Technical Note No. 055 - Tips for using ATI Windows 3.0 Drivers
Technical Support Department
Technical Note No. 055 - Tips for using ATI Windows 3.0 Drivers
_______________________________________________________________
March 19, 1991
INTRODUCTION
This document contains tips about installing and using the high
resolution Windows 3.0 drivers for the VGAWONDER. It covers the
most commonly asked questions and explains how to get the most
out of the drivers.
AVAILABLE DRIVERS
This initial release of Windows 3.0 drivers contained an
800x600/16 colour driver, which is supported by all versions of
the VGAWONDER & VGA EDGE. It also contained a 1024x768/16 colour
planar driver which requires an analogue multisync monitor, 512k
video memory and a VGAWONDER V4, V5 or VGAWONDER+. The latter
driver is not supported on a VGAWONDER V3.
The November 5, 1990 release of Windows 3.0 drivers, contains 2
new drivers and a revised driver. The 640x480/256 colour driver
requires a VGA or analogue multisync monitor and a 512k VGAWONDER
(any version). The 800x600/256 colour driver requires an analogue
multisync monitor and a 512k VGAWONDER (any version). The
1024x768/16 colour driver has been revised to use the larger
8514/A type fonts rather than VGA type fonts. A 1024x768/16
colour packed pixel driver is planned for later in the year. It
will be supported on all 512k VGAWONDER's, including the V3.
OBTAINING THE DRIVERS
Drivers for Windows 3.0 have been included with the utility
diskettes provided with each VGAWONDER starting with diskette
version 1.07. Updates are available by placing an order through
ATI Technical Support (416) 756-0711 or by downloading by modem
from the ATI BBS (416) 756-4591 {9600/2400/1200 bps, 8 data, 1
stop bits, no parity}.
INSTALLING THE DRIVERS - CREATING THE DISPLAY DRIVER DISKETTE
ATI makes use of a facility built into Windows 3.0 for installing
third party video drivers. An option in the Windows SETUP program
allows the user to select a driver from a Display Driver Disk.
There are 3 ways to obtain a Display Driver Disk for the
VGAWONDER.
i) If you have a set of VGAWONDER utility disks containing
Windows 3.0 drivers, run VDRIVER and select Windows
3.0. The VDRIVER program will create a Display Driver
Disk on a blank, pre-formatted disk.
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ii) If you have ordered a Windows 3.0 driver upgrade disk
from ATI, it is ready to use as the Display Driver
Disk.
iii) If you have downloaded the Windows 3.0 drivers from our
BBS, the INSTALL.BAT will create the Display Driver
Disk on a blank, formatted disk. You will require a
copy of the PKUNZIP un-compression program which can
also be downloaded from the ATI BBS.
FIRST TIME INSTALLATION
This section applies to users who have not yet installed Windows
on their hard driver or users who wish to reinstall from the
diskettes.
A Display Driver Disk should be prepared as described above.
Windows should be installed as described in the Installing
Windows with SETUP section in the Windows User's Guide. A screen
will appear asking the user to verify the system configuration.
The user should use the cursor keys to move the highlight bar to
"Display: VGA" and should then hit the enter key. A window will
appear containing a number of display options. The correct
option is "Other" (this is usually the last option in the list).
The program will then prompt the user to insert the Display
Driver Disk). The SETUP program may request this disk (without
referring to the name) again later during the installation
especially if it is being installed on a 386 system and/or a
networked system.
FIRST TIME INSTALLATION continued
Select an appropriate driver from the list and complete
installation.
WINDOWS ALREADY INSTALLED
This section applies to users who have already installed Windows
on their hard drives and do not wish to do a complete reinstall.
Many configuration options of Windows can usually be changed with
the Setup option in the Windows Main Group. However, ATI
recommends that display driver be changed by running the
SETUP.EXE program in the Windows directory. Refer to the Running
setup from MS-DOS section in the Using Setup to Maintain Windows
chapter in the Windows Users Guide.
Install drivers as described in paragraph 2 & 3 of FIRST TIME
INSTALL.
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SWAPPING DRIVERS
This section applies to users who may wish to change display
modes on occasion. Users may wish to use a certain mode for some
applications and another mode for other applications.
The Windows Setup program allows the user to select an
appropriate configuration, copies the required files from the
disks (renaming some in the process) and stores the configuration
data. The configuration data is stored in special text files with
the .INI extension. The SYSTEM.INI file contains all the data
which affects the display. The items of importance to the display
include the display driver, frame grabber, virtual device driver,
system fonts and terminal fonts.
ATI recommends that users use SETUP.EXE to create a SYSTEM.INI
for each mode the user may wish to use. The SYSTEM.INI must be
copied with another name or SETUP.EXE will erase the old version.
For example, Windows could be installed for each of the four
modes and the resulting SYSTEM.INI files could be copied to a
name based on the resolution. In this example they would be named
800_16.INI, 1024_16.INI, 640_256.INI and 800_256.INI. The mode
can be swapped simply by copying (NOT renaming) the appropriate
file to SYSTEM.INI before running Windows. It is not possible to
change video modes while Windows is running.
UPDATING DRIVERS
ATI may from time to time offer updated Windows drivers for the
VGAWONDER. These will be announced through our BBS and can be
obtained as described in the section with the OBTAINING DRIVERS
heading. Users should be aware that the Windows SETUP will not
copy new drivers with the same file name from the Display Driver
Disk. Therefore, you must delete the older ATI Windows drivers
from your SYSTEM sub-directory before installing the newer
drivers.
PERFORMANCE
Users will notice some difference in performance between the
different modes. This is partly due to the different amounts of
graphics memory used in each mode and partly due to the internal
architecture of the VGA chipset.
The 16 colour modes are substantially quicker than 256 colour
modes at the same resolution. A 256 colour mode requires twice
the video memory of a 16 colour mode at the same resolution. In
addition, the 256 colour modes use a different memory
architecture which is less efficient than the 16 colour memory
architecture.
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The fastest Super VGA mode is the 800x600 /16 colour (mode 54h)
followed by the 1024x768 /16 (mode 55h), the 640x480 /256 colour
(mode 62h) and the slowest is the 800x600 /256 colour (mode 63h).
Should you require any further information or assistance, please
don't hesitate to contact us.
HINTS - TROUBLESHOOTING
Note that it is up to the user to determine if the selected mode
is actually available. If Windows exits to DOS after displaying
the blue introduction screen, it is likely that the mode is not
available. Use the V-INFO program supplied on your VGAWONDER
diskettes to check the amount of display memory and the monitor
type. Check the monitor specifications to confirm that the
resolution desired is actually supported.
Windows requires more than 512K conventional system memory to
install. It may be necessary to edit the CONFIG.SYS and/or the
AUTOEXEC.BAT to remove some device drivers and resident programs
in order to complete the install.
If the user continues to have problems after checking the items
listed above, ATI recommends a complete new installation from the
disks. Be sure to remove all Windows related device drivers from
the CONFIG.SYS and reboot before attempting a new installation.
These device drivers are: SMARTDRV.SYS, EGA.SYS, HIMEM.SYS,
EMM386.SYS and MOUSE.SYS.
Users with third party 386 memory managers may experience
problems installing Windows in Enhanced mode. The memory manager
must be Windows 3.0 compatible. Contact your 386 memory manager
vendor for upgrade information if the documentation does not
specifically claim compatibility with Windows 3.0. In may cases,
Windows will not install with a third party memory manager
present even if the memory manager is Windows 3.0 compatible. If
so, use HIMEM.SYS instead during Windows installation and then
reinstall your memory manager.
SCREEN COLOURS
The Windows environment is capable of supporting 256 colours but
you will find that few current applications will make use of the
additional colours when a 256 colour mode is installed. Windows
reserves 20 colours for itself and most applications (including
Windows Paint and the colour function of Windows Desktop) will
only allow the user to manipulate those 20 colours. Some colours
are created by mixing or "dithering" pure colours together.
The remaining colours (256-20=236) are controlled by the palette
manager function within Windows. Only software which makes use of
the palette manager will be able to use more than 20 colours.
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Some of the applications which do implement 256 colours are MS
Powerpoint, Publishers Paintbrush for Windows and 256 colour
wallpapers can be displayed.
RUNNING STANDARD APPLICATIONS
Windows has a limited ability to do task switching with non-
Windows DOS (or "standard") applications. They can be run in a
window or full screen.
Running a standard application in a window requires Windows to
convert the screen image of that application into a graphical
representation in the window. This is often painfully slow and
many graphics programs will not work in the window. It is NEVER
possible to use a non-IBM video mode (resolution higher than
640x480 /16 colours) program in the window even if the video mode
is the same as the Windows video mode. See the following
paragraph for further explanation.
Running a standard application in full screen mode is much
simpler and the vast majority of software will work. It is
possible to use any graphics mode in a full screen. However, task
switching while using a non-IBM video mode will result in a
trashed screen after returning from the Windows desktop. Users
should exit these applications before task swapping. The ATI
drivers do not support "save and restore" of non-IBM video modes
(required for task switching) nor do they support "mode
conversion" of non-IBM video modes (required for windowing).
Addition of these capabilities would be a massive undertaking
which would increase the size of the drivers and increase the
memory requirements.
NETWORK INSTALLATIONS
Users may experience problems when installing high resolution
drivers for Windows on a network with the SETUP /N option. This
option allows the user to minimize the disk space consumed on
individual work stations and allow most Windows files to be
shared through the network.
You may see an message appear saying !! Error Building WIN.COM !!
during installation. This is due to a problem with Windows SETUP
where it will try to install the drivers from the Display Driver
Disk to the \Windows\System directory. This directory is not
created or used in a network installation. The result is
installation failure.
Microsoft has been made aware of the problem and will correct it
in a future revision of Windows. In the meantime, the ATI driver
can be manually installed as shown below.
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MANUAL INSTALLATIONS
This section describes how to install the ATI drivers without
using Windows SETUP. It is intended for advanced users who are
experiencing network installation problems or find the Windows
SETUP too tedious.
1) Install Windows for standard VGA. Ensure that Windows
is fully functional before proceeding.
2) Copy the *.DRV and the VDDVGA.386 files from the
Display Driver Disk into the Windows directory on the
workstation's hard drive (not the network drive).
3) Users running the network install should ignore this
step.
Copy the following file from the Windows diskettes into
the Windows directory on your hard drive:
V7VGA.GR3
You will need to use the Windows EXPAND command to
uncompress the font files from the Windows disk 1. An
example of the command is shown below:
A:>EXPAND A:8514FIX.FON C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\8514FIX.FON
A:>EXPAND A:8514OEM.FON C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\8514OEM.FON
A:>EXPAND A:8514SYS.FON C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\8514SYS.FON
4) Use the Windows Notebook program or the ASCII editor of
your choice to edit the SYSTEM.INI file in the Windows
directory according to the table on the next page :
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MODE VIDEO CHANGE FROM CHANGE TO
real or 800x600/16 [boot] [boot]
standard display.drv=vga.drv display=win3-54B.drv
1024x768/16 [boot] [boot]
display.drv=vga.drv display.drv=win3-55b.drv
fixedfon.fon=vgafix.fon fixedfon.fon=8514fix.fon
oemfonts.fon=vgaoem.fon oemfonts.fon=8514oem.fon
fonts.fon=vgasys.fon fonts.fon=8514sys.fon
640x480/256 [boot] [boot]
display.drv=vga.drv display.drv=win3-62.drv
800x600/256 [boot] [boot]
display.drv=vga.drv display.drv=win3-63.drv
enhanced 800x600/16 [boot] [boot]
display.drv=vga.drv display=win3-54B.drv
[386Enh] [386Enh]
display=*vgavdd display=vddvga.386
1024x768/16 [boot] [boot]
display.drv=vga.drv display.drv=win3-55b.drv
fixedfon.fon=vgafix.fon fixedfon.fon=8514fix.fon
oemfonts.fon=vgaoem.fon oemfonts.fon=8514oem.fon
fonts.fon=vgasys.fon fonts.fon=8514sys.fon
[386Enh] [386Enh]
display=*vgavdd display=vddvga.386
640x480/256 [boot] [boot]
grabber=vga.gr3 grabber=v7vga.gr3
display.drv=vga.drv display.drv=win3-62.drv
[386Enh] [386Enh]
display=*vgavdd display=vddvga.386
800x600/256 [boot] [boot]
grabber=vga.gr3 grabber=v7vga.gr3
display.drv=vga.drv display.drv=win3-63.drv
[386Enh] [386Enh]
display=*vgavdd display=vddvga.386
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