I never had any trouble with Matrox drivers or cards. However, the Matrox cards couldn't run my [cool] Aquarium screen saver, so I tried Quadro NVS... works just fine.
Yikes, I was at 32 bit color and just now dropped it to 24 bit with no apparent difference. I'll change to 16 bit if all goes well tomorrow. I've always wondered if the number of windows open affected video memory requirements - but apparently not. I knew that AGP was better than PCI and that PCIe (normally PCIe x16) is better than AGP. But I don't know why there is PCIe-x1,x4,x8. All good info, thanks Dave Z
The industry thought they could save a few bucks by having PCIE slots of various sizes. What they SHOULD have done was design the mobos so that ALL the PCIE slots are x16, then make the cards x1, x4, x8 or whatever they want. But then it would probably cost $5 more for the mobo to have 4, x16 slots instead of one of each size. What we've ended up with the last couple of years are mobo slots which rarely/never get used because the peripheral card makers have not made cards for them.
Thanks for the reply Gnome. Agreed, if nobody makes cards for these slots then the 'savings' isn't very real. I think AGP slots were for graphics cards only, with PCIe being the improved evolution of AGP. But with 3 PCIe slots in the Dell XPS 410, I guess the PCIe x1, x4 or x8 must be intended for more than just graphics cards? Which implies that eventually PCI will disappear if PCIe slots are faster and multi-purpose?
I've heard of only a few x1 cards... and at least 2 of them are video cards. PCI may eventually disappear, but not for a long time.
Do any of you know if the nvidia NVS will support 4 DVI widescreen monitors at 1440 x 900 each? I'm currently running them with a matrox, but to get the right resolution I've had to use something called powerstrip and the whole setup is a little buggy. Thanks.
Don't know off hand, but you've got 2 chances... (1) it's one of the supported resolutions, and (2) you can set the params for a "custom resolution", up to the max the card supports, through the Nvidia driver... don't know if it works properly. Some NVS cards support up to 1600x1200 in DVI... others support only up to 1280x1024 in DVI. However, the analog display with NVS is excellent... no diff from DVI.
One thing to consider: It is impossible (at least to me) to find a way to contact a human being at NVIDIA website. Matrox allows you to send an email and get an answer from a human being.
Good point Mokwit. I've always got quick and complete replies to question I've posted on the Matrox forum. It sounds like nVidia, or say PNY, don't have the same thing? Do other graphics chip makers besides nVidia make the chip only and let others assemble them on cards?
that's because some of the LCD with DVI input are NOT true DVI monitors. They are VGA monitor with a DVI input. They take the DVI signal and translate the signal back to VGA inside.