For those of you considering the new Matrox card .....

[Fun Guy]

Beware.

With all their prior cards, there is no overlay on anything but the first display. What this means is that if you expect to see full-motion video on the second display using any Matrox card thus far, forget it. I have a G400 Max, a G450, and a G550 Dual DVI and there is no overlay on any of those on the second head of the dual-head, which means no full motion video (i.e. AVI, MPG, WMV, MOV, etc.). Quite a blow to someone who wanted to do video editing, using the second display as an output device for watching the edited video. I bought the G450 and the G550 Dual DVI, and they are both essentially useless to me. Will there be overlay on this new card's second/third displays? It's anyone's guess. Even if it is, there is more to be concerned with.

The drivers on my G550 make it such that certain applications open windows wherever they please, despite the promise that the drivers ensure memory once 'trained' and that once I open a application in a certain display at a certain size, it will continue to open said application in the same manner in the future. Not so with my G550. Netscape opens wherever it pleases, as does Opera. No telling what will happen the next time I open it - where it will open, or what size the windows will be. Winfax goes haywire and I have to reset my display to one monitor everytime I shut down Windows, then go back to dual displays again once I have booted up. A royal pain. The drivers on my G400 Max were better than the drivers for my G550. Matrox has acknowledged these problems, but there are no priorities to fix them. All they say is that the issues are "being looked at." Which means they are blowing me off.

Will you seen anything like this on the web site? No. Will you see warnings regarding no overlay on the second head of the G450 and G550? No.

Matox will not help me in this situation, either. They basically said, "Tough luck, buddy." No support - I was directed to contact sales, who again said, "Tough." Since I am past 30 days, it appears I am SOL.

So despite the specs, consider the company as well, their history with drivers, and how they treat their customers.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Will you see warnings regarding no overlay on the second head of the G450 and G550? No.

Ive heard about something like this on plenty of sites. I dont think it was called that exactly, but I knew the second display gets the shaft

Sorry about your other problems, but Matrox has been pretty good for me in the driver arena. I guess it really depends on what you do with the card.

 

[Fun Guy]

I think wanting to watch an AVI movie on the second display is not too much to ask. As a matter of fact, this could be considered normal operation and what users might expect from any card boasting dual displays.

To not address it at all in any of their product literature could be considered deceptive, considering the average Joe could expect he could watch an embedded Quicktime video on his second monitor - especially if he chooses to do his spreadsheet work in the first display.

I am only communicating what I think is relevant and timely information. I am not happy with Matrox for two reasons: (1) their product's critical limitations are not highlighted in their literature, and (2) their handling of the issues once they have been brought to light is extremely poor.

I have essentially two useless cards on my hands, and no commitment from Matrox to right what I consider a very big wrong (x2).

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Fun Guy
I think wanting to watch an AVI movie on the second display is not too much to ask. As a matter of fact, this could be considered normal operation and what users might expect from any card boasting dual displays.

Why not watch the video on the first display?

To not address it at all in any of their product literature could be considered deceptive, considering the average Joe could expect he could watch an embedded Quicktime video on his second monitor - especially if he chooses to do his spreadsheet work in the first display.

What company addresses all of their legitimate limitations in their literature?

I am only communicating what I think is relevant and timely information. I am not happy with Matrox for two reasons: (1) their product's critical limitations are not highlighted in their literature, and (2) their handling of the issues once they have been brought to light is extremely poor.

I agree that #2 is a pain, but I really cant think of any company that is 100% truthful and forthcoming in their literature.

I have essentially two useless cards on my hands, and no commitment from Matrox to right what I consider a very big wrong (x2).

I really am sorry for the problems. I wasnt trying to say your problems are BS or that they dont mean anything, only that these limitations dont affect everyone. For me, and other users like me Id guess, everything is fine. So if a user like you is considering a Matrox card, they should definitely wait for good reviews (every user should be doing this anyhow), but for someone like me, these problems dont really affect me, so they shouldnt worry as much about them.

 

[Fun Guy]

Do you work for Matrox or something?

:Q

If the problems don't affect you, move along. This thread is not for you. The people who need the information will get it, and it will be a lot easier without having to wander through your irrelevant postings.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Fun Guy
Do you work for Matrox or something?

:Q

If the problems don't affect you, move along. This thread is not for you. The people who need the information will get it, and it will be a lot easier without having to wander through your irrelevant postings.

Nope, dont work for them. And no, my posts arent irrelevant. Nice try though

 

[McCarthy]

Might seem a silly question, but do other dual head cards support overlay on the 2nd display?

I mean is this a Matrox problem or a common dual head card problem?

It seems like a fairly obvious and important limitation to me. In 1992, nah, lucky if you could play a small AVI on your single VGA display through your ISA video card. But today video playback is pretty is a darn important and common task.

--Mc

 

[Dean]

If the Matrox cards are so terrible, why do you own three of them?

They must be doing something right

 

[Fun Guy]

I own three so I can warn others of their issues, I guess. I don't know. I believed the hype.

I own three, but only one is in use right now. I guess that can be attributed to good sales technique on their part. Or perhaps I'm stupid, I don't know. I thought I would be able to watch video on the second display. Personally, I don't think that was an unrealistic or unreasonable expectation.

The G400 Max was the best card with the best drivers (even though it had no overlay, which was a serious limitation, in my opinion). After that it was downhill.

And with this new card, be forewarned of driver issues, if not the potential overlay issues, that's all I'm saying here.

 

[Pariah]

I had a G400Max and it played movies fine on the second monitor, that was the whole reason behind the design, don't know what's wrong with your setup.

 

[John]

Might seem a silly question, but do other dual head cards support overlay on the 2nd display?

I had a Radeon 7500 running a windowed DVD movie using media player on the 2nd monitor. It will not do full screen though.

 

[Fun Guy]

Nothing was wrong with my setup. This problem is readily acknowledged by Matrox over the telephone and on their forums for all of their products thus far (G400, G450, G550), but not in any of their literature.

Perhaps you are referring to playing a DVD movie on the second monitor, which is possible. But you still cannot play any video requiring overlay (MPG, MOV, AVI, WMV, ASF, etc.) on ANY of Matrox's prior product's second display output, G400 inclusive.

Have a look for yourself, if you are interested. Go to their forums, enter 'overlay' and 'video' as keywords, and read away.

 

[John]

Originally posted by: Fun Guy
Nothing was wrong with my setup. This problem is readily acknowledged by Matrox over the telephone and on their forums for all of their products thus far (G400, G450, G550), but not in any of their literature.

Have a look for yourself, if you are interested. Go to their forums, enter 'overlay' and 'video' as keywords, and read away.

I don't see Pariah going over there since he doesn't have any problems to solve. You migh want to ask him for some advice on how to solve your problem though.

damn keyboard

 

[Pariah]

Must apply to only certain setups. It worked fine on mine. Was a great feature to be able to watch DVD's on the second monitor while using the primary for other things. It did support fullscreen DVD's on the second monitor as well, it's even listed on the spec sheet.

I didn't have problems with any format, MPG's and AVI's played fine as well, don't know about DivX, ASF, WMV as they didn't exist when I had the card, but I don't see any reason why they wouldn't. I can get the card back for further testing, but I doubt I'll have any problems with it.

 

[AmdInside]

Overlay doesn't work on both displays on older Matrox G4xx and G5xx cards. I have a Geforce 4 Ti 4400 card. I am running Windows XP. I can run Video Overlay on both monitors. DVD's won't run on both monitors when dragging over because of Macrovision I think. Adobe Premiere works in Hardare Video Overlay on both monitors also in WinXP. haven't tried any other OS.

 

[etalns]

Ugh, that just pooped on my party. Was really looking forward to it, doesn't seem as wonderful anymore.

 

[AmdInside]

Sorry...corrected my last post. I was just confirming that the previous Matrox cards did not support Video Overlay in dual monitor mode. I don't know about Matrox's new card. I would think it would since Matrox is so into video editing now. I have a Matrox RT2500 and its awesome.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Surprising there wasn't a lawsuit about this.

"What do you mean I can't display everything on the second monitor that will display on the first monitor?"

It's been awhile since I used my G400 dualhead, but I do recall running into the same issue. (Though I also had issues with getting the second display to run at anything above 60Hz, I don't think that would be related to a complete lack of being able to display certain things.)

One would HOPE that they'd have the issue fixed with this, since it's sort of a "comeback" card for them, and it really is a pretty obvious assumption that you'd be able to do this.

 

[joohang]

I own a G450 and I had no problems whatsoever.

I played DivX, WMV, MPEG, DVD, etc on both displays.

If you mean my inability to play full-screen on secondary monitor with WMP 8.0, isn't a limitation of WMP? I didn't think that was a driver limitation.

Edit: Just noticed that you mentioned "overlay." What do you mean by this? Span a movie clip across 2 monitors? I am aware that G450 is not able to do so but I never really wanted such setup any ways.

 

[Nemesis77]

If Matroxes older products had some problems, what makes you think that they aren't fixed in the new chip?

 

[Lord Evermore]

Because the problem continued through several different product lines, and still hasn't been fixed through drivers (and based on Fun Guy's description, they barely care). Even their most recent product line has the problem, so it's not just that "older" products are an issue. Given that, it's not a leap of the imagination to think that they may not have changed it. They may consider it an acceptable trade-off for some other feature.

 

[KpocAlypse]

didn't have problems with any format, MPG's and AVI's played fine as well, don't know about DivX, ASF, WMV as they didn't exist when I had the card, but I don't see any reason why they wouldn't. I can get the card back for further testing, but I doubt I'll have any problems with it.

Ditto.

 

[bozo1]

I've never seen the card or what it can do, but, I'll tell all of you:

BEWARE!

<sigh>

 

[Parhelia2002]

Dunno of the problem either. Have my G400 DH four years now, i was one of the first and it did everything exactle as i expexted. Except for the OpenGL then. that driver took way too long to arive.

But Mov's, Div's MPG's whatever ran fullscreen (overlayed i guess) on my monitor and on my TV.

And yes, with a DH-setup you have to do some manual tweaking for preventing your mainscreen goes to 60hz. But that's all it the settings of de Powerdesk.

Nope, i am (was) very happy with this card. But the parhelia comes no moment too late....JIT (just in time)
for me....

 

[bluemax]

What is the big smeggin' deal? Make the monitor you plan to watch movies with Monitor #1. Desktop stuff = Monitor #2.
Problem solved.