[ledzeppel]

I've heard a lot of issues good or bad about the Hollywood Plus Windows 2000 Beta 1 driver. So, let's get this straightened out for the record.

If you like playing D3D games, I highly recommend you stay clear of the Beta drivers for the Hollywood Plus. I own a DXR3 decoder and I did a little experiment this weekend to see how reliable they are. Here's what I did:

First off I made a ghost image of my Win2K drive before installing any drivers for the Hollywood Plus/DXR3. Next I did some Unreal Tournament benchmarks and recorded my frame rates. After UT, I attempted to install the Hollywood Plus Beta 1 drivers. BSOD!! Went and did some more research. I have a Asus P3B-F motherboard and found out that I needed to disable PnP OS in the BIOS. This time no BSOD. Next, installed the updated NT4 driver from Creative Labs, this is needed to install the Creative DVD software and have it play RIGHT (if you skip this step you will run into several anomalies). I then proceeded to install the Creative Labs DVD software. The DVD movies played AWESOME, no different then 98 in my opinion. Next is the big test, D3D games. UT benchmarks suffered horribly!! About half the frame rate!! Quake III benchmarks were exactly the same as before I installed the drivers. So OpenGL games are no effected by the drivers. Well, I like playing D3D games too!! So that is completely UNACCEPTABLE. DXR3 is supported under NT4, so I DO expect Creative to release an official driver for 2000 and I will wait. If you REALLY want to play movies under 2000 and don't want to wait for drivers or do a dual boot for movies (in 98) just use PowerDVD or WinDVD. I tested those and they work great! OR if you don't give a damn about D3D games and just like movies and OpenGL stuff. It should work fine (of course, there could be other things that don't function well either). Also, if you have an ACPI compliant motherboard, turning off PnP OS in the BIOS will render the loss of some Power features like Standby (which I really like). Here's my system config for everybody to reference to:

Coppermine 733
Asus P3B-F
GeForce 256 DDR (all driver sets were tried: 3.x, 5.x)
Etherfast 10/100
256 PC133 RAM
Creative LABS Encore 8x w/DXR3
SBLIVE!
3Com Internet Gaming Modem

In conclusion, just wait and use a software DVD decoder for now. Cheers!

[Ryanrk]

Hate to break it to you big guy, but i use the same card and the same drivers as you stated in your post and all my games including UT, Quake 3, Halflife, NFS5, SOF, and Rogue Spear play just fine with excellent framerates, I only own a P2 400mhz with 256meg of ram and a Creative Labs TNT2 Ultra video card. The only problem i have with the Drx3 card is that i wish there was a way to make it go though my sound card instead of just though the Drx3 card.

[ledzeppel]

Thanks for the post! I have a TNT2 Ultra card also, so I'll have to look into it. Remember it's only D3d games we aren't interested in. So throw out Half-Life (I know it has D3D, but who plays it in D3D??), Quake III, SOF.

Could be it has something to do with the GeForce. As you might know, the 3.x and 5.x drivers do NOTHING for the TNT2 Ultra except update the version. All the enhancements are for the Geforce. So, I'll try out the TNT's and see what happens.

[ledzeppel]

Erros in last post.

Thanks for the post! I have a TNT2 Ultra card also, so I'll have to look into it. Remember it's only D3d games we are interested in. So throw out Half-Life (I know it has D3D, but who plays it in D3D??), Quake III, SOF.


Also when I run UT I get an "acceptable" framerate, but it's about half of what I usually get depending on the map. So if I get around 70 frames/sec on a map w/out the dxr3 drivers installed, I'll get about 30-35 frames/sec in that same error. So it's really hard to compare the TNT2 Ultra and the GeForce in this sense. I'll just have to try out the TNT2 to verify for the rest of the users (I don't doubt that your point is valid indeed).

[Seldzar]

I got a ACTUAL Hollywood plus card not a dxr3 and I have NO issues what so ever. All runs flawless. Have you tried the card in other pci slots? Are you using the pass through cable?

[This message has been edited by Seldzar (edited 02 May 2000).]

[ledzeppel]

People, THE issue is framerate in D3D. Go compare your framerate (actual numbers, don't guess!) Other than that the everything works great. But I'm greedy I can't go from 70 frames/sec in UT to 35 frames/sec. Once you play it like that, the latter is unacceptable. I'm sorry. There is NO issues with PCI slots or pass-through cable, the card WORKS.

I did this test and wrote this post because I KNEW some of you were having some issues with D3D games with your DXR3 card installed (and I wanted to find out for myself if it was valid). And the purpose of this analysis is just to wait for a driver from creative labs if you are used to having the high frame rates on high end machines such as mine.

[AUSTIN316]

whats the website for the Hollywood Plus Windows 2000 Beta 1 drivers ?
So they drivers work fine in win2k with the dxr3 card ?

[DosFreak]

I hate to rain on your parade but I am wondering how in the heck you came to the conclusion that your Dxr3 halved your D3D benchmarkx. The only possibility I can think of is if for some reason you are sharing an IRQ with your video card which of course I would wonder why you would be doing that. I have a DXR3 and am only using the Realmagic Beta Drivers and the Realmagic Station software. I see no reason to install the Creative Craposoftware. I have experienced no BSOD's in the 60+ times I have installed 2000 with these Beta drivers. I have experienced no BSOD's in the 100+ times I have installed 98/ME with the Realmagic drivers.

[ledzeppel]

Hey DOS, like I said in my previous post. The thing works. The BSOD is only if you have PnP in the BIOS enabled (this may not be the case for ALL motherboards). If you don't believe that this is a problem then go to www.deja.com and type in dxr3 win2k and starting reading tons of people who get BSOD and not disabling PnP in the bios. That's how I came to this conclusion about the BSOD. That's NOT a problem. The D3D performance is unacceptable for "me." Maybe not to anyone else. I and others on various message boards who have noticed the performance hit, and I'm pretty confident it is the beta driver for 2000. There is no IRQ conflict. The dxr3 WAS using solely using IRQ10.

Cheers.

[Ryanrk]

Goodpoint! Ok, when i ran windows98 with all of those same games i got about a 3-5fps rate (depending on the game) increase. In win2k though it seems to run the game smoother (don't understand how since i lost some fps) and better then windows98 did.
Does anybody know how to make the DXr3 card run though the soundcard? i have a sblive soundcard.

[DosFreak]

I'll go home tonight and benchmark my computer with and without the driver. I'll post back with my results. Unreal Tournament, 3Dmark, and 2000 scores to come!

[ledzeppel]

DOS,

If you could, install the drivers the way I did Hollywood Plus, NT4 update, and then creative software. I remember from reading some of your posts that you install it differently (and who knows, your way might be better) by installing Hollywood plus beta driver, laxity patch?, and then the Real Staion software. But try it my way to keep things consistent, maybe we can nail down what the problem is. Please leave your system specs too. Thanks for the help.

[DosFreak]

Arrrggg. I might do that. First I'm just gonna post with just the Realmagic drivers and software and compare the benches. If I a difference in scores then I won't install the creative stuff. I don't wanna install the Creative software. I don't wanna! I don't wanna! If I do I'm afraid I will have to zero-write my HD a couple of dozen times to wipe the memory of their software off of my hd.

[RattDawg]

I had the same problem as LedZep did with the Hollywood plus-detonater combo except I couldnt get D3d to run at all. It took me 5 installs to tie the problem to the dxr3 board. I also noticed that the system also lost my moniter profile my Sony 200es became a "defult moniter". Uninstalling the Dxr3 didnt help either, no option but a fresh install. NFS 5 wouldnt detect my card in the 3d setup had to go with software rendering if it would even run at all most of the time I got an error saying "need dx7 you have dx0". So Im still not sure what this combo of drivers is messing up I only know that they are the cause. Hopefully that is why creative is taking so long on drivers, they cant figure it out either. Heres hoping they get it right.
Pentium 3 600
dfi pa61 mobo
Annilater Pro
SB Live Platium
Creative DVD encore 8x
128 ram
2000 pro
Later......
RattDawg

[ledzeppel]

I hear ya loud and clear on the default monitor thing. And you can't change it either! The properites button is greyed out (this is one the monitor tab under display properties, ya know, when ya right click on your desktop?)

[Reaper_uk]

a bit off topic, but has anyone managed to get 4speakers support with an sblive and hollywood+ card??
i've got 2speakers in front jack and 2speakers in rear (upgrading to some 5.1 dolby digital soon but for now) i can only get my front speakers to work.
If i use the tip, from a FAQ at sigma design website, to get USB speakers to work properly, i can get all 4 speakers to work, but the DVD station software becomes unstable.
any ideas anyone?

[RattDawg]

Has anyone found a fix for this or what the Hollywood plus drivers are affecting? I thought about trying to install them again but Ive already had to do a fresh install once this week.
Later....
RattDawg

[Damien]

Yes you can get all four speakers working - I presume you have a SBLive, and I hope that you have a SPDIF input (you're rather stuck if you don't). What I did was to connect the SPDIF output from my DXR3 (Creative's Hollywood Plus clone) to the SPDIF input of my SBLive. NOw under the DXR3 software, there's an option under the audio configuration tab to set the sound output to DXR3 Digital - select the PCM option. Enable Digital input on you SBLive - use the Mixer applet - and if all goes well, restarting the player will give you four speaker surround. This procedure might differ on a genuine Hollywood Plus card - but as I don't have one of these I guess it's up to you guys to match these instructions to your setups.

[RattDawg]

Na sorry I ment a fix for the d3d issue. When its installed it runs fine and sounds great pumped into a 5.1 desktop theater but Im still not sure if the d3d issue is from drivers or direct x. Does anyone have this combo working with Direct x 8?
Later...
RattDawg

[RattDawg]

Well did some more testing and yet another fresh install. It seems that it is the creative nt driver is causeing this havoc. After the hollywood plus install everything was fine. then when the creative nt goes in same old s**t. Oh well if anyone knows of a differnt way to get the dxr3 card running please post.
Later....
RattDawg