walk@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Todd Walk) (05/14/91)
Can anyone give me reliable "low-level" (bios or hardware level only) methods for telling apart MDA, HERCULES, CGA, EGA, MCGA, and VGA adapters. I can tell the memory of the EGA cards by a bios call, and another bios call that is availiable on only MCGA and VGA tells what the current adapter is (for multiple adapters), and I may be able to tell them apart from it. Maybe I need to get a book specializing in video programming... Suggestions? Email prefered. Todd Walk walk@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu
phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Phil Howard KA9WGN) (05/14/91)
walk@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Todd Walk) writes: > Can anyone give me reliable "low-level" (bios or hardware level only) >methods for telling apart MDA, HERCULES, CGA, EGA, MCGA, and VGA adapters. >I can tell the memory of the EGA cards by a bios call, and another bios >call that is availiable on only MCGA and VGA tells what the current adapter >is (for multiple adapters), and I may be able to tell them apart from it. >Maybe I need to get a book specializing in video programming... Suggestions? >Email prefered. Todd, did you not care about SVGA vs. VGA? I'd also be interested in any ways that can be done to detect the variety of different SVGA implementations. I have a project in mind that is almost certainly going to require register level SVGA operations, such as shifting the starting memory addresses to affect real-time smooth panning, etc. I also want to use direct access to memory most of the time for speed, as I expect to be using multiple fonts and maybe combining text and graphics. I've looked at the VESA drivers, and they don't look like they will do all that I want to do. I'll probably try to get code for programs like fractint that implement so many different VGA architectures and go from there. But the thing that bothered me was that the user had to pick which type of VGA she has, with details some people might not even know. -- /***************************************************************************\ / Phil Howard -- KA9WGN -- phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu | Guns don't aim guns at \ \ Lietuva laisva -- Brivu Latviju -- Eesti vabaks | people; CRIMINALS do!! / \***************************************************************************/