[comp.sys.ibm.pc] ATI VGA Wonder versus Multisync 3D

dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch) (08/24/89)

I've just got a new ATI VGA Wonder card, and am using it with a NEC Multisync
3D monitor.  My problem is that the ATI card doesn't consistently 
recognize the monitor as a Multisync:  about half the time, it thinks I
have an EGA, and the other half, a Multisync.

Does anyone else out there with this combination know about any settings
in either place that will fix this?  The NEC manual doesn't mention ATI,
and the ATI doesn't mention the 3D, so I don't have any direct instructions
on how to set either one up.  What I've done is to tell the card I have
a Multisync, and set the monitor with "Mode" on, and "Color" auto, but
other settings work just as well on the monitor, and the card seems to be
ignoring what I tell it.

Alternatively, does anyone know of any way in software to tell the ATI card
that I've got a different type of monitor than it sensed?  Once it thinks
I have an EGA, it refuses to act as a VGA, even if I run the VCONFIG program.

Duncan Murdoch
dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu

gcw20877@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (G. Wang) (08/31/89)

In article <411@maytag.waterloo.edu> dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch) writes:
>
>I've just got a new ATI VGA Wonder card, and am using it with a NEC Multisync
>3D monitor.  My problem is that the ATI card doesn't consistently 
>recognize the monitor as a Multisync:  about half the time, it thinks I
>have an EGA, and the other half, a Multisync.
>
>Does anyone else out there with this combination know about any settings
>in either place that will fix this?  The NEC manual doesn't mention ATI,
>and the ATI doesn't mention the 3D, so I don't have any direct instructions
>on how to set either one up.  What I've done is to tell the card I have
>a Multisync, and set the monitor with "Mode" on, and "Color" auto, but
>other settings work just as well on the monitor, and the card seems to be
>ignoring what I tell it.
>
>Alternatively, does anyone know of any way in software to tell the ATI card
>that I've got a different type of monitor than it sensed?  Once it thinks
>I have an EGA, it refuses to act as a VGA, even if I run the VCONFIG program.
>
I also have an ATI VGA Wonder card with BIOS V3M-1.03... I use it
with a Goldstar Superscan 1440 with no problems... However, sometimes
the cable conntecting to the card gets loose and as a result the computer
boots up in the wrong mode, EGA mode as you stated.. What I do then is
re-adjust the cable and then re-boot the computer (A cold boot not warm)
and it works fine...

As for configuring the card, the program you want to use is VSETUP
*NOT* VCONFIG... Vsetup will do the low-level settings such as monitor
type, boot up video mode, mouse port, etc... VCONFIG is to be used
once you have all the hardware settings correct (say you just want
to change the current video mode to EGA, CGA or HERC)...
The manual does a fairly good job of explaining which files do what...

Hope this helps.


George Wang
University of Illinois
Gcw20877@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu

dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch) (08/31/89)

In article <1895@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> gcw20877@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (G. Wang) writes:
>In article <411@maytag.waterloo.edu> dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch) writes:
>>
>>I've just got a new ATI VGA Wonder card, and am using it with a NEC Multisync
>>3D monitor.  My problem is that the ATI card doesn't consistently 
>>recognize the monitor as a Multisync:  about half the time, it thinks I
>>have an EGA, and the other half, a Multisync.

>I also have an ATI VGA Wonder card with BIOS V3M-1.03... I use it
>with a Goldstar Superscan 1440 with no problems... However, sometimes
>the cable conntecting to the card gets loose and as a result the computer
>boots up in the wrong mode, EGA mode as you stated.. What I do then is
>re-adjust the cable and then re-boot the computer (A cold boot not warm)
>and it works fine...

I may have a cable problem, but it's quite tightly attached - I even did up
the screws, to no effect.  An ATI techie told me that some NEC cables have
pins pushed in, and lo and behold, mine did.  Fixing it didn't help, though.

>As for configuring the card, the program you want to use is VSETUP
>*NOT* VCONFIG... Vsetup will do the low-level settings such as monitor
>type, boot up video mode, mouse port, etc... VCONFIG is to be used
>once you have all the hardware settings correct (say you just want
>to change the current video mode to EGA, CGA or HERC)...

Actually, it appears that VSETUP only sets things that the card can't figure
out for itself.  Since it thinks it knows I have an EGA (sometimes), it
ignores the fact that I told it I have a Multisync.  I think it uses this
information to distinguish among all the Multisync types, but only when
it thinks it has to.

But, I finally got a solution from ATI.  There's an _undocumented_ option
to VCONFIG that allows you to override the monitor detection.  What I use is
  VCONFIG MONITOR MULTISYNC
in my Autoexec, and when the card comes up as an EGA, it stops and waits while
I "switch monitors", then comes up again as a Multisync.  If it recognized the
Multisync first off, then nothing goes wrong.

>The manual does a fairly good job of explaining which files do what...

Except for the undocumented stuff... :-(

Thanks for your suggestions, and also thanks to everyone who responded via
email.  

Now all I want to know is what the video formats are - the manual says
the extended modes are all stored the same as VGA 320x200x256, but that's
all stored in a single page.  Can you (or anyone else) tell me how 
the card splits up pixels across the 64K pages?

Duncan Murdoch

mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (09/01/89)

The three NEC Multisync monitors I have all have pins at the computer
end of the cable which have flat ends. On two occasions these have
pushed the little sockets in the computer very far back, so that
if the plug gets a little loose it loses contact. The solution is to
examine the socket and carefully fix if necessary. (This happened on
Dell 310's).

Doug MCDonald