traiger@oxy.edu (Saul Traiger) (02/13/91)
In article <10730011@hpspkla.spk.hp.com> bollard@hpspkla.spk.hp.com (Lee M. Bollard) writes: >I'm considering buying a Sony-1304 monitor and either a Diamond >SpeedSTAR 1meg video card or an Orchid Prodesigner II. > >My primary concern is running Windows non-interlaced at a high >resolution. I do not recommend buying an Orchid card. I have two machines, one with an Orchid Prodesigner +, the other with an OEM Paradise Chipset card which cost a lot less than the Orchid card. Aside from the fact that it took Orchid a long time to provide a Windows 3.0 driver, I've found that the performance of the clone card is much better than the Orchid card. I haven't been particularly pleased with Orchid's support of the Prodesigner +. ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo o Saul Traiger oooooo Cognitive Science o ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo o Internet:traiger@oxy.edu *----* Occidental College o ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo o CIS:71631,717 oooooo Los Angeles, CA 90041 o ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
bollard@hpspkla.spk.hp.com (Lee M. Bollard) (02/14/91)
I'm considering buying a Sony-1304 monitor and either a Diamond SpeedSTAR 1meg video card or an Orchid Prodesigner II. My primary concern is running Windows non-interlaced at a high resolution. I've heard that either of these hardware combos will run Win at 1024x768 non-interlaced, but could someone fill me in on how many colors I can get? I assume 16 will work, but don't know about 256(?). Also I've heard that 70hz operation is better than 60hz. What can I expect from this hardware combo? 70hz x 1024 x 768 x 256 ? Would I have to spend alot more money to get that? I'm really just trying to get maximum bang for my buck on a new video system for Windows. Thanks for ANY suggestions. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Lee Bollard unix: bollard@hpspkla.spk.hp.com Hewlett-Packard HPDesk: Lee BOLLARD / HP1000/53 Spokane Division Compuserve: 72105,423 (509)921-4608 * Opinions are my own, not my employer's * -----------------------------------------------------------------------
tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (02/15/91)
In article <10730011@hpspkla.spk.hp.com> bollard@hpspkla.spk.hp.com (Lee M. Bollard) writes: >I'm considering buying a Sony-1304 monitor and either a Diamond >SpeedSTAR 1meg video card or an Orchid Prodesigner II. > >My primary concern is running Windows non-interlaced at a high >resolution. > >I've heard that either of these hardware combos will run Win at >1024x768 non-interlaced, but could someone fill me in on how many >colors I can get? I assume 16 will work, but don't know about 256(?). The Boca SuperVGA Plus is currently making the rounds at about $150. It has a meg of RAM and the Tseng ET4000 chipset (like the Orchid PDII). It comes with drivers for Windows, WordPerfect and so forth. I get wonderful looking 1024x768x256 non interlaced out of it, on an NEC 4D 16" monitor (current street price about $950). **HOWEVER** the Windows driver is clearly interlaced. I am still looking for a way around this as I prefer non-interlaced. By the way the new generic ET4000 drivers work fine and are newer than what Boca distributes; they appear to fix a couple of blitting bugs in the August Windows driver. Still interlaced though.
traub@rtf.bt.co.uk (Michael Traub) (02/18/91)
In article <145048@tiger.oxy.edu> traiger@oxy.edu (Saul Traiger) writes: >In article <10730011@hpspkla.spk.hp.com> bollard@hpspkla.spk.hp.com (Lee M. Bollard) writes: >>I'm considering buying a Sony-1304 monitor and either a Diamond >>SpeedSTAR 1meg video card or an Orchid Prodesigner II. >> >>My primary concern is running Windows non-interlaced at a high >>resolution. > >I do not recommend buying an Orchid card. I have two machines, one with >an Orchid Prodesigner +, the other with an OEM Paradise Chipset card which >cost a lot less than the Orchid card. Aside from the fact that it took >Orchid a long time to provide a Windows 3.0 driver, I've found that the >performance of the clone card is much better than the Orchid card. I haven't >been particularly pleased with Orchid's support of the Prodesigner +. Which has nothing to do with the Prodesigner II! The Prodesigner II uses the faster TSENG ET4000 chip set and is generally less buggy than the Prodesigner +. Orchid are definitely NOT the fastest company around for providing graphics drivers, though the Prodesigner II comes with Windows 3 drivers so this is not a problem. I use 1024x768x256 mode in Windows on a non-interlaced display (NEC 4D). Don't bother thinking about using an interlaced display, the resulting flicker is eye destroying! I bought the card with 512k RAM then upgraded to 1M byte by buying the chips separately, buy the 1M version direct if you need to waste your money. Note that the 800x600x256 mode also needs 1M of RAM which confounds my maths but I tried it with only 512k and it was a no-go. In 1024x768x256 mode and with about 70 or so icons on the screen it takes about 2.5 seconds for a total redraw on my 486, but you can't expect too much from an AT bus anyway. Unfortunately Orchid do not supply a 1024x768x16 driver which would be the ideal situation, windows doesn't even use 256 colour mode and you still have to put up with dithering! You can view 256 colour .BMP's with Paintbrush but you can't really edit them as you only get 16 colours to play with. Note that this is a general windows problem, not peculiar to the PRO II (at least that's what Orchid Tech Support told me!). Michael Traub ------------- BT Customer Systems, Brighton Systems Centre. traub@rtf.bt.co.uk
rdippold@maui.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) (02/20/91)
In article <1991Feb18.150536.23536@rtf.bt.co.uk> traub@rtf.bt.co.uk (Michael Traub) writes: >Unfortunately Orchid do not supply a 1024x768x16 driver which would be the ideal I've been using the Orchid PD II 1024x768x16 driver for over a month now. I suggest you call tech support or download it from the Orchid BBS.
traub@rtf.bt.co.uk (Michael Traub) (02/21/91)
In article <1991Feb19.204147.26992@qualcomm.com> rdippold@maui.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes: >In article <1991Feb18.150536.23536@rtf.bt.co.uk> traub@rtf.bt.co.uk (Michael Traub) writes: >>Unfortunately Orchid do not supply a 1024x768x16 driver which would be the ideal > >I've been using the Orchid PD II 1024x768x16 driver for over a month now. I >suggest you call tech support or download it from the Orchid BBS. Bad slip up on my part there! Yes your absolutely right, it was on my original driver disk. I had converted the setup.inf supplied on the driver disk to work with my 3-1/2 inch distributuion of windows and inadvertantly forgot to copy some of the driver entries. I had someone local pick me up on this as well. I tried the 1024x768x16 driver, but my 800x600x256 EARTH.BMP file (nice 256 colour globe) looked disgusting with only sixteen colours so I've gone back to 256 again. While on the point it would be nice if Orchid supplied the drivers with two setup.inf files, one for 5-1/4 and one for 3-1/2. Sorry to have spread disinformation around the network, I HATE it when I see so many half-truths being spread around, and now I'm guilty as well! Michael Traub BT Customer Systems, Brighton Systems Centre. traub@rtf.bt.co.uk