brian@leah.Albany.Edu (Brian King) (08/12/90)
I seem to having a little problem. I just got a fractal program from simtel that does fractals in some super VGA modes. I want to be able to generate fractals in the background while doing something else, but I can't switch back to the program manager without getting a bunch of garbage on the screen. The Windows reference states that if you set the video memory for 'High Graphics' in the PIF file, it sets aside 128K for the video memory. The mode I am mainly interested in, 640x480x256, obviously needs more than 128K. However, it runs fine in the foreground. Yes, I clicked on retain video memory, but still the same problem... the same for Monitor port set for High Graphics. Is there any way that I can set aside extra memory for the video? Or isn't this the problem? Has anyone else had this problem in super VGA modes? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. By the way, if it matters, the configuration is: -386/25Mhz, AMI Bios (4/30/89), MS-DOS 4.01, ATI VGA Wonder w/ 512K -Brian King University at Albany Internet: brian@leah.albany.edu
jls@hsv3.UUCP (James Seidman) (08/14/90)
In article <3519@leah.Albany.Edu> brian@leah.Albany.Edu (Brian King) writes: >I seem to having a little problem. I just got a fractal program from simtel >that does fractals in some super VGA modes. I want to be able to generate >fractals in the background while doing something else, but I can't switch back >to the program manager without getting a bunch of garbage on the screen. The >Windows reference states that if you set the video memory for 'High Graphics' >in the PIF file, it sets aside 128K for the video memory. The mode I am >mainly interested in, 640x480x256, obviously needs more than 128K. However, >it runs fine in the foreground. Yes, I clicked on retain video memory, but >still the same problem... the same for Monitor port set for High Graphics. >Is there any way that I can set aside extra memory for the video? Or isn't >this the problem? Has anyone else had this problem in super VGA modes? Any >help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. The problem is that when an app is running in the background, rather than really using the graphics card, it uses the "Virtual Display Driver" (VDD) which is part of windows. This driver does not understand the SuperVGA modes at all, so there's basically no solution. I understand that in Windows 3.1 the driver will be rewritten to at least handle Video-7 proprietary modes. We're also working on a VDD for 3.0 to take care of this. Of course, this doesn't help you since you have an ATI card... BTW, I don't think you mentioned what graphics mode you are running Windows in. If you run it in 640x480x16 mode, with the standard driver, then you might be able to get away with generating the fractal in the background. I wouldn't could on it, however... -- Jim Seidman (Drax), the accidental engineer. UUCP: ames!vsi1!hsv3!jls ARPA: hsv3!jls@apple.com
MUHRTH@tubvm.cs.tu-berlin.de (Thomas Muhr) (08/16/90)
Interesting that you only have trouble getting super-vga-mode based programs running. We never get an appl which uses better than cga-modes running in a win dow. But, EGA modes at least are clearly displayed. The message is something like: You have to switch one application to text mode, bla........ I tried every combination of switches in the pif-file (not every really, thats a exponential task..) Any help ? - Thomas