Widescreen Gaming Forum

This is such a LONG story.... but I'll do my best to abbreviate it.

I run a 7800GTX SLI system with an Nvidia 680i based motherboard. I also have two separate hard drives for booting; one in XP the other Vista.

I have absolutely no issues on the Vista install. However, on the XP install, if I have the TH2Go hooked up, NONE of my games offer 1600x1200 as a resolution option for single screen play. Oddly, I can get the desktop to go into 1600x1200 if I deselect the option from Display Properties to hide resolutions that the monitor does not support (this, in itself, is strange as the monitor does in fact support 1600x1200). However, the 1600x1200 option still does not show up in any game.

None of these problems exist in Vista or if I bypass the TH2Go and run directly into my monitor from the card.

I have some other issue with the TH2Go whereby updating the flash rom when my unit is plugged directly into a USB port on the back of the computer fails... but if I plug it into a powered USB hub, it works.

I have spent HOURS on the phone with tech support on this one and even had them send me out a replacement unit.... which unfortunately does the same thing.

So I'm trying to figure out if I have a hardware compatibility issue and thus the reason for this post. I do not suspect it is a driver issue as I've tried multiple Nvidia drivers and even did a fresh XP install on ANOTHER hard drive and get the same problem.

Anyone else have a 680i based MB and/or a 7800GTX SLI system that has seen anything like this?

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Gigabyte GTX 980 - SLI

i7-4770k @4ghz

16GB Ram

Planar SA2311W 3D Vision monitors (x3)

Windows 7 x64 Ultimate SP1

Well.... it is fortuitous that after writing this post, I decided to give Matrox one more try at solving this issue.

This time, I was lucky enough to have Robin, the CS Manager, answer the call. And while other CS staff were friendly and did their best to solve this issue (over several days and about 3 hours of phone time and shipping a replacement unit), Robin was able to do it after about a half hour on the phone and connected to my system.

It turns out that XP has an issue with vertical resolutions being reported to the game itself. Thus, in the Matrox desktop software, he needed to add 1920x1200 as a dual screen resolution (as you all know, Matrox did not give the ability to add single screen resolutions in their desktop software; an issue Robin says will be solved in an upcoming release). Anyways.... this prevented the Matrox box from reporting to XP that 1200 vertical resolutions were "safe"; thus explaining why I could only see the resolution when the "Hide unsupported monitor resolutions" was unchecked in XP. Unfortunately, according to Robin, games will not show "unsafe" resolutions thereby explaining why it showed up in windows desktop but not as a potential in-game resolution. When he added the 1920x1200 resolution to the two-monitor section, this made 1600x1200 available single-screen.

If you have a tough issue in the future, I *highly* suggest that you request Robin to help you solve it. Although he said he will be briefing his team on this issue, it would have saved me HUGE headaches and time trying to get this thing to work.

_________________
Gigabyte GTX 980 - SLI

i7-4770k @4ghz

16GB Ram

Planar SA2311W 3D Vision monitors (x3)

Windows 7 x64 Ultimate SP1