GPL problems

Help! I DID have a nice set up with GPL on my PC - no problems whatsoever (apart from the usual 1.1 stuff), but I've now installed a 3com ethernet card (3C905) for the joys of home networking/***. It's shifted my SB live onto IRQ12 (was on 10) and i now have static when racing in GPL, not much but enough to be annoying. As far as I know I have the up to date drivers and unfortunately I can't change the IRQ as i have no free ones left (Internal modem, voodoo2, Matrox mystique, Ethernet, SB live). Anyone got a fix for this? Secondly before this problem my voodoo2 developed a strange fault. I have a pink blob about the size of a small fingernail which starts at the bottom right of the screen and moves left, with every horizontal pass it also moves up vertically, when it reaches the top of the screen it starts at the bottom again. VERY annoying when racing! maybe it's hinting i should get a voodoo3?? ;) Only reason I want the damn network is for Tiberian Sun, unfortunately all my game playing friends don't fancy network GPL :( *damn* Oh and my girlfriend wants to play networked Frogger but the less said about that the better! -- Mike Buckley

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> I DID have a nice set up with GPL on my PC - no problems whatsoever > (apart from the usual 1.1 stuff), but I've now installed a 3com ethernet > card (3C905) for the joys of home networking/***. It's shifted my SB > live onto IRQ12 (was on 10) and i now have static when racing in GPL, > not much but enough to be annoying. As far as I know I have the up to > date drivers and unfortunately I can't change the IRQ as i have no free > ones left (Internal modem, voodoo2, Matrox mystique, Ethernet, SB live). > Anyone got a fix for this?

Mike, if that's a Matrox Mystique 220, it probably doesn't need an IRQ. Mine ran fine without one. You can turn off "assign IRQ for VGA" or some such in the BIOS, which will free one up for you. If it's a G200 or whatever, it may need the IRQ, I don't know. What motherboard do you have? Anton -- Antony Bowers, Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, UK. http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~bowers/

Hi, Mike! You forgot the main thing: how many PCI slots do you have? The best decision for you PC might be : AGP(? rather PCI 1 for Mistique ) IRQ 9 If you have AGP system you need to install Voodoo 2 in the next PCI slot to AGP because Voodoo 2 doesn't require an IRQ and in such systems AGP and PCI 1 slots share one IRQ. PCI 2 - Voodoo 2 - no IRQ required PCI 3 - Ethernet - IRQ 11 PCI 4 - SB Live! - IRQ 10 If you have ISA modem then you should have no problem with it. All IRQ's you can assign via BIOS (PCI and Plug&Play setup). That's all.

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> Help! > I DID have a nice set up with GPL on my PC - no problems whatsoever > (apart from the usual 1.1 stuff), but I've now installed a 3com ethernet > card (3C905) for the joys of home networking/***. It's shifted my SB > live onto IRQ12 (was on 10) and i now have static when racing in GPL, > not much but enough to be annoying. As far as I know I have the up to > date drivers and unfortunately I can't change the IRQ as i have no free > ones left (Internal modem, voodoo2, Matrox mystique, Ethernet, SB live). > Anyone got a fix for this?

Are two of your cards sharing IRQs (Especially the SB live and anything else)? This may cause the static due to bus contention. Paul. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nortel, London Road, Harlow, Essex. CM17 9NA

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>> I DID have a nice set up with GPL on my PC - no problems whatsoever >> (apart from the usual 1.1 stuff), but I've now installed a 3com ethernet >> card (3C905) for the joys of home networking/***. It's shifted my SB >> live onto IRQ12 (was on 10) and i now have static when racing in GPL, >> not much but enough to be annoying. As far as I know I have the up to >> date drivers and unfortunately I can't change the IRQ as i have no free >> ones left (Internal modem, voodoo2, Matrox mystique, Ethernet, SB live). >> Anyone got a fix for this? >Mike, if that's a Matrox Mystique 220, it probably doesn't need an IRQ. Mine >ran fine without one. You can turn off "assign IRQ for VGA" or some such in >the BIOS, which will free one up for you. >If it's a G200 or whatever, it may need the IRQ, I don't know.

No, it's the 220, it's an interesting idea, I'll give it a try don't think it's heat related) -- Mike Buckley Cotswold Pig Development Co Ltd Tel: +44 (0)1472 371591 Fax: +44 (0)1472 371208 http://www.toastyhamster.freeserve.co.uk

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>> Help! >> I DID have a nice set up with GPL on my PC - no problems whatsoever >> (apart from the usual 1.1 stuff), but I've now installed a 3com ethernet >> card (3C905) for the joys of home networking/***. It's shifted my SB >> live onto IRQ12 (was on 10) and i now have static when racing in GPL, >> not much but enough to be annoying. As far as I know I have the up to >> date drivers and unfortunately I can't change the IRQ as i have no free >> ones left (Internal modem, voodoo2, Matrox mystique, Ethernet, SB live). >> Anyone got a fix for this? >Are two of your cards sharing IRQs (Especially the SB live and anything >else)? This may cause the static due to bus contention.

No, the SB Live shares an IRQ with stuff like 'IRQ holder for PCI steering' or whatever it is, but I've got several shared IRQ's with motherboard resources and always have had, no expansion cards sharing the same IRQ's though. -- Mike Buckley Cotswold Pig Development Co Ltd Tel: +44 (0)1472 371591 Fax: +44 (0)1472 371208 http://www.toastyhamster.freeserve.co.uk

5 - one shared with ISA, 2 ISA slots If I went for AGP I'd get a voodoo3 anyway so that would remove the mystique. I take it the 2D processing of the voodoo3 will blow away the old Mystique anyway? I didn't realise that PCI 1 and AGP shared the same IRQ, but as I currently have no AGP card this won't affect me. -- Mike Buckley Cotswold Pig Development Co Ltd Tel: +44 (0)1472 371591 Fax: +44 (0)1472 371208 http://www.toastyhamster.freeserve.co.uk

Anton, I tried disabling the asign IRQ for VGA thing and it moved the SB live back to IRQ 10 where it was, put the 3com on 11 but still gave the mystique 12 for some reason. Anyway its not made the slightest bit of difference to the static so i don't think it's IRQ related, guess i'll put up with it for now thanks -- Mike Buckley

Hi Mike, If you have a PS/2 mouse, it will use IRQ 12 so there would be a conflict between your Mystique and mouse driver. As for fixing that problem... you could try marking IRQ 12 as in use by Legacy ISA card in your PNP Bios setting. Jason.

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> >Mike, if that's a Matrox Mystique 220, it probably doesn't need an IRQ. Mine > >ran fine without one. You can turn off "assign IRQ for VGA" or some such in > >the BIOS, which will free one up for you. > >If it's a G200 or whatever, it may need the IRQ, I don't know. > Anton, > I tried disabling the asign IRQ for VGA thing and it moved the SB live > back to IRQ 10 where it was, put the 3com on 11 but still gave the > mystique 12 for some reason. Anyway its not made the slightest bit of > difference to the static so i don't think it's IRQ related, guess i'll > put up with it for now > thanks > -- > Mike Buckley

-------- Jason Monds "My other car is a Ferrari" http://members.home.net/gpl.mondsj/gpl - For my combined gas/brake setups (Please remove 'no extra spork' when replying)

: No, the SB Live shares an IRQ with stuff like 'IRQ holder for PCI : steering' or whatever it is, but I've got several shared IRQ's with : motherboard resources and always have had, no expansion cards sharing : the same IRQ's though. Hmm.... the ones to watch for are: a) If you have an AGP graphics card and a PCI card in the first PCI slot then they will share an IRQ and this can cause a minor performance problem. b) If you have any USB devices and a PCI card in the fourth PCI slot then they will share an IRQ with similar problems. -- Richard G. Clegg Only the mind is waving Dept. of Mathematics (Network Control group) Uni. of York. www: http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html

> I take it the 2D processing of the voodoo3 will blow away the old > Mystique anyway? I had almost the same system (BH6/celery/sblive/voodoo2/mystique), but replaced the v2/mystique with a v3, mainly to free up 2 PCI slots. The upgrade is worthwhile IMHO, except that my system won't run Linux any more, but that's another story. The v3's 2D doesn't blow the mystique away, but it's an improvement, giving me 1280x768 in 32 bit colour at 75Hz (it will do more but my monitor can't handle it), and it's at least as sharp and bright (having no need for a passthrough cable helps). Taking a different tack on the SBlive static problem: I get some static too in GPL, if I max out the number of sounds and turn the volume way up in the game and the SBLive mixer. I think this is due to digital clipping, at least it sounds like it to me. This is odd, because the Live! is supposed to be 32 bit internally. The fix is to turn the volume down in GPL and the mixer, and turn it up on my amplifier instead. Watch out for the volume controls in the Live! mixer, they are exponential rather than linear, a bizarre bug that Creative apparently won't fix. Anton -- Antony Bowers, Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, UK. http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~bowers/

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>> I take it the 2D processing of the voodoo3 will blow away the old >> Mystique anyway? >I had almost the same system (BH6/celery/sblive/voodoo2/mystique), >but replaced the v2/mystique with a v3, mainly to free up 2 PCI slots. >The upgrade is worthwhile IMHO, except that my system won't run Linux >any more, but that's another story.

I've been very tempted to get the V3 but I wasn't sure if my V2 was the bottleneck when running GPL. I don't want to run at more than 800x600 anyway (I like plenty of cars), would the V3 be a significant improvement over the V2? You Sir are a mine of information, I will try this later tonight It's not something I've touched, I basically set the environment to F1- Racing or whatever and that's all I've done with it. Thanks for your help -- Mike Buckley Cotswold Pig Development Co Ltd Tel: +44 (0)1472 371591 Fax: +44 (0)1472 371208 http://www.toastyhamster.freeserve.co.uk

> >Watch out for the volume controls in the Live! mixer, they are exponential > >rather than linear, a bizarre bug that Creative apparently won't fix. > It's not something I've touched, I basically set the environment to F1- > Racing or whatever and that's all I've done with it. Never push the Creative mixer too more than 70%. Because after this level the sound is amplified by the SoundBlaster and its not a good amplifier. Behond this level u'll have distorsion depend of wich sort of cable you'r using. Is much better to use an external amplifier and to set mixer volume to 70% i've heard that on many games when using EAX or when u use custom effects. -- ==================================== Sebastien Tixier - Game Developer

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> > I take it the 2D processing of the voodoo3 will blow away the old > > Mystique anyway? > I had almost the same system (BH6/celery/sblive/voodoo2/mystique), > but replaced the v2/mystique with a v3, mainly to free up 2 PCI slots. > The upgrade is worthwhile IMHO, except that my system won't run Linux > any more, but that's another story. > The v3's 2D doesn't blow the mystique away, but it's an improvement, > giving me 1280x768 in 32 bit colour at 75Hz (it will do more but my monitor > can't handle it), and it's at least as sharp and bright (having no > need for a passthrough cable helps).

Just curious here. How did you get 32 bit colour from a card that doesn't support it? This isn't a flame, I'm just wondering how it's done. Zog snipped

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> > > I take it the 2D processing of the voodoo3 will blow away the old > > > Mystique anyway? > > I had almost the same system (BH6/celery/sblive/voodoo2/mystique), > > but replaced the v2/mystique with a v3, mainly to free up 2 PCI slots. > > The upgrade is worthwhile IMHO, except that my system won't run Linux > > any more, but that's another story. > > The v3's 2D doesn't blow the mystique away, but it's an improvement, > > giving me 1280x768 in 32 bit colour at 75Hz (it will do more but my monitor > > can't handle it), and it's at least as sharp and bright (having no > > need for a passthrough cable helps). > Just curious here. How did you get 32 bit colour from a card that doesn't > support it? This isn't a flame, I'm just wondering how it's done.

There is a difference between 32 bit 2D colors and 32 bit color 3D rendering. -- Olav K. Malmin remove spam when replying

Thanks.

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> > > > I take it the 2D processing of the voodoo3 will blow away the old > > > > Mystique anyway? > > > I had almost the same system (BH6/celery/sblive/voodoo2/mystique), > > > but replaced the v2/mystique with a v3, mainly to free up 2 PCI slots. > > > The upgrade is worthwhile IMHO, except that my system won't run Linux > > > any more, but that's another story. > > > The v3's 2D doesn't blow the mystique away, but it's an improvement, > > > giving me 1280x768 in 32 bit colour at 75Hz (it will do more but my monitor > > > can't handle it), and it's at least as sharp and bright (having no > > > need for a passthrough cable helps). > > Just curious here. How did you get 32 bit colour from a card that doesn't > > support it? This isn't a flame, I'm just wondering how it's done. > There is a difference between 32 bit 2D colors and 32 bit color 3D rendering. > -- > Olav K. Malmin > remove spam when replying

Static both audio and visual can be caused by having cards 'too' close together. Specifically network cards should be as far as possible from sound and graphics cards, and sound and graphics cards should be as far as possible from each other. Not always easy to accomplish. regards Graham