[English] README.TXT MATROX GRAPHICS INC. 1998.06.09 Matrox Display Driver for Windows NT 4.0 Rev. 3.60.134 Table of Contents ----------------- - Release description - Product files - Installation - Using Matrox PowerDesk - Registry settings - Hardware-accelerated 3D - Notes, Problems, and Limitations Release description ------------------- This is the Matrox Windows NT Display Driver. It supports Microsoft Windows NT for x86 CPU's, version 4.0 (Build 1381). This product includes: - Display Driver - Matrox PowerDesk for Windows NT 4.0 The driver can support up to 5 Matrox cards (of the same model) in a computer at the same time. Product files ------------- \MGA64.INF Driver installation file for Windows NT Setup \MGA64.SYS Miniport driver \MGA64.DLL Display driver \READMENT.TXT This file \PD_CTRL.MVA Registry services applications \PD_DNAV.MVA Matrox Desktop Navigator application \PD_MON.MVA Monitor property sheet \PD_MONF.MVA Matrox monitor file and database \PD_QDSK.MVA Matrox QuickDesk application \PD_SET.MVA Settings property sheet \???_MON.MVA Resource file for Matrox Monitor \???_CTRL.MVA Resource file for Registry services applications \???_DNAV.MVA Resource file for Matrox Desktop Navigator application \???_QDSK.MVA Resource file for Matrox QuickDesk application \???_SET.MVA Resource file for Settings property sheet \???_DOC.MVA Documentation and readme files \SETUP.EXE Installation application for driver and Matrox PowerDesk \INST_???.DLL Resource file for SETUP.EXE \SETUP.INI INI file for Installation application \MGA.INI INI file for PowerDesk "???" stands for a 3-letter language identifier (for example, "ENG"). Installation ------------ Refer to your Owner's Manual to install your card in your system. If you are installing multiple Matrox Millennium cards in your system, please note that only one should be VGA-enabled through the on-board switch. Other Matrox graphics cards are always VGA-enabled. If you're installing multiple Matrox graphics cards (of the same model) in your computer, your computer's BIOS must disable all VGA-enabled cards it finds after the first one. IF YOUR SYSTEM BIOS IS NOT FULLY PCI-COMPLIANT, MULTIPLE MATROX GRAPHICS CARDS MAY NOT WORK. Multiple-card installations are similar to single-card installations. The system will automatically assign separate addresses to each PCI card, allowing the driver to issue commands to each card. In a multiple-card configuration, all cards must be Matrox graphics cards of the same model, and that model must be supported by the driver. Each display in your system will use the same resolution and color palette settings. To install the Matrox driver, run the Setup utility supplied with the driver: - Start the Windows NT Explorer, or open a Command Prompt window. - Go to the drive and directory holding the driver installation files. - Double-click on the Setup application, or type "setup" and press Enter. The Setup utility will query you about your preferred installation location and the components you wish to install. You must restart your computer before the changes take effect. You can also use the standard Windows NT procedure to install the drivers (without the Matrox PowerDesk). The general procedure is the following: - Right-click on the desktop, select "Properties". This will open "Display Properties". - Select the "Settings" tab. - Press the "Display Type" button. - In the Display Type dialog box, press the "Change" button. - In the Change Display dialog box, press the "Have Disk" button. - In the Install From Disk dialog box, type the location of the Matrox installation files (e.g. "A:\" or "D:\WINNT"). - From the displayed list, select the model of your display adapter, and press "OK". - Answer "Yes" to the Third-party Drivers dialog box. - Press "OK" in the Installing Driver message box. - Press "Close" in the Display Type dialog box. - Press "Close" in the Display Properties applet. - In the System Settings Change dialog box, you should select "Yes" so that the new settings take effect. Using Matrox PowerDesk ---------------------- Changing resolution, selecting a monitor, and using the Matrox PowerDesk is covered in the "online.doc" file. You can view this file with WordPad. Registry settings (for advanced users only) ------------------------------------------- Information held in the Windows NT registry can have a direct effect on the whole system. Introducing incorrect values can cause serious problems and may make it necessary to reinstall Windows NT. The changes outlined below should have effects limited to the Matrox drivers. However, if you accidentally modify values that make your system unusable, please note that it is often possible to undo the damage by using the "Last Known Good Configuration" option at boot time. It is also possible to save a copy of your registry settings prior to any modification. The configuration of the Matrox Windows NT driver and of Matrox PowerDesk is saved in the registry. The most important parameters can be modified through the Matrox PowerDesk, but others can be accessed only through the Registry Editor. Most users will find that the default values are best for their system. However, specific problems will be solved through these switches. The values are: User.AllIntegerLines When set to 1, some lines (for example, in a CAD drawing) are drawn faster. However, with some programs, some pixels may not be redrawn properly when this acceleration is used. If you see this problem, try setting this value to 0. You can change this value to 0 by double-clicking the "flineoff.reg" file, or to 1 by double-clicking the "flineon.reg" file. These files are installed in your "\Program Files\MGA NT PowerDesk" folder. The default value is 1. User.AlternateLines When set to 1, allows lines defined by integer coordinates to be drawn using the faster AUTOLINE opcode of the drawing engine. The convention used to determine which pixels contribute to a given line is slightly different in AUTOLINE and in Windows NT. Setting AlternateLines to 1 trades off compliance with the Windows NT conventions for performance. A value of 0 will enforce compliance. Lines defined by non-integer endpoint coordinates are not affected by this setting. The default value of User.AlternateLines is 0. User.CenterDialogs Has no effect on Windows NT 4.0. The default value of User.CenterDialogs is 0. User.ComplexBlt When set to 1, allows the hardware to accelerate some complex raster operations (ROPs) by executing a sequence of simple ROPs (ORing, ANDing, etc...). A value of 0 will result in complex ROPs being performed in software. The complex ROPs are performed directly on the display through a succession of simple ROPs. Artifacts (flashing) in the target display area may become visible when an intermediate result in video RAM is displayed on a given refresh cycle, to be replaced by the final image on the next cycle. The default value of User.ComplexBlt is 1. User.DeviceBitmaps When set to 1, allows use of off-screen memory for caching bitmaps. This will allow the hardware to accelerate drawing to bitmaps. A value of 0 disables bitmap caching, allowing the CPU to draw onto all bitmaps. Bitmap caching is internally disabled when a desktop requiring more than one card is in use, regardless of the registry setting. The default value of User.DeviceBitmaps is 1. User.EnableUSWC When set to 1, allows direct frame buffer access to use the Write Combining feature of the Pentium Pro processor. Setting this value to 0 may result in slightly lower performance. The default value of User.EnableUSWC is 1. User.Filtering When set to 1, the display quality of some video files is improved when they're scaled up. The default value is 1. User.MgaInfoFile When set to 1, allows use of the Matrox PowerDesk to control refresh rates. A value of 0 will allow all available refresh rates to be listed. The default value of User.MgaInfoFile is 1. User.SynchronizeDac When set to 1, will require the driver to wait for a vertical sync before programming the ramdac with a new pointer shape or a new palette. If you notice stray pixels flashing around the pointer, setting this flag to 1 might fix the problem. Setting it to 0 will result in slightly better performance. The default value of User.SynchronizeDac is 0. User.UseBusMastering When set to 1, the driver uses bus mastering for 2D display operations. This improves performance on fast Pentium computers (faster than 166 MHz). When set to 0, this feature is disabled. The default value is 1. User.SynchronizeEngine (This parameter is now obsolete.) Modifying keys and values in the registry is done through the Registry Editor. The Registry Editor can be invoked in the following way: - Use Start/Run..., or open a Command Prompt window, and type "regedt32". Alternately, from the Windows NT Explorer, go to SystemRoot\system32 and double-click on Regedt32. The Registry Editor will come up. To examine or to modify the values that govern the behavior of the Matrox driver: - Select the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE window. - Travel down to the key named: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\mga64\Device0. You will find the values in the right window pane. To modify any of them: - Double-click on the selected value. - In the DWORD Editor, change the value to "0" or "1". The new value will take effect the next time you reboot. PowerDesk settings are kept under the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MGACtrl and its subkeys. Hardware-accelerated 3D ----------------------- The Mini-Client Driver (MCD), which is part of the Matrox display driver, allows for hardware-accelerated 3D, with a few restrictions: - Currently no acceleration is available when multiple cards are in use. - The MCD does not support 8bpp (256 colors) and 24bpp (16777216 colors) modes. The 15bpp (32K colors), 16bpp (64K colors), and 32bpp (True Color) modes are the ones that can be hardware- accelerated. - Limitations to the available resolutions are to be expected. All 3D modes require extra memory to handle double buffering and/or Z buffering, and this memory is no longer available for display. The 3D driver can be configured through Matrox PowerDesk or through registry switches: User3D.3DEnable When set to 1, 3D (OpenGL) display operations are accelerated. When set to 0, all types of Matrox 3D acceleration are disabled. User3D.TextureMapping When set to 1 (and when "User3D.3DEnable" is set to 1), the driver uses Matrox hardware to accelerate texture mapping for 3D (OpenGL) programs. When set to 0, texture mapping is done through software. User3D.DoubleBuffer (This parameter is now obsolete.) User3D.ZBuffer (This parameter is now obsolete.) The default value for these User3D switches is 1. Setting all values to 0 effectively disables the hardware-accelerated 3D. The recommended way of modifying them is through the Performance tab of Matrox PowerDesk rather than through the Registry Editor. User3D.UseBusMastering When set to 1 (and when "User3D.3DEnable" is set to 1), the driver uses bus mastering to accelerate 3D (OpenGL) programs. This improves performance on systems that support bus mastering. When set to 0, this feature is disabled. The default value is 0. The back- and Z-buffers can be allocated on a per-window basis. This makes the availability of 3D-acceleration difficult to ascertain, since it would be possible to get 3D-acceleration for a small window even when offscreen memory is scarce, while a request for full-screen buffers would fail even when relatively large areas of offscreen memory are available. Notes, Problems, and Limitations -------------------------------- Computers with more than one PCI bus It is possible that a switch to a full-screen Command Prompt, or any change of mode, will result in a blue-screen crash if a card is installed on a PCI bus other than bus 0. The problem is under investigation. Moving the card to a different PCI slot is a possible workaround. There are systems where Windows NT reports conflicts between adapters installed beyond the PCI bridge. In this case, the Matrox miniport driver cannot access its own card. If your system appears unable to find the card, try moving it to a different PCI slot. Installing Microsoft Service Pack 3 for Windows NT 4.0 should fix many of these problems. DirectDraw with virtual desktops Some DirectDraw programs don't work properly with virtual desktops. We recommend you run DirectDraw programs with a normal desktop. 3D-Maze screen saver Display problems may appear while using the "3D-Maze" screen saver. These may happen after Microsoft Service Pack 2 for Windows NT 4.0 is installed. These display problems are apparently fixed by Service Pack 3. GLDemo textures If you have a Matrox Millennium II graphics card, textured objects in GLDemo may be Gouraud-shaded instead of textured in 3D-accelerated display modes. This problem is apparently fixed by installing Microsoft Service Pack 3 for Windows NT 4.0. Zoom feature with Matrox Millennium If you have a Matrox Millennium (*not* Millennium II) graphics card and you use the Matrox zoom feature, a vertical band may appear at the right edge of your desktop (beyond the 1152 pixel limit) because of a hardware limitation. This only happens if your display is using a 1152 x 864 resolution and a 256-color palette. Running Winstone 97 The CenterPOPUP feature should be disabled (which is the default setting) when running the Winstone 97 benchmark. Some tests may report a time-out error if CenterPOPUP is used. Limitation with multiple graphics cards Windows NT 4.0 supports a maximum of about 280 different display modes (combinations of resolution, color palette and refresh rate settings). You may encounter this limit if you have more than one Matrox graphics card installed in your computer. If the Matrox "VESA settings" option button is selected when there are multiple Matrox cards in your computer, you're even more likely to encounter the Windows NT 4.0 limit in the number of display modes. This is because the "VESA settings" option supports several different refresh rates for each display resolution and color palette setting. Because of the limitation in the number of display modes, the 15-bit color palette setting is not available when multiple graphics cards are installed and the "VESA settings" option is selected. If you have more than one Matrox graphics card in your computer, we recommend you not use the "VESA settings" option. Note that changing your refresh rate through the Microsoft "Display Properties" dialog box activates the "VESA settings" option. Display settings for Plug-and-Play monitors For each resolution, Plug-and-Play (DDC) monitors report to your computer the refresh rates they're capable of. At high resolution and color palette settings, your Matrox graphics card may not support the high refresh rates supported by some monitors. For example, at a 1600 x 1200 resolution with a 24- or 32-bit color palette setting, your monitor may report that it's capable of an 85 Hz refresh rate. However, at this display setting, your graphics card may only be capable of a 75 Hz refresh rate. When the refresh rate reported by your monitor can't be supported, the Matrox display driver uses the next highest VESA refresh rate supported by your graphics card. This is indicated by the text "(VESA)" in the "Refresh frequency" box in the "Matrox Display Properties" dialog box. If the Matrox display driver uses a refresh rate different from the capability reported by your Plug-and-Play monitor, the screen image on your monitor may need to be resized or repositioned. 3D Studio MAX 1.2 If you have problems running 3D Studio Max 1.2 using the Matrox HEIDI driver, try disabling the "Use bus mastering (OpenGL)" check box under "3D settings". To access this check box, click "Start" -> "Programs"-> "Matrox PowerDesk" -> "Matrox Display Properties" -> "Performance". 3D Studio MAX 2.0 Switching between HEIDI software emulation and OpenGL acceleration while 3D Studio Max 2.0 is running, may cause the viewports to flicker while playing animations. This problem may also happen if display settings (resolution or color palette) are changed while 3D Studio Max is running. If you experience these problems, try closing 3D Studio Max, changing your display settings (resolution or color palette), and then restarting 3D Studio MAX.