Matrox G450 can't do full screen MS-DOS Prompts? \ VOGONS

Matrox G450 can't do full screen MS-DOS Prompts?

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First post, by appiah4

Posted on 2019-04-01, 09:24

appiah4 Offline

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Installed Windows 98SE on a Compaq Deskpro EN-SFF last night; decided to drop in a Matrox G450 PCI because I like those cards. I hooked the monitor up via DVI and everything was crisp and clear after the driver install.

However, there is one strange issue. When I start a COMMAND prompt, and go fullscreen, I get no video signal on the monitor.

What could be the issue here?

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Reply 1 of 4, by BinaryDemon

Posted on 2019-04-01, 11:06

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I think it’s likely that the G450 is trying to use a refresh rate your monitor doesn’t support at whatever resolution a full screen command prompt is. (720x400?). You will probably need to use regedit or a 3rd party utilitly like powerstrip to customize the refresh rate at that resolution.

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Reply 2 of 4, by appiah4

Posted on 2019-04-01, 11:19

appiah4 Offline

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BinaryDemon wrote:
I think it’s likely that the G450 is trying to use a refresh rate your monitor doesn’t support at whatever resolution a full screen command prompt is. (720x400?). You will probably need to use regedit or a 3rd party utilitly like powerstrip to customize the refresh rate at that resolution.

Ahh.. I will look into Powerstrip.

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Reply 3 of 4, by Rawit

Posted on 2019-04-01, 12:06

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If you boot straight into DOS, can you see then?

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Reply 4 of 4, by appiah4

Posted on 2019-04-01, 12:10

appiah4 Offline

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Rawit wrote:
If you boot straight into DOS, can you see then?

I can see text mode just fine during POST, BIOS and bootup, only fater Windows and Matrox drivers are loaded that it messes up. I can (IIRC) actually use DOS full screen fine with regular VGA drivers.

Fun fact: When I tried to load the Matrox drivers through Device Manager, Update Driver -> Browse resulted in no valid drivers, so I manually pointed to G450.inf and selected Matrox Millennium G450 Dualhead DVI (PCI). Everything seems to work, but fullscreen DOS..

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

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