The Paradise support made me smile because that was the brand of my first SVGA card.

My first PC (an 8MHz 286) originally had EGA until the monitor blew out, then a Hercules clone card, then Paradise SVGA.

I totally forget what was in my first PCs, an 8086 and a 286.

I used to play ATC on those as well (on the 8086, only with PC speaker sound as that was before I had bough my first SB 1.0), but of course had to settle for 640x480 video mode.

I was stuck with PC Speaker sound until after Wolf3D came out (around 1992). Around that time I purchased an SB 2.0 and a Gravis Gamepad 😀

I actually had an analog joystick before that, which I used via an ISA joystick card that we purchased at the same time as the Paradise SVGA card. Of course it was replaced by the SB 2.0 when I got that.

I found one small problem/buglet though (not sure if I should post this in the "DOSBox Games/Apps" section of the forum):

If I select the 1024x768 Paradise driver for ATC, all is fine. But, when selecting the 800x600 Paradise driver (which is my prefered resolution, as these aging eyes can see it a bit better <G>), there seems to be a problem.

When I attempt to display the info for any aircraft (CTRL+A within the sim; which normally displays a small box superimposed on the screen with the stats for the currently selected aircraft in the flight strips), the screen goes (or rather "wipes" downwards) completely white. DOSBox either then locks up (I have to press CTRL+F9 to exit DOSBox), or exits/crashes back to Windows.

Selecting the graphics driver for ATC is done on the command line ("ATC.EXE /M P800" for the 800x600 Paradise driver), and I tried the other resolutions with no problems:

640x200 2 Colors - "ATC.EXE /M CGA"
640x350 4 Colors - "ATC.EXE /M EGA64"
640x350 16 Colors - "ATC.EXE /M EGA"
640x480 2 Colors - "ATC.EXE /M MCGA"
640x480 16 Colors - "ATC.EXE /M VGA"
1024x768 16 Colors - "ATC.EXE /M P1024"

I also tried various other DOSBox options (no sound, various "cycles", "core", and "cputype" settings, etc...), but have the same problem.

Any ideas?

I tried Tracon II 2.01 with the P800 mode (that version doesn't have a 1024x768 mode for Paradise) and get the same result. Looks like a "flood fill" operation on the plane silhouette is not staying inside the border.

Edit: the problem happens because the game calls INT 10/AH=0Dh to get the color of pixels as part of a FloodFill routine. AFAICT, DOSBox does not support that function call for SVGA modes. I was able to get the FloodFill to work correctly by using a debug build of DOSBox to load a Western Digital PVGA1A video BIOS.

Thanks for the info 😀

Yeah, I also tried Tracon II v2.01 and saw the same results, and then realized that version didn't support 1024x768 ("/M P1024"). Yep, 1024x768 works fine in ATC, only 800x600 is cobbled up.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

I was able to get the FloodFill to work correctly by using a debug build of DOSBox to load a Western Digital PVGA1A video BIOS.

By any chance, is the compiled EXE available anywhere for download?

You can download Qbix's 0.73 debug build for Windows here.
The LDGFXROM command in the debug build loads video BIOS images.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

You can download Qbix's 0.73 debug build for Windows here. The LDGFXROM command in the debug build loads video BIOS images.

Thanks for the info and link 😀 I'll see if I can dig up/Google a Western Digital PVGA1A video BIOS dump from somewhere.

If not, could you recommend a video BIOS dumping utility that runs under MSDOS 6.22? I've got a half a mind to dig out my old 486 and hook 'er up, and dump the Genoa 8500VL (Cirrus chipset) video BIOS <G> 😀

For DOS you don't really need anything fancier than good ol' DEBUG.EXE to dump a BIOS image, unless you're looking for something a little more user-friendly. Start up the DOS debugger and enter these lines, pressing ENTER after each one:

r cs
c000
r cx
8000
n video.rom
w 0
q

That will work for *most* video ROMs, which are located at segment C000 (hex), and 32K in size. You might have a BIOS that's smaller or larger, in which case change the 8000 value to the correct size.

Thanks for the info, ripsaw8080! To tell the truth, for some reason I think I should have known that! 😀

On to hooking up the old 486, here's to hoping that it actually boots 🤞 😀

GPU-Z has a button for doing just that.

eL_PuSHeR wrote:

GPU-Z has a button for doing just that.

Thanks for the link 😀 But...

GPU-Z Sys. Reqs. wrote:

2000/XP/Vista/W7

Me thinks my old 486 would choke on any of the above <LOL>! 😉

Cirrus video BIOS on Paradise chipset? 😅

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

Cirrus video BIOS on Paradise chipset? 😅

Heh, don't ask me <G>. The Genoa 8500VL has a Cirrus chipset, and originally (what was it, 16 or so years ago?) I had accidently discovered that the Paradise driver for ATC worked fine. Go figger... Been using it ever since during the active life of that old 486 😀

Thanks to ripsaw8080 again! He created a tiny COM that you execute before running ATC, and now the program works *PERFECTLY* in Paradise 800x600 mode 😀

Thanks again, ripsaw8080! 😀

I hope that ripsaw8080 doesn't mind, attached is the ZIP that he sent me that fixes the Paradise 800x600 problem with ATC 😀

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Looks like a "flood fill" operation on the plane silhouette is not staying inside the border.

Edit: the problem happens because the game calls INT 10/AH=0Dh to get the color of pixels as part of a FloodFill routine. AFAICT, DOSBox does not support that function call for SVGA modes. I was able to get the FloodFill to work correctly by using a debug build of DOSBox to load a Western Digital PVGA1A video BIOS.

Hehe, funny thing, I was searching through the "¥Weeds¥ File Archives" and found the following ancient text file safely tucked away <G> (an OLD message from CompuServe from almost two decades ago):

#: 86061 S10/Flight Sim/Aviation 20-Jul-90 21:16:51 Sb: #TRACON testing... Fm: Steve Wigginton 73507,2467 To: Jeff Horrocks/FS […]
Show full quote

#: 86061 S10/Flight Sim/Aviation
20-Jul-90 21:16:51
Sb: #TRACON testing...
Fm: Steve Wigginton 73507,2467
To: Jeff Horrocks/FS SL 72247,1462

Jeff, et. al.,

I talked to a programmer at Wesson today. Here's the response's I got:

Problem: Menus do not always get properly erased. Always occurs for me using the Paradise 800 x 600 driver. Answer: This has to do with saving the underlying portion of the screen. They are aware and are working on this one.

Problem: Using the Paradise 800 x 600 driver, the CTRL-A (aircraft info) clears the screen. Answer: This is a problem with the flood fill routine. Were not aware of it before, but know where to look to fix it.

P.S. (back to the original topic of this thread; DOSBox video card support) The Paradise (as well as the S3 and ET4000) support also works great for the 640x480/800x600/640x480-747 drivers for Flight Simulator 4.0 😀

Hehe, two copies of DOSBox running simultaneously with "serial2=nullmodem" (for ATC), and "serial2=nullmodem server:127.0.0.1" (for FS4) <BG> 😀