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----- Original Message -----
From: James Fulton
To: omega-list
Sent: Friday, July 16, 1999 10:40 PM
Subject: Re: Dual Monitor card
Just for everyone's info
<snip>
It is the new Matrox G400 (32mg RAM).......(snip)
yea Joe it's a great card if you can get your hands on it. <snip>
Noproduction problems just new product demand.
-=-jimmy-=-
Ok, well as promised, my initial report on the G400; received a pair a week
ago; I opted for the 8meg/channel version from thier online store, cost me a
tad over $300 for the pair, which they shipped a week later than promised.
The driver CD has the latest NT4 W9x drivers, so no additional downloads
required. The documentation is really slim, however, and it appears from
discussion w/tech support that it is not unusual for NT installations to
require a "complete uninstall" then reinstall.
I have 2 P-II/400's w/256M, 2 17" monitors. My Primary is straight, pure
NT4SP5, PS2Ki end-of-day only, trading programs only. Secondary is
dual-boot W98FAT16/NT4SP5, for real time PCquote if/when omega gets its act
together. Or if TraderWare justifies being moved from system#3. Since RT
stable omega is not here yet, G400 gets installed first on the Secondary,
more complicated dual-boot..
My first atempt was not successful, the setup program defaulted to
installing on my internal Zip & could not be persuaded to do otherwise.
Tech support emailed the uninstall proceedure, including registry edits,
which worked successfully. This G400 dual monitor implementation is quite
diffferent from the results with W98 native dual monitors: In my W98 prior
setup, two different video boards gave me one monitor w/desktop, and a
second monitor to which I could click&drag application windows (and of
course a blank second monitor under NT4). In NT, the G400 stretches the
desktop across 2 monitors, so no click&drag is necessary. Icons, task bar,
everything is spread out. So the "x" close-winndow button is now way over
there, in the top right corner of the right hand monitor. W9x s/b the same.
In TS, multiple window displays:charts, search, analysis, tracking, etc work
well with /view/arrange/vertical. Especially if there are 2 or 4 windows
open, nothing straddles the area between monitors. Its great to see
everything that's going on at once w/o constantly moving stuff around to see
"what's under". Looks real promising.
My dual-boot's W98 install of the G400 isn't yet right, will take another
call to tech support Monday, in large part because there's virtually nothing
in the install manual (about 1/4" thick, but its in 20 languages, so its
about 10 pages each). I can't get second monitor to operate at the same
1024x resolution as the primary.
Clearly there's lots of versatility in G400 as referenced by the others
here, but my only interest is trading (TS2Ki) efficiency. I like it so far,
better than the native W98 dual monitor implementation, but it'll take a
week of toying to see if the setup time gets paid back. If she runs a week
w/o problems, system #1 is next.
BTW, I have this thread to thank for the painful but necessary decision to
convert to NT4. Not just for TS2Ki/TW or whatever, but for the advice that
no significant $ s/b risked on any real-time system running W98 when there's
a suitable & affordable alternative. Its a good move, ahh life w/o crashes.
Lack of PNP will just force discipline in keeping configurations unchanged
once working. No more "latest gee-whiz", games, chats, betas etc on trading
station system.
For others considering the same move, I got NT4 retail version off ZDNet
Auction for $145; unless you know NT4, avoid the cheaper OEM versions since
you get no free tech support from MS like the retail version gets you for 90
days.
thanks again
nhbob
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