VOGONS

Common searches


VESA Fix Utility Listing (for old video cards)

Topic actions

  • This topic is locked. You cannot reply or edit posts.

Reply 22 of 35, by swaaye

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
retro games 100 wrote:

Please note: the scitech ftp website download link (stated in the OP) does not appear to work anymore. I've tried several times over several days - no joy.

Also, swaaye's homepage download links do not appear to work either, which also feature in the OP.

Uhg.

Yeah Roadrunner here dropped the homepage server and I forgot the downloads were on it. I'll have to fix them up.

Reply 27 of 35, by retro games 100

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
swaaye wrote:

Ok I archived up all the files from the Scitech FTP. I'd downloaded them months ago. I uploaded the archive to a free file host. We'll see how long it lasts. The download link is in the guide.

Thanks a lot swaaye, I just DL'd a copy! 😁

Reply 28 of 35, by retro games 100

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
swaaye wrote:

Gx00VBE VESA VBE/Core 3.0 (G100, G200, G400)
http://www.rift.dk/page.php?7

Gx00VBE is a VESA VBE/Core V3.0 (otherwise known as VESA 3) implementation for the G100, G200 and G400 based cards by Matrox. […]
Show full quote

Gx00VBE is a VESA VBE/Core V3.0 (otherwise known as VESA 3) implementation for the G100, G200 and G400 based cards by Matrox.

Gx00VBE is a TSR, meaning that it won't flash your BIOS, only stay resident until the next reboot. It takes up just over 7k of basemem. I recommend you load it high manually since it doesn't do it by itself.

It works with both PCI and AGP boards.

Development has ceased. The latest 1.0b4 seems to work fine though.

Has anyone got a copy of this [Matrox Gx00VBE utility], please? The home page download links are dead, for this utility (version 1.0 b4). Thanks a lot if someone can provide me with this freeware utility. 😀

Reply 31 of 35, by kithylin

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Just a note for this thread, well a few notes.

1.) Vote for sticky too.
2.) I have verizon fios here and 2 dedicated always-on computers (all electronics in house house on UPS, Both run a web server out of my house)

If any of these programs need mirroring, talk to me and if you want i can mirror any of em for ya and run it indefinitely for this here if you want a mirror. 😀 Or even if someone has a whole collection of everything listed in this thread and you could RAR it up and toss it over i'll put it in a folder and put it up for ya'll. These are great tools, I would hate to see em lost due to something like time and websites disappearing....

you can reach me at: admin(at)outfoxed(dot)net

Reply 32 of 35, by RogueTrip2012

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Just want to add a thanks to the list.

Couldn't get Need For Speed SE (1st game) working with my Voodoo 5 5500 AGP till I installed SDD 6.53 under DOS. Its weird it says it doesn't support my card but when I enable it the game works up until a Winning race video that is distorted but other videos so far play and game looks good for 640x480.

The VESA Fix for 3dfx didn't help on this game.

To get the windows version working I had to drop Hardware Acceleration down to Basic Acceleration and reboot which seems more annoying than just enabling SDD.

Anyone have a idea what part of SDD helps make NFSSE work? Maybe something simplier I can try out.

System used for game:
Windows 98SE
Soyo TISU (i815ep B-step)
Pentium 3-S 1.4GHz
512MB SDram PC133 CL2
Voodoo 5 5500 AGP
Diamond Monster MX300
Intel 10/100 NIC
NEC USB High Speed PCI
Pioneer 16x DVD-ROM
Western Digital 160GB HDD
Corsair Builder Series 430Watt

Reply 33 of 35, by Stiletto

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Wasn't quite sure where to stash this.

New (I think):
UniVBE Modified Drivers (known as modified.zip and univbe-mods.zip)

So, you are trying some of your old dos programs and find out that they will not work with your new video card. The programs tell you that your video card is not VESA compatible / that no SVGA hardware is found or something similar. You think you need a VESA TSR but the manufacturer of your video card claims that that is not needed because your video card supports VBE 2.0/3.0.
If the video card is not being recognized correctly, then that might be caused by the fact that some games use a built-in version of univbe/SDD (UVBELib) and are not able to use the VBE BIOS from the video card. UVBELib generates a driver (univbe.drv) that contains video card specific code. If you have a video card that is newer than the version of UVBELib that is being used then there is a problem. This problem can be fixed by using a driver (univbe.drv) which is modified to use the BIOS of the video card. Modified drivers for version 5.1a, 5.2, 5.3, and 5.3a of UVBELib

Useful in UVBELib 5.1a games (Hyper 3-D Pinball (Tilt!)), 5.2 games (Megarace II), 5.3 games (Discworld II, Dreams to Reality, Mortal Kombat Trilogy) and 5.3a games (Constructor, Katharsis)

And also:
VBEPlus 0.81 beta (as opposed to the previously uploaded VBEPlus 0.8 )
VBEPlus is a TSR that adds new modes unsupported by the VESA BIOS. Highly configurable, but may not work with all cards.
VBEPlus 0..81 beta appears to have a workaround/fix for using alt-tab to switch to Windows and back.

Attachments

  • Filename
    vbepl081.zip
    File size
    10.65 KiB
    Downloads
    889 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • Filename
    modified.zip
    File size
    3.06 KiB
    Downloads
    916 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 34 of 35, by Stiletto

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

6bitDAC

With many VGA cards the RAMDAC (which turns the information from the video memory into video signals) can be switched from 6bit (the default setting with VESA VBE video modes) to 8bit per primary color with 256 color video modes. The advantage from this is that an application can choose from 4 times as many colors; it can use 256 colors at once out of a gamma of 16M colors instead of a gamma of 256k colors.
6bitdac simply let the VESA bios report that it is not capable of switching to an 8bit DAC. Why would you want to do this, since this limits the amount of colors? Some games like Flight Unlimited I from Looking Glass have buggy support for the 8bit DAC. Flight Unlimited I switches the DAC to 8bits per primary color, but it does not reprogram the DAC with proper 8bit values which result in a very dark image. Loading 6bitDAC before running Flight Unlimited I will prevent the game from switching the DAC to 8bit which effectively solves the problem of the dark screen.

VESA12

This program lets the VESA bios report that it supports VESA VBE 1.2. This will prevent other applications to use higher versions of VESA VBE. Linear video modes and the protected mode interface are not supported with VESA 1.2 so every problem that is caused by using linear video modes or the PM interface are prevented by this tool.
You can use this program if you can't get an application to work properly with your video card. Flight Unlimited I from Looking Glass running on a GeForce2 GTS suffered from a problem which is fixed by running vesa12.com.
Note: this tool does not give your card VESA support, it only degrades the VBE from a higher version to VESA VBE 1.2.

Thanks to Rob Muller for locating these missing files.

Attachments

  • Filename
    vesa12.zip
    File size
    1.35 KiB
    Downloads
    846 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • Filename
    6bitdac.zip
    File size
    1.51 KiB
    Downloads
    752 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto