NeoMagic updates - Got the DVD to work on my 300 Mhz (yes!!)

[DJ UDX]

Well first things first, and if anyone would like to try this I did get the DVD to work fine on my P2-300 2645-45U. The reason I wanted to get this done was due to unbelievably well tweaked LCD screen that has just enough contrast and nice pleasant color to watch DVD's. I haven't found a comparable LCD screen as of yet. Not even my Gateway 6020GZ model that has Xbrite screen (glossy) can compare to this, but it did come close it.

The DVD Picture is Good but there are some minor stair-stepping artifacts which I am fine with and the non-film recordings are not quite the best to watch on this (29.97 fps), the reason being that de-interlacing is done in some blend-field fashion creating 30 fps playback as opposed to 60 fps feel to it like on desktop PC's.

I decided to by Margi DVD-To-Go card and it worked fine (driver support is terrible though -> up to Win2000) and one's best bet is actually dell download site as opposed to margi.

I also bought external DVD Burner/Player and connected it via USB PCMCIA adapter. The one I have bought is GUC2700 (VIA based) that also comes with firewire for $27.95. http://www.sfcable.com/store/ccd-guc2700.html

1. in my setup Margi goes on top PCMCIA socket
2. respectively USB PCMCIA controller on the bottom (it fits fine)
Otherwise it may lock up on boot.

To my surprise Windows 98 is better than Windows 2000 performance wise likely due to better driver support.

Hence my question;

According to Margi's website there are two ways to get this done in Windows 98. One is to install WDM driver and that works fine.

However, the driver that they recommend is MCI driver which unfortunately I can't get to work. I get an error message no-3 (dll cannot be loaded - margi.com has more details) and the only way to overcome this is to update the Video Graphcis adapter which I do have as of latest version.

Does anyone have an alternate driver link for NeoMagic Video driver available? if it's ever been made for Windows 98 SE.

[DJ UDX]

Just to update the thread.

I found a driver that does work better with MCI setup. It's actually our lovely dell Latitude CPi notebooks that came with NeoMagic graphics adapter.

Their driver works beautiful and after adding some more devices to the system I found that actually it's better for DVD Decoder to go to lower slot and USB Adapter on the upper side. Now I got the full system working but there is another problem.

MCI driver doesn't like full screening the newer 16:9 aspect ratio dvd's . Instead Windows 2000 WDM driver performs this task well but it lowers the picture for about 30 pixels and I haven't found a way to overcome this yet.

Lot's of other problems with Margi DVD to go such as WDM driver doesn't support VCD's, but with a few drawbacks it does work.

I hope that someone will find this info useful.

[serverbook]

380z/600 sereis laptops are superior to similar spec dell laptops running similar video card because ibm designed their laptops to run dvd way before dell ever did and developed their models far better in the first hand,(period)thus run dvd fine in win me with
only 233-266mghz cpus, 4 gb hdd and as 96mb ram.no de margi needed then
install power dvd xp v4.0 ,set drive to dma in device manager then set resolution playback to 800x600/ 8 or 16 bits for
smooth dvd playback ,also set audio to stereo and for noisy enviroments=louder.
will try de margi on a 200 mghz modded 765d one day though.
i wonder if it supports win me ok enough?cause that os suits tp 760/765 sereis best overall,without the dumb mwave audio ibm fitted on them (swap for the ess 16xx aidio card )
resulted full compatabilty in win 98,me,2k,xp there,+ faster machine +longer battery life too but thats another story

[AlphaKilo470]

I agree fully with you on swapping the mWave with the ESS card. The mWave hardware itself would be fine except the drivers eat system resources like none other and the DSP chip never really did much work in my opinion. I'm really not sure why IBM never made a DVD drive availible for the 760CD/ED/XD/765D as those models actually had pretty nice hardware MPEG decoders built in and could probably play DVDs nicely. My guess is that by the time DVD drives were availible for computers, IBM didn't want the older 760s competing in terms of sales figures with the newer and more feature laden 770s.

[serverbook]

I agree fully with you on swapping the mWave with the ESS card. The mWave hardware itself would be fine except the drivers eat system resources like none other and the DSP chip never really did much work in my opinion. I'm really not sure why IBM never made a DVD drive availible for the 760CD/ED/XD/765D as those models actually had pretty nice hardware MPEG decoders built in and could probably play DVDs nicely. My guess is that by the time DVD drives were availible for computers, IBM didn't want the older 760s competing in terms of sales figures with the newer and more feature laden 770s.

looks like it! a dedicated chipset for playback encoding
but software limited to mpeg 1/2 no dvd!
i tried dvd on a 166 mghz machine on dock 111, it worked reliably however playback was choppy regardless what settings in power dvd xp 4.0,so i invested in a creative pci dvd decoder for the dock111,but as yet still had the time to try this out
i am certain the chipset is dvd capable ,question remains as to why
there was no dvd specific driver made for it?
i ponder if theres any 3rd party software renderer that can manipulate with ibms mpeg 2 drivers and counter a cross
dvd platform inwhich would assist the decoder?
with a de margi card atleast one can have portability
but will it run ok in win me and xp too?
have you tried de margi on 760 sereis alpha?
i fitted a dvd/cdrw combo drive in my 765d ,whic retains factory looking steath black bezel fitted in the multibay.
to do this you need to purchase any sigma data aftermarket cd rom
then as in my case remove the jae 50 pin adapter and fit ,in my case to a quanta storage sbw242 combo drive and modify existing
sigma data bezel to fit onto the quanta drive.
i will never part with the 765d (err 765d/l hybrid i should say)
conversely the mwave dsp card will run on xp pro
some very minor glitches but what did me was when i upgraded
from w98 to me the damm thing blue screened and lost data
because of some weird confict within the dsp driver.
ibm could have fixed this easy but they chose not to.
fortunatey i snapped up a few good ess solo audio cards fitted them to clients machines and kept them all happy.because time saved to load dsp drivers + freedoom of choice for os integration outweighed the one time service cost for the upgrade making os installation a no brainer,thus nicer place for all in the longterm).