it before...it just works).
I always assumed overlay was handled by the dv500/dc1000....is this not the case (is the 'overlay' driver installed by the dv500 for the breakout box only )???
[This message has been edited by dom2002 (edited 19 December 2001).]
The whole Idea behind the Hardware OverLay is that it is handeld by the Display card and not the CPU.
Depend on the Display card abilities and it's drivers some cards will accept the Hardware OverLay material sent to them while some not.
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www.highvid.com