What is a good 2D video card for AV8?

[Wayne Fulton]

I bought a new Matrox G550 video card for a Asus AV8 motherboard. It
seemed the perfect choice for me as I've had previous Matrox cards that
were all fantastic. The G550 seemed really fine too, up until XP SP2 is
installed, and then it wont boot. Matrox apparently has no solution.
I think it works OK in some boards with SP2, but not the AV8 or MSI K8N
(from Matrox forum). I'm using it now with just SP1, but I must replace
it so I can get on with things.

Sharp clear 2D text is the most important thing to me, with one each
VGA/DVI output if possible. Speed is not important. I dont need specs
for 3D or games, and would strongly prefer a board without a fan on it.
4X AGP is fine.

All the other choices seem to be some form of Nvidia or ATI Radeon
board, of which there are many variations, all with goals I dont need.
My understanding is that these trade sharpness for speed? There are
older Radeon 7000 cards and such, surely sufficient, but I worry if they
would be another dead end card, for example if 64 bit drivers would be
available in the future when needed. Are these still supported?

Any suggestions for a good 2D AGP card for under $100?
Thanks

 

[Ender.Wiggin]

Wayne,

You are wasting your money buying another card. I would just wait until
either a new BIOS, new graphics drivers or whatever else is released
that will overcome this compatibility issue. This issue may not
neccesarily be caused/repaired by the graphics drivers. And considering
that you are already happy with your G550, the solution is simple -
stay with all three (MB, G550 and SP1) and simply install the security
benefits of SP2 via a free software firewall (Zone alarm, Sygate,
etc.), a free spyware tool (Ad-aware, Spybot S&D, etc.), internet
security (Mozilla Firefox browser - popup, activeX protection, etc.).

 

[Mercury]

fx5200. Should be about $50 US or less.

I have similar needs: 1600 x 1200 @ 75 hz, true colour on 2 screens no 3d
requirements. fx5200 is reliable & easy.

A perceived advantage is that nvidia has 'unified' drivers, so hopefully
that means on going updates.

It has been said repeatedly, that there has been no advance in recent years
in 2D rendering - the exception being matrox parhelia (I believe). So
unless you want one of them, a near bottom end card should do.

I am not aware that there is any great difference in image quality across
graphics card (in 2D) other than refresh rates. Perhaps I need some
education?

- Tim

 

[Wayne Fulton]

fx5200. Should be about $50 US or less.

Thanks Tim, that board does seem an attractive choice for a simpler 2D system
(which is my main goal). But I'm hoping now that I wont need to change the
board out after all.

Ender, I think you're right about not giving up. I tried something new today
and may have a way to bypass this problem (Matrox G550, Asus AV8 motherboard,
and XP SP2, then wont boot).

I did a fresh install of XP into another clean partition. For now, I have
installed nothing else except ethernet, and then the recent 4.55 version of
the VIA chip set drivers (from the VIA web site), however I specifically
omitted their AGP driver this time. Then I installed SP2, and now it all
seems to work OK together, for first time. Not sure how much of that was a
part of it, but it's further than I ever got before. I'm guessing omitting
the VIA AGP driver is the main part of it.

Not sure what I need to do to retrofit my existing built system. I sure hate
to have to rebuild it from scratch again. Seems maybe I need to remove that
VIA AGP driver, but dont know how to do that, I cant even find mention of it
in the Device Manager. Wondering if installing XP again over the existing
system (as "repair" mode instead of new mode) would keep all the installed
stuff working?

Any suggestions accpreciated.

 

[John Blaustein]

Wayne,

I have a dual monitor setup on an ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe board, using two
Matrox video cards: G450 and Millenium (old model). I'm using XP Home SP2
and it all works fine.. I know we're using different motherboards, but I
thought I'd post in case you want to consider the G450. Maybe it's
different from the G550 in some way.

John

 

[Wayne Fulton]

Oops! Sorry, please ignore all of that, it is no better.

I was so excited to finally see it boot with SP2 that I failed to realize I
had not installed the Matrox G550 driver yet. When I did, then it was still
the same thing, it wont boot with SP2.

 

[Chris Catt]

Hi, for your information the latest version of the Via Hyperions, 4.55,
don't install the Via AGP driver by default...
ChrisC

 

[Wayne Fulton]

I need to correct my previous false statement. I could not make the
Matrox G550 video board work with XP SP2 on Asus AV8 motherboard. My
experience was that if both are installed, it fails to boot. But it
works fine now, and the entire problem was my own error. There was
never anything wrong with the Matrox G550 video with AV8 and SP2.

I did not have the AV8 bios set to enable "PNP Operating System". I
think installing XP that way does not properly install the VIA CPU to
AGP Controller (Device Manager, System Devices), plus a few other VIA
entries there are missing too. It seems to work, and SP1 works, but SP2
does not boot that way. I think this was my entire problem with SP2,
and the G550 was simply a victim of my error.

After correcting the PNP Operating System setting, then a clean XP
install into a new partition had no problem at all with G550 and SP2.
It all simply just works fine.

But the previous XP system still would not boot after SP2 (SP2 had to
be removed to boot). But it had no VIA CPU to AGP Controller entry (and
other VIA entries were missing too). XP installs this VIA stuff
itself, and I refer to that, and not to the AV8 CD VIA drivers. XP
already does that, but didnt in my case. Perhaps these were missing
because of the wrong PNP OS switch? (dont know why).

But I could see the working XP install had them, and the one that
wouldnt boot with SP2 didnt, so I installed the newest 4.55 VIA chip
set drivers from their site, specifically including the AGP driver. It
is said that 4.55 omits AGP, which possibly might be true if SP2 is
already installed (dunno again), but 4.55 definitely offers and
installs AGP if SP1, and it made all the difference for me. I wouldnt
have needed that if XP had done it, and XP would have done it if I had
enabled PNP OS properly (I think).

Anyway, after enabling PNP OS, and after providing the missing VIA CPU
to APC controller that was missing, then SP2 installs and works fine
with the AV8 and Matrox G550. Absolutely no sign of any probem now.

I'm very pleased with the G550 video board now. However it may need a
smarter user than me.