dbullis@cognos.UUCP (Dave Bullis) (05/03/91)
The Boca SVGA board is available locally at a reasonable price. I've seen it mentioned here so thought I'd ask a few questions, mostly directed to people who have this board: 1) The board has only one 14.? MHz crystal on it. How does it generate the different clocks required? I assume it uses a VCO or something. Is this an acceptable way of doing things? 2) The manual says it supports 800x600 at 60Hz. This seems a little low to me. Is there any way to speed this up to 70Hz? It also supports 1024x768 at 60Hz but I couldn't afford a screen to do justice to anything faster anyways. 3) It has the tseng 4000 chip on it. Can I assume its compatible with s/w which uses the 4000 (in particular Roell's X386 under ISC)? 4) Is the board reasonably fast? Especially compared to other tseng 4000 boards (STB, speedSTAR, ...)? 5) Can anyone send me CLOCK.EXE from X386? -- Dave Bullis Cognos, Inc VOICE: (613) 738-1440 FAX: (613) 738-0002 3755 Riverside Dr. P.O. Box 9707 WORK: uunet!mitel!cunews!cognos!dbullis Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA K1G 3Z4 HOME: dave@sillub.ocunix.on.ca "I didn't know the terminals were haunted. The salesman didn't tell us."
dbullis@cognos.UUCP (Dave Bullis) (05/22/91)
The Boca SVGA board is available locally at a reasonable price.
I've seen it mentioned here so thought I'd ask a few questions,
mostly directed to people who have this board:
1) The board has only one 14.? MHz crystal on it. How does it generate
the different clocks required? I assume it uses a VCO or something.
Is this an acceptable way of doing things?
2) The manual says it supports 800x600 at 60Hz. This seems a little low
to me. Is there any way to speed this up to 70Hz? It also supports
1024x768 at 60Hz.
(I saw a post that mentioned the speedStar Plus does 1024x768 at 70Hz.
Is this true. Is it common for Tseng 4000 based boards?)
3) It has the tseng 4000 chip on it. Can I assume its compatible with
s/w which uses the 4000 (in particular Roell's X386 under ISC)?
4) Is the board reasonably fast? Especially compared to other tseng 4000
boards (STB, speedSTAR, ...)?
--
Dave Bullis Cognos, Inc VOICE: (613) 738-1440 FAX: (613) 738-0002
3755 Riverside Dr. P.O. Box 9707 WORK: uunet!mitel!cunews!cognos!dbullis
Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA K1G 3Z4 HOME: dave@sillub.ocunix.on.ca
"I didn't know the terminals were haunted. The salesman didn't tell us."cg108dbd@icogsci1.ucsd.edu (Steve -Social Hacker) (05/22/91)
--=}>> On 21 May 91 21:17:33 GMT, dbullis@cognos.UUCP (Dave Bullis) said:
DB> The Boca SVGA board is available locally at a reasonable price.
DB> I've seen it mentioned here so thought I'd ask a few questions,
DB> mostly directed to people who have this board:
DB> 1) The board has only one 14.? MHz crystal on it. How does it generate
DB> the different clocks required? I assume it uses a VCO or something.
DB> Is this an acceptable way of doing things?
DB> 2) The manual says it supports 800x600 at 60Hz. This seems a little low
DB> to me. Is there any way to speed this up to 70Hz? It also supports
DB> 1024x768 at 60Hz.
DB> (I saw a post that mentioned the speedStar Plus does 1024x768 at 70Hz.
DB> Is this true. Is it common for Tseng 4000 based boards?)
DB> 3) It has the tseng 4000 chip on it. Can I assume its compatible with
DB> s/w which uses the 4000 (in particular Roell's X386 under ISC)?
DB> 4) Is the board reasonably fast? Especially compared to other tseng 4000
DB> boards (STB, speedSTAR, ...)?
DB> --
DB> Dave Bullis Cognos, Inc VOICE: (613) 738-1440 FAX: (613) 738-0002
DB> 3755 Riverside Dr. P.O. Box 9707 WORK: uunet!mitel!cunews!cognos!dbullis
DB> Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA K1G 3Z4 HOME: dave@sillub.ocunix.on.ca
DB> "I didn't know the terminals were haunted. The salesman didn't tell us."
Well, I have sent about 10 reviews on the BOCA card by Email to people
who were interested, so I figure that it merits posting.
I bought the BOCA card with 512K RAM because the 1Meg version was out
of stock at the time. The difference between the two is ONLY the 4
missing RAM chips, and they fully specified which chips I needed.
After buying and installing the other 512, it knew it had 1Meg and
functioned accordingly.
The monitor I am using is a CompuDyne 1024, which is far from the
highest quality, and I have seen some of the same model that did not
work with the BOCA card at all. I am very aware that this is a low
end monitor, but note that your mileage may vary.
My previous experience with VGA was the STB PowerGraph, cloned by
CompuDyne. I am told that it was an exact OEM copy of the PowerGraph.
It had 512K and did all normal extended VGA modes _except_ for
800x600x256 and 1024x768x256. The high resolutions at 16 colors
worked fine.
There was a _noticeable_ speed increase over the STB card, so I pulled
up a program called VidSpeed to check my hunch.
(Vidspeed is a small shareware program that measures the data transfer
rate to the video card in all available modes.)
Sure enough, the BOCA card scored almost double the STB in speed.
STB: ~2430 K/Sec in most modes, a little higher in some, and lower in
others.
BOCA: ~4600 K/Sec in all modes, with a fraction lower in some EGA
modes.
This difference is very detectable in the higher res modes (like GIF
viewing), but I was surprised to note that DOS itself seemed so much
faster on such commands as DIR and others that are primarily limited by
the video text speed.
I felt that the documentation was thorough and clear, and did contain
a list of all valid video modes, and their specs. I do not have it
here, so I can't say what the different frequencies are. I do know
that 1024x768 has to be interlaced on my monitor, which gives it the
usual annoying flicker. 800x600 does not have this problem, so it is
my mode of choice. :)
It came with a high-density disk containing some utilities and
drivers. The supplied drivers were for Windows 3.0, Autocad,
Wordperfect, Ventura Publisher, and a few others that I can't recall.
The included software also had a nifty font loader and a font editor,
but I think the default font is just fine.
As a side note, the STB font did NOT slash it's Zero's, which was an
incredibly annoying thing to use after getting used to years of
properly slashed 0's. :-)
There is also a program called VMODE that selects the active video
mode. I find this very useful for programs that leave you in some
absurd CGA mode. It uses a select-menu or takes command line
parameters for use in batch files. If I remember correctly, the
available VGA text modes are
80x25
80x43
100x40
80x60
40x25
132x??
and some others.
If anyone really needs the specifics, send mail and I will dig up the
manual at home and look it up.
It uses a Tseng ET4000 chip set, and has been compatible with every
ET4000 program I have tried (Quite a few.) I posted another article
to this group yesterday concerning the problems with running ET3000
software.
Overall, I am a happy customer, and I would recommend the BOCA card.
The price seems pretty reasonable. (~ $150 w/ 1Meg )
Please forgive me if any of this is not correct, or if I have left
something out. I don't have the docs here or I would write in more
numbers.
-Steve
--
}>> Steve Haehnichen <<{
shaehnichen@ucsd.edu Disclaimer: UCSD and I do not share any opinions.cg108dbd@icogsci1.ucsd.edu (Steve -Social Hacker) (05/22/91)
Oops, I should probably at least mention what kind of system I have
the BOCA in...
Amstrad 386/33 MHz
Compudyne 1024 Monitor
7 Meg of RAM
RLL Hard disks
PC-DOS v3.30
All wait states turned down,
I/O BUS speed cranked up.
... Power by San Diego Gas & Electric :)
-Steve
--
}>> Steve Haehnichen <<{
shaehnichen@ucsd.edu Disclaimer: UCSD and I do not share any opinions.dpavey@cccbbs.UUCP (doug pavey) (05/25/91)
dbullis@cognos.UUCP (Dave Bullis) writes: > The Boca SVGA board is available locally at a reasonable price. Please beware of this board by Boca. Several local merchants have stopped using this board as it is very non-standard. It is not supported by WIN3. and is very flaky in it's operation. I would seriously consider using a more well known board like paradise or ATI VGA Wonder if you need to run standard VGA applications. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Douglas A. Pavey Programmer/Analyst Syncor International +1 513/984-2839 9-5 EDT dpavey@cccbbs.UUCP This is not an official document of Syncor International. This work is the sole responsibility of the author and has not been
kc2x+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kwan-Ju Chen) (05/26/91)
>Please beware of this board by Boca. Several local merchants have >stopped >using this board as it is very non-standard. It is not supported by WIN3. >and is very flaky in it's operation. >I would seriously consider using a more well known board like paradise or >ATI VGA Wonder if you need to run standard VGA applications. >Douglas A. Pavey >Programmer/Analyst >Syncor International >+1 513/984-2839 9-5 EDT >dpavey@cccbbs.UUCP What are you talking about? I have a Boca Super VGA board and it supports Window 3.0. Where did you heard the rumor?
tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (05/29/91)
In article <3w2g31w164w@cccbbs.UUCP> dpavey@cccbbs.UUCP (doug pavey) writes: >dbullis@cognos.UUCP (Dave Bullis) writes: > >> The Boca SVGA board is available locally at a reasonable price. > >Please beware of this board by Boca. Several local merchants have stopped >using this board as it is very non-standard. It is not supported by WIN3. >and is very flaky in it's operation. What total bogosity. Boca uses the same chipsets as everyone else, they have Windows drivers for all their video boards and as far as I've ever seen, they work just fine. I have a Boca Super VGA+ at home running Windows 3 and I love it. 1024x768x256 non-interlaced, for $150. How wrong can you go.
dpavey@cccbbs.UUCP (doug pavey) (05/30/91)
kc2x+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kwan-Ju Chen) writes: I wrote: > >I would seriously consider using a more well known board like paradise or > >ATI VGA Wonder if you need to run standard VGA applications. > > What are you talking about? I have a Boca Super VGA board and it > supports Window 3.0. Where did you heard the rumor? Three local merchants (albeit small but clients of mine), have stopped using the boca board because it was non-standard and flaky in it's opeartion and have switched to ATI VGA Wonder because it is supported by WIN3 and many DTP applications. I am glad to hear that drivers now exist for WIN3, but as of last month, they did not have the drivers readily available and were not very much help in this area. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Douglas A. Pavey Programmer/Analyst Syncor International +1 513/984-2839 9-5 EDT dpavey@cccbbs.UUCP This is not an official document of Syncor International. This work is the sole responsibility of the author and has not been