Re: Why no 720x480 bitmap resolution in VGA?

Posted on 2023-04-26, 15:25

by

by wbc

in Milliways

in Milliways

actually 720x480 16 colors is possible on plain VGA, and shares its CRTC parameters with 360x480 Mode-X (see examples in Tweak 1.6b ). On the other hand, it does not have any actual advatages, has non-square pixel aspect ratio on 4:3 displays, and most LCD displays will sample it as 640x480, …

---

Re: wbcbz7's MS-DOS VGA TSR goodies

Posted on 2023-01-12, 19:56

by

by wbc

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

jbenam wrote on 2023-01-08, 12:34: Did you ever release that WIP feature firmware for OSSC? IIRC I have tested it recently with the latest firmware and didn’t seem to find many issues with it. it's not officially reelased yet, plus sources/binaries are on another machine I don't have access to for …

---

Re: FastDoom. A new Doom port for DOS, optimized to be as fast as possible for 386/486 personal computers!

Posted on 2022-12-09, 21:13

by

by wbc

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

For VGA cards the only way to do 160x100@256 is by reducing the rendering resolution and doubling drawn vertical pixels in software because the minimum resolution is 320x200 on 256 colors with VGA hardware (unless there is some trick I don't know you can stretch scanlines vertically by setting …

---

Re: FastDoom. A new Doom port for DOS, optimized to be as fast as possible for 386/486 personal computers!

Posted on 2022-10-06, 14:40

by

by wbc

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

thanks for the tech insight, that explains why Quake becomes horribly slow and RAM-hungry with d_mipscale set to 0 :)

---

Re: FastDoom. A new Doom port for DOS, optimized to be as fast as possible for 386/486 personal computers!

Posted on 2022-10-04, 17:24

by

by wbc

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

I just came across an idea, if we have enough of RAM, what about implementing texture mip-mapping? I guess it will not have a much performance impact on wall and sprite rendering (plus it's complicated anyway due to the way sprites are stored) , but for textured flats it can theoretically boost the …

---

Re: Which Pentium IIs can be underclocked?

Posted on 2022-10-04, 16:33

by

by wbc

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

gerwin wrote on 2022-10-02, 22:49: I only see an executable and a readme file, no source? ah yes, I meant sources are in my GitHub repo linked in the previous post, sorry for the inconvenience :)

---

Re: Need help to configure an old ISA 1688F Soundcard (Midi?)

Posted on 2022-10-04, 16:32

by

by wbc

in DOS

in DOS

it's FORMOSA INDUSTRIAL COMPUTING, INC. CINAACTION SC1630 according to FCC ID on the card's top and Total Hardware '99: https://www.arvutimuuseum.ee/th99/i/E-H/52078.htm

---

Re: Need help to configure an old ISA 1688F Soundcard (Midi?)

Posted on 2022-10-04, 13:29

by

by wbc

in DOS

in DOS

Couldyou please post a photo of your sound card? You can try to locate the jumper named "Auto-configuraion" or "Jumperless", set it to ON and try UNISOUND to configure the card from the DOS, it seems to work with ES1688.

---

Re: FastDoom. A new Doom port for DOS, optimized to be as fast as possible for 386/486 personal computers!

Posted on 2022-10-02, 21:10

by

by wbc

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

AC-97 and possibly additional PCI soundcard support will be wonderful. well the AC97 support is kind of tricky part, as you have to support at least two diffferent PCI controller interfaces (Intel/ALi and VIA), resample everything to 48khz and run a MIDI synthesizer like TiMidity or FluidSynth in …

---

Re: S3VBEFIX - PC\MS-DOS TSR fix for S3 VESA 2.0 video BIOS

Posted on 2022-10-02, 20:06

by

by wbc

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

BTW, could support be extended to the VBE Protected Mode Interface? Said interface has a protected mode version of the "set display start" function. Programs that are using it makes "wait for vertical retrace" parameter of S3VBEFIX do nothing (especially with Build-based games as mentioned by The …

---

Re: S3VBEFIX - PC\MS-DOS TSR fix for S3 VESA 2.0 video BIOS

Posted on 2022-10-02, 20:01

by

by wbc

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

meanwhile.... S3VBEFIX v0.6.0 ! List of new features: VESA BIOS Extensions reported version override Linear Frame Buffer control (default, off or force on) Maximum video page count limit setting - useful for apps/games with broken double/triple-buffer support (i.e. fix Build Engine games HUD/weapon …

---

Re: Which Pentium IIs can be underclocked?

Posted on 2022-10-01, 20:27

by

by wbc

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Moreover, I finally managed to actiate L2 cache under x2 multiplier, and it seems to run without any freezes or issues - stay tuned for more updates :) had no free time to post that (you know whom to blame, unfortunately), in general, I grab coreboot sources and made a small utility to tweak PII L2 …

---

Re: Commander Keen problem!

Posted on 2022-10-01, 20:16

by

by wbc

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

the scrolling troubles on Matrox/ATi cards is because most VGA cards latch CRTC start address at VSYNC leading edge and Horizontal Pixel Panning (0x3C0 reg 0x13) at trailing edge, and faulty ones allow it to change at every scanline, hence the issue :) afaik it needs binary patching to fix it and …

---

Re: S3VBEFIX - PC\MS-DOS TSR fix for S3 VESA 2.0 video BIOS

Posted on 2022-10-01, 15:53

by

by wbc

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

thanks for the bugfix :) confirmed on ViRGE/DX with 2.01.07 BIOS and Chasm v 1.6 (crashes with Runtime Error 216 without fix). yeah the bank procedure is somewhat buggy, @bankproc_get, for example, always returns 0x59 due to value read from CRTC register not preserved during lock_extensions call, …

---

Re: Which Pentium IIs can be underclocked?

Posted on 2022-07-08, 19:20

by

by wbc

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

have to bump the thread a little :) recently managed to repair my multiplier-unlocked P2-333 (seemingly, as i found it without any case or heatsink so I don't even know its S-Spec or original speed): https://i.imgur.com/8ekGRc4h.jpg It was not able to enable on-board L2 cache, being stuck in Celeron …

---

wbcbz7's MS-DOS VGA TSR goodies

Posted on 2022-02-07, 19:36

by

by wbc

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

Hello everyone, long time no see (busy with ZX and modern PC stuff :)) Recently I dusted off my archives and decided to release this small collection of tiny MS-DOS resident .COM applications made by me around 2015-2019 and up to today, mostly for fixing small quirks in VGA graphics cards …

---

Re: Help with dead Daewoo AL486V-D motherboard, -- on POST card

Posted on 2020-11-18, 18:44

by

by wbc

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

feipoa wrote on 2018-08-23, 23:05: Anyone have the ALi M1429 datasheet? I may need to start probing if I can find the time. sorry for necroposting, but this link seems to have an extensive but incomplete (missing some registers and bit values) register reference to the M1429. still looking for full …

---

Re: How do I flash VBIOS on an S3 card?

Posted on 2020-01-18, 10:30

by

by wbc

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I'm trying to identify the offsets in the bios of s3 cards (virge, virge dx and trio 64v+) which controls the memory and core frequency (to my knowledge they are syncro). AFAIR, the 2.01.07 ViRGE/DX video BIOS offers those useful data offsets: 0x45 - BIOS power up string (max. 96 characters) 0xA5 - …

---

Re: LCD monitor VGA compatibility database

Posted on 2019-08-15, 19:52

by

by wbc

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

| Kukoo2 | | | X | Not smooth, glitchy | as we have discovered, Kukoo2 doesn't reset attribute controller address/data flip-flop before writing to horizontal pixel panning register for smooth scrolling, and some video BIOSes leave that flip-flop set after mode switch, so as result it's not properly …

---

Re: LCD monitor VGA compatibility database

Posted on 2019-08-10, 21:58

by

by wbc

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm using a weird combo of NT68676-based LVDS controller board (featuring VGA, DVI and HDMI with audio inputs) and a couple of spare LCD panels as my second monitor, so I decided to test this one through the suite. So, I plugged a Samsung LTM220M1 LCD panel (22" 1680x1050 TN), then flashed the …

---