3/30/2006 4:45:23 PM

We are still having problems with lockups, particularly with Upcoming Events using SSP Slide Shows.

I have a NVIDIA GeForce 6200 with a dual head.  When I run the hardware test, I am told that "Adapter 1: NVIDIA GeForce 6200 (nVidia)" has insufficient capabilities, but that "Adapter 2: NVIDIA GeForce 6200 (nVidia)" is sufficient capabilities.

Huh?  Does it matter what is hooked up to the adapter?

What is the ABSOLUTE BEST, MOST COMPATIBLE, GUARANTEED TO WORK adapter for SSP 7?  Because I'm willing to buy whatever it is.

3/30/2006 9:09:06 PM

Check for driver updates, something may be corrupt or screwy. If they are up to date, remove the drivers and reinstall.

When installing updated drivers, remove the old one first (best if through add/remove programs, nVidia display or something). Then install the new ones.

Also make sure you have the latest DirectX installed.

Click here for DirectX

If the hardware tests still insist on insufficient capabilites, then:

A. Video card might be bad.
B. Maybe it IS incompatible with SSP7 for some reason.

3/30/2006 9:17:29 PM

The latest hardware recomendations are over in the support forums

http://ssplash.com/_sspsupport/System%20Requirements.html

However, I would make sure you have the most current drivers from the card manufacturer. Then I would call SSP support to see if they can come up with anything before popping for a new card.

3/31/2006 12:09:03 AM

Just curious.. have you phoned tech support??

I would do that before buying a new card..

Rod

3/31/2006 5:32:12 AM

Just curious, which version of the 6200 is your card? If it's the TC (turbo charged) version, it doesn't have very much of it's own memory. . . Nvidia concocted a way for it to combine it's own minimal memory with system memory to make it "think" it had more memory. So this version very possibly wouldn't have enough memory to support SS+ dual head.

4/4/2006 12:39:18 AM

Interesting. There was a similar problem with a high-end Matrox card we tested once. Adapter 1 had sufficient video memory, but adapter 2 did not. Hence, the card was unusable.

4/4/2006 9:50:01 AM

For users that are looking at upgrading their video cards and are wondering what to get I'll try to give a bit of a guideline but the new system specifications list is probably the best guideline.

Currently, for users that are looking to use SSP and all of it's features I would not recommend anything under an nVidia 6600GT or an ATI X700 Pro. 

Both companies have just recently released new card lines however and things can get confusing. 

From nVidia, the following cards should work:
6600GT
6800
6800GT
7600
7600GT
7800GS
7800GT
7800GTX
7900GT
7900GTX
(Note the 7200 is absent)

From ATI, the following cards should work:
X700Pro
X800
X800XL
X800Pro
X850 -The whole line
X1600 - The whole line
X1800 GTO
X1800XL
X1800XT
X1800XTX
X1900 - the whole line
(Again, note the X1300 is not listed)

The cards I listed above range from as little as $120 to as much as $800 as of April 4, 2006.  I've had a number of people go to a local retail outlet and buy a card for $200 that's as much as 4 years old.  I understand that purchasing locally does have it's benefits but it is still best to do some price checking online to make sure that you're getting a decent price on relatively new hardware. 

As always, rather than buy the cheapest card, buy the best card that fits your budget.  The more card you buy today, the more features of SSP you'll be able to use tomorrow.

4/4/2006 10:17:57 AM

Thanks David. That is quite helpful.

4/4/2006 10:50:53 AM

I have found that it is getting more difficult to find specs on a specific card. It's almost as if the manufactures are hiding this info so a person is forced to base their purchase on price (a 500$ cards is always better than a 200$ card) rather than looking at the specs. Anyone know where to look up specs that shows pipelines, pixels, MB ns, etc?

Knowing this info, which is most important to SSP? Example; is 4 pipelines 256MB DDR2 better than 8 pipelines 128 MB DDR3?

Thanks!!!

BTW: I am using an ATI 9600 Pro 256MB, and it handles every feature of v7 I have tried thus far. It can be a little jittery when doing several layers (bgnd clr, bgnd pic, motion bgnd, and bgnd effects), but mostly stable. I would recommend something beefier, but you don't need to go out and buy a replacement if you already have this, or an equal NVidia.

4/4/2006 11:18:57 AM

As far as actual specs on the cards, you can usually find information like that at www.anandtech.com  They'll list the core specs on the card.  Some manufacturers may overclock the speed of the card, but they can't exactly create more pipelines.

Sometimes you can find specs at newegg.com or zipzoomfly.  I know that newegg does list the clock speed of the card.  So if you read the information on Anandtech and understand the basic architecture, then you can see the clock speeds at newegg.com

And then it all becomes WAY too complex for most people who simply want to just buy the stupid video card and have it work.  Anantech usually posts 10+ page articles on the specs and capabilities of video cards.  While well written and very comprehensive, most people just want to buy a card, they don't want to get a PhD to understand it. 

My PERSONAL preference of the cards on the market right now leads me to believe that the nVidia 7900GT is the best purchase.  It's around $300 but performs just slightly below the $500 cards.  So performance to dollars it's a great buy.  That said, both companies make great cards and each has strengths and weaknesses.  Today, it just seems that nVidia is the leader in the power per buck game.  That will likely change over time. 

4/4/2006 4:16:32 PM

I am using an ASUS ATI 800X pro, agp, 256k and am very pleased with and we use a lot of the V7 capbabilities.

4/5/2006 9:58:11 AM

At home I've got an x800Pro 256 and love it.  It does remarkeably well. 

Here at the office I have:

ATI X700 Pro 256 - Does well with the current stuff but is showing signs of running out of juice

nVidia 6600GT 128 - Also does very well but is running up to the upper limits of what it's going to handle in the near future

nVidia FX 5600 128 - Still quite a performer but I can bog it down pretty fast just with stuff that was put into SSP 5.5

We've got other cards here that we test with, but those are my three main cards. 

4/5/2006 10:57:49 AM

Take the following with a grain of salt - here are my thoughts.

I have written the SSP visualizations, 3D transitions, and RipFX modules.  So far, the AGP X800 Pro in my machine does a very good job of rendering those things.

I have a PCI Express X850 XT at home, and the difference in performance is astonishing - with the X850 cutting a huge lead.

I've additionally tested all my code on the Nvidia 6600 GT.  While this card runs everything I've written smoothly enough, it gets bogged down by layers much faster than the X800.

For the future, we hope to continue providing increasingly useful and visually appealing features for SSP - so as David always likes to say:

Don't ask, "What is the cheapest card I can afford?"  Ask instead, "What is the best card I can afford?"

4/5/2006 10:11:25 PM

hehe...with video cards, you kinda get what you pay for...
First you find out what the best is...then you search to find the best deal on the best card. ;)

6/3/2006 12:22:27 AM

Hope we see support for Matrox coming along sometime. Our experience with them has been way better than ATI to date. Haven't had much to do with Nvidia cards.

6/4/2006 1:39:21 AM

I would like to see a qualification or expansion of the statement "No Matrox cards are supported". Does that mean "will not work at all" or "We don't offer technical support for these cards" ?

We have tested various cards in our systems and the Matrox cards have stood out for stability, ease of config and features.

I am sure I will never buy another Radeon again -  we have just had too much of the cards with driver problems and simply locking up one of our PCs which has had the motherboard and Radeon card both replaced twice because the Radeon just will not work reliably. This PC has been tried with PCI Express and PCI Radeons with the same result - instability and machine crashing at startup.

Another AGP Radeon in another machine had a lot of driver probs - the secondary would not run reliably. Eventually a newer driver was released that fixed it.

The one Nvidia card I have tried was even more troublesome. At least a Radeon will let you enable the secondary after startup if it doesn't detect a display on the output. The Nvidia wouldn't even give you that choice. No detection, no secondary.

Now. so far I have two Matrox Millenium G450s, one dual head PCI and one dual head AGP. Dropped them into the machines, automatic driver install by Windows, and both worked beautifully. Only problem - 16MB only. V7 won't let it do anything much.

So now I am looking at a P650 dualhead PCIe 128MB.... but "it's not supported"!!!!

 

 

6/4/2006 4:10:18 AM

Dont be surprised if quite a few of us here disagree with you about the Radeon cards.

I use the Radeon "Pro" series of cards and have had a very good run from them.. there have been a few others here that did have some problems with the 256 meg cards, but that was fixed with a driver update from memory.

There has been some previous discussion about Matrox cards, not sure where if anyone can remember.. I do belive the reason they are not supported is a driver compatability issue.. but thats just my memory and I could be wrong..

Hopefully someone will clarify this for all of us..

Rod

6/5/2006 9:39:36 PM

So far as I know, anything "Made by ATI" is hard if not impossible to get in this country.

ATI need their head read if they are willing to sell substandard chips for SE product and expect their reputation to remain intact.

Given the lack of vote of confidence for supporting Matrox I'm looking at a G550 right now, not going to spend NZ$400 (US price $249) on something that isn't guaranteed to give any benefit.

6/5/2006 9:47:50 PM

Patrick

Where abouts in the world are you.. I take it New Zealand.. ??

you can add you location to your profile by clicking on the "my profile" at the top right of page..

If your in NZ.. there are a few others from NZ here as well.. maybe they could help advise you on what they are using.??

Rod

6/5/2006 9:56:54 PM

So is the G550 a Matrox card.. if it is I think I used one of them about 5 years ago??
Specs

Matrox G550 Graphics Processor (0.18micron)

~125MHz Core Clock (estimated)

166 MHz Memory Clock

32MB DDR SDRAM Memory

256-bit internal bus

64-bit DDR Memory Bus

AGP 4x, 2x, 1x

DualHead Multiple Display with eDualHead (Windows2000 included)

"HeadCasting" Engine

HD-15 and DVI Outputs with optional 2nd HD-15 or RCA and S-video outputs

360MHz primary RAMDAC (2048x1536 @ 32bit max)

230MHz secondary RAMDAC (analog: 1600x2100 @ 32bit / digital:1280x1024 @ 32bit)

Windows 9x/NT/ME/2000/XP, Linux

6/6/2006 9:11:08 PM

My profile shows New Zealand.
Unfortunately it seems other people have had trouble with the Matrox cards as well so I guess I am back to trying to find a better card from either ATI or Nvidia, PCI Express.

If you read here
http://forums.overclockers.co.nz/showthread.php?s=0713156606d99a1ada0666dd2301b137&threadid=8074&goto=nextoldest

there is no such thing as GenuineATI here because they only exist in the US marketplace.

6/7/2006 12:59:30 AM

I dont see any location in your profile???

and nothing shows in your location when you post??

Rod

6/7/2006 1:04:31 AM

Try the radeon 9600 pro you mentioned in the other post..

thats what I am using at the moment

Rod

6/7/2006 11:06:01 AM

I didn't notice whether you stated the problems were with ATI Radeon cards or with third-party cards built using the ATI GPU (and thus has ATI on the box)?

6/7/2006 11:08:49 AM

My understanding is that the Matrox line is designed for a different market, and its architecture does not fully accomodate ssp (one specific difference may be less use of onboard memory).

6/7/2006 3:16:48 PM

For anyone reading this thread, who is curious on the details of why we do not support or suggest using the Matrox cards, I'm going to direct you to the post in the "Wave Pool" section of this forum found: HERE.  Our developers and support staff have referenced this issue and have provided some more detailed information regarding why the Matrox cards are not supported and what cards are suggested for use with SSP. 

I would also encourage anyone interested about supported video cards to check out our system requirements page that categorizes the available video cards.  It can be found: HERE

6/7/2006 3:24:59 PM

I have just questions about which type of card, since there are so many listed.

We are working to a budget of about NZ$300, which is about what that Radeon 9600 128MB cost us.

That is an AGP card, and the PC I am working with right now is PCIe which means an X series card instead.

I'm just interested in the merits of different chipsets within the range of ATI chipsets that are available. The X1600 cards look like a reasonable level of performance and price.

The cheapest I saw for the X1800 was around  NZ$600, which we could not justify - that is almost as much as a whole new PC.

Our computers have 512MB of main RAM. If the X1600 card works well, I would rather spend $300 on upgrading the two computers in our auditorium to 1GB each rather than on a high powered X1800 card.

 

6/7/2006 3:25:53 PM

Maybe the relevant quote could be pulled out and put into the support faq?

6/7/2006 6:20:31 PM

Nearly all the above are PCI Express chipsets.

For anything that is still using AGP, typically only the X700, X800 and X850 are available on AGP. Other ATI chipsets available in AGP form factor include
Radeon 7000
Radeon 9200
Radeon 9250
Radeon 9550
Radeon 9600

The 7000, 9200, 9250 are unsuitable as they do not support DirectX9
We really need to see comparisons for the 9550/9600 Radeon with the X700, X800, X850 in terms of performance / useability, for people using systems with AGP ports. I want to know whether to buy a 9600 or X850 for an AGP system.

6/8/2006 7:27:48 AM

That's a good thought, but remember brands and models of graphics cards change often, so someone would have to faithfully update it.

Then too, people don't ask what features or capabilities a card has, only how cheap it is and "will it work". Reid (or was it Steve?) has said "buy an expensive card" implying those are the cards that deliver in performance (qualified it with "that you can afford", which doesn't refer to hurting one's feelings!)

That is all understandable, but how do you quantify the performance of a graphics card in a way everyone can figure out for themselves whether a given card will do? It seems to me that is a real problem needing a solution.

6/8/2006 11:34:11 AM

Easy answer - between the two, buy the X850.  It has easily triple the power of the 9600, if not more so.

Harder answer - video cards have a naming convention that helps out, and I'll attempt to explain.

First, cards come in generations.  The first part of the number listed is its generation.  Here is a sampling of ATI cards with their generation number highlighted:
7500, 8500, 9600, X700, X1600

A higher generation usually means more functionality, and hopefully (but not always) better performance.

Second, after the generation number comes a three digit model number. (Please note the names "generation" and "model" are not technical names for these numbers).  Here is the same list with the model number highlighted:
7500, 8500, 9600, X700, X1600

In general, consider generation first, model second.  The X850 (generation X) is newer (and better) than the 9600 (generation 9), but older than the X1600 (generation X1).

If generation is newer but model is older, or if you are comparing same generation / different brand (ATI vs NVIDIA), price will usually let you know which is better (higher cost = better card).  A diligent consumer can also check reviews.  If the generation is more than two apart (eg 9800 vs X1600), always go for the newer generation.

There is a caveat here - avoid the lowest model in each generation like the plague.  The lower models are usually created to fill a price point, and don't have the power to keep up with any but the simplest applications (such as word processing).  So, NVIDIA 5200 and 6200 or ATI X300 and X1300 are generally a very bad idea.

Here is how NVIDIA generation and ATI generation line up:
ATI     /  NVIDIA 
7500   / Geforce 3 (Antiquated - seriously outdated) 
8500   /   4200   (Old - outdated - don't ever buy)
9600   /   5700   (Old - still decent - last choice for buy)
X700   /   6600   (Newer - good - recommended buy)
X1600 /   7600   (Very new - powerful - best buy)

6/9/2006 9:09:44 AM

Hey, Steve - that was an excellent post!!

6/13/2006 10:07:22 AM

I'm going to pop back in with NEW information.  We've recently discovered (yesterday) a problem with the nVidia 7600 cards and SongShow Plus. 

Essentially, these cards may freez for about 10 seconds when transitioning.  It's fairly rare but it does happen.  We are investigating solutions to the problem but for the time being, we can no longer recommend these cards as a solution.

So far the 7300 and the 7600 are having the same problem but the 7900 series are not having this problem. 

6/15/2006 10:02:24 PM

OK, David...

This makes me feel better and worse.

I was going to call you Friday to tell you that my PC is once again having problems... it locks up for about 5-10 seconds during transitions. I was getting so frustrated, because this is the THIRD seperate issue with SSP.

So, I'm relieved to know that it's not just us. But the fact that there is no quick fix despairs me. It is pretty common on our computer (we've got the 7600). Rebooting doesn't help, but it appears about 1 time in 4 when we use it, it will freeze.

Thanks for looking for a solution!

6/16/2006 9:25:23 AM

For the time being, try to avoid using video backgrounds.  It appears that still image backgrounds don't suffer this problem.  And if they do, tell me right away.

6/16/2006 11:25:58 AM

We are currently investigating this problem. Initially it appears to be an NVIDIA bug in the 7600 card, but we are looking into finding some kind of work-around. Thank you for your patience.

6/18/2006 7:55:08 AM

Well, I'm not having that problem per se, but since static backgrounds don't always show up (it will show a black background, even though it looks OK in the Preview window), the congregation may be staring at a lot of black backgrounds until it's fixed.

Actually, we are still using the motion backgrounds, and the problem during some sessions do not appear.

For example, I worked a Saturday practice, and no problem.  That night we had a church picnic, and it froze up three times.  Rebooting did not help, but I didn't try a total shut down.  The next day, I ran Worship service, and never had a problem.  Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not.

6/29/2006 8:16:29 AM

So, is the X1600 the next generation of the X800, or the X600?

It's so confusing. I'm assuming that the X1300 is the next generation of the X300 card, which we should ignore.

6/29/2006 10:04:55 AM

The X1600 most directly ties back to the X700 from the previous generation.  The X600 was a card that was intended to make up the ground in between the X300 an the X700.  Normally you wouldn't need to fill a gap like that but in this case there was such a wide disparity in performance between the X300 and the X700 a "plug" was needed. 

The X1300 is the bottom line card from this generation and you'd be right to avoid it. 

6/29/2006 10:22:55 AM

Cool beans. I just picked up an X1600Pro with 256MB PCIx for my machine at home, open box from NewEgg, for $70 + shipping.

I should be set for a while.

6/30/2006 12:08:56 AM

We are evaluating a Radeon X1600 512MB in our production computer. So far so good but it's not running SSP7.

6/30/2006 5:35:38 AM

So, SSP7 won't even start up for you?

7/1/2006 7:20:36 PM

First things first. Install the card and test it at a hardware level. Then install the software.

I just uninstalled V4, installed V7. Then install the updated ATI driver 8.263 over the supplied 8.203 that comes with the card. Install the Firewire card and test that as well. So far so good.

 

7/1/2006 7:27:49 PM

I see. So it's not a problem, just a process and you haven't gotten to installing SSP yet.

OK. That makes more sense.

1/9/2007 9:05:48 AM

An issue has been discovered with some NVIDIA graphics cards that may cause random momentary system freezes. Updates to the Knowledge Base have been made to address this.

Please review the following links that address this issue.

TS018 HI006