Have you tried power strip? I had a problem only having 60hz with my rage128, but power strip allowed me to set maximum refresh rates for my CRT, and custom resolutions. It doesn't need to autostart with windows either (it makes a driver).

Does Rage II even support 24-bit (32-bit == 24-bit + alpha blending)? This is NOT just a function of available video memory. What will it currently allow you to set?

Also I agree with Holering - you may need powerstrip (or some similar application) to set certain resolutions/refresh, such as WS resolutions on older cards with older drivers. But if the card doesn't support 24-bit, it doesn't support it.

The new ATI/AMD Radeon cards read the modes from the registry key "DALNonStandardModes". Which I usually modify to add 1440x1080x32 for example.

gerwin wrote:

The new ATI/AMD Radeon cards read the modes from the registry key "DALNonStandardModes". Which I usually modify to add 1440x1080x32 for example.

Would Rage II behave in this manner though? 😊 (Rage pre-dates "AMD Radeon" by over a decade)

Did some looking about and it appears Rage128 should support RGBA, but I cannot find if Rage I or Rage II will do as much (they are older so it's hard to say). I know many cards from the early to middle 1990s tend not to support RGBA or 24bpp, especially with any usable performance in 3D tasks. However, I couldn't find anything decisive on the first hardware (or release year) for 24bpp, RGBA, etc for PC components.

FeedingDragon: can you get the card/driver to give you a modelist? Should at least give you an idea of output capabilities and then you can go from there to create custom resolutions (anything that would "fit inside" the supported maximum should work, but I remember reading somewhere a few years ago that on some cards you're limited on creation of custom resolution to multiples of 6 or 8 versus multiples of 1 (e.g. you could not create a resolution like 111x111 but 120x80 is valid) due to how the display controller works - don't remember if Rage is among such cards)).

The old card (4MB in the Rage II family somewhere,) allowed 1024x768x32 without an issue. It just wouldn't allow 1366x768x32 - it only allowed 1366x768x16. But doing the math, it just didn't have the RAM to handle it (take a little over 4MB for 1366x768 at 32 bits.) That was the 2D limitations. I'm not sure about 3D limitations of the Rage II, I always used the Voodoo 2 for 3D stuff. The 4MB Rage II was not very good at that (IMHO.) I might let the Rage Pro 8MB have a go at it, to see how it performs, but I'll probably still go with the 2 Voodoo II's for that as well.

Before I install Powerstrip and give it a try, any more details on the DALNonStandardModes registry entry? If a simple registry patch will work, I'd like to give it a try first (before installing something extra.) Not saying I won't give Powerstrip a try, but I like small answers over larger ones when I can. I went through the registry when I first discovered the 1366 mode was missing, but don't remember coming across something like that. I did look at the INF files for both the Rage II and Rage Pro driver installation files, and neither one actually lists 1366 mode.

OK, gave powerstrip a try. No go, I guess it just can't be done 🙁 I might try installing older drivers, (the ones I have are from AMD and are marked "beta",) if I can find them with some assurance that they would be worth trying. Since they both use the Mach64 chip drivers, I might try my old Rage Pro II+ drivers out (if they'll install.)

Well, I dug my old card out and installed it for testing. It was a Rage II+ card with 4MB. First, yes it did allow 32bit graphics. Second, it also would not allow 1366x768 mode (even at 16bit.) Now, I had it working that way before, so I must have used a hack of some sort to allow it. I just don't remember what I used. I tried Power Strip, and it wouldn't allow it either. Oh, it said it was going to add it in, but the option didn't become available. I've tried a search, I've edited the registry, I just cannot figure out or remember what I did before. Any more suggestions??

You need to add custom modes and timings to the registry. This link has them for 1440x900 (next page has details on how to make mode lines): http://toastytech.com/guis/miscb.html

info for 1366x768 is likely out there somewhere.

http://tinyvga.com/vga-timing/1368x768@60Hz

NJRoadfan wrote:

You need to add custom modes and timings to the registry. This link has them for 1440x900 (next page has details on how to make mode lines): http://toastytech.com/guis/miscb.html

info for 1366x768 is likely out there somewhere.

http://tinyvga.com/vga-timing/1368x768@60Hz

I actually tried those. The VGA timings for 1366x768 are available in multiple places. I've added the timings, I've added the modes, and I've done this for 1366x768, 1360x768, and 1368x768. In all cases, the option for 136?x768 never becomes available. All I have are: 640x480, 720x480, 768x576, 800x600, 848x480, 1024x768, 1152x864, & 1280x1024. Nothing I do seems to be able to get any others to appear.

Now, 848x480 is close to the same aspect ratio, but the whole idea is to get the correct resolution my display is designed for. Though Pillared (revers leterboxed??) 1024x768 is at least the same resolution in part. That is, it doesn't need to be resized. But I'd sort of like to get the full use of the monitor back. I don't expect it for Windows 3.1, but it seems that 98 should be able to get it. The laptops I used to work on didn't seem to have any problems anyways. I'm on the verge of saying to H#$@ with it and start trying to save up for a new monitor. I've gotten used to my large widescreen monitor (well, large for me,) though, and I'd sort of like to keep it.

Give the VBEMP driver a shot: http://bearwindows.zcm.com.au/vbe9x.htm

The chip might not support the mode at all, but its worth a shot.

I'm sorry for posting in this old thread.

I would also like to use my ATI Rage Pro with a widescreen resolution.

I'm using 1680x1050.

I installed it under XP with the newest drivers and edited the registry entries for DefaultSettings.XResolution and also all occurences of DALNonStandardModesBCD and DALRestrictedModesBCD as described here: http://www.oocities.org/ziyadhosein/inf.htm

I will also try 98 later.

I actually managed to use a 1680x1050 widescreen resolution with a Matrox Millenium 4MB on my Pentium 166 on Windows 95.

I'm not sure how i managed it in the end, but after a few hours following the mentioned registry changes from toastytech, updating the matrox bios to the latest one, using matroxs mga tools for custom monitors resolutions and refresh rates by manually editing the profiles text files for 1680 and installing the latest drivers (version 441? / can't remember if I had also manually added the 1680 resolution to the drivers .inf file) and again some registry changes, it finally works 😀

So, I guess that there should be a solution for ATI Rage Pro, too.

But maybe the matrox simply is a higher quality and more professional card than the rage, ATI had bad drivers for the rage for most of the time, afaik.

I tried to find other places in the registry also, but it seems as if XP has quite different registry places than 95.

But I fear that the BIOS doesn't support custom resolutions.

Would it be possible to update or hack the BIOS of the ATI?

Any ideas?

Were there any custom good drivers for ATI Rage Pro? I'm on a laptop with this card and Unreal 1 works like trash with lots of artifacts. And my laptop drivers are from 2000 and any other official driver I found was installing with messages that I'm installing the older drivers.

JonSmith wrote on 2016-09-20, 13:48:

I actually managed to use a 1680x1050 widescreen resolution with a Matrox Millenium 4MB on my Pentium 166 on Windows 95.

I'm not sure how i managed it in the end, but after a few hours following the mentioned registry changes from toastytech, updating the matrox bios to the latest one, using matroxs mga tools for custom monitors resolutions and refresh rates by manually editing the profiles text files for 1680 and installing the latest drivers (version 441? / can't remember if I had also manually added the 1680 resolution to the drivers .inf file) and again some registry changes, it finally works 😀

For the record: This does not correspond with my experience. Let's leave aside that 4MB cannot hold 1680x1050 pixels at a full 3 Bytes per color.

My Millennium I already came with the latest Matrox BIOS version 3.0. The last MGA tools and drivers made available for a Matrox Millennium under Windows 9x are versions 4.10.01.4120 (drivers) and 4.12.013 (PowerDesk), downloadable as 1677_412.exe. Resolutions found to be actually encoded in the accompanying ASCII file Mon\mga.mon (version 2.03) of monitor profile data are 640x480, 800x600, 856x480, 1024x768, 1152x864, 1280x1024, 1600x1024, 1600x1200, 1600x1280, 1800x1440, 1920x1034, 1920x1080, 1920x1200 pixels. The very same set of resolutions appears as strings in Mon\mgamon.dll and also in INF\OTHER\Matrox Graphicsmgapdx64.inf.

When a change change to Mon\mga.mon is detected, the ASCII file is automatically converted to a binary format kept in Mon\mga.bin, but resolutions other than listed above appear to be rejected at this point and are therefore missing under the Monitor tab of Matrox Display Properties. Thus, a display of 1680x1050 pixels cannot be achieved with Matrox software, even though the Matrox Millennium card is found to handle this resolution when controlled by the PowerStrip utility.

But a crisp display of just 1600x1024 pixels padded with a black frame (through increased porch settings) to replicate the total times of a VESA standard for 1680x1050 pixels (e.g. 1840 pixels and 1080 lines as prescribed for "1680x1050 at 60Hz CVT with Reduced Blanking") is a very reasonable solution if one prefers Matrox software control.