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Using Hercules Driver and Software on an S3 Virge DX with VESA 2.0 and solved the brightness bug black becomes gray

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First post, by egbertjan

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I have a Hercules Terminator 3D/DX 4MB graphic card that I use under DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11. On the Hercules CD that came with my card I came across drivers and software for Dos 6.22 and Windows 3.11 that were specially made by Hercules for this card. What this software adds is higher Hz settings for the monitor, including 120Hz at 640x480 and 120Hz at 800x600, and some additional setting options in Windows 3.11. The standard software and drivers from S3 itself for these operating systems at these resolutions only go up to 85Hz. Now I have the following problem with my Hercules Terminator 3D/DX that the Hercules-adapted BIOS on the card still supports VESA 1.2 and still has the brightness bug black becomes gray (gamma Bug).

I have found a BIOS version of S3 itself, version 2.01.07 that does have VESA 2.0 and has solved the brightness bug black becomes gray (gamma Bug) without adjustments from Herclues. I put it on an IC chip with a programmer and put it on the card.

Now I run into the problem that the Driver and Software say that the card is no longer a Hercules Terminator 3D/DX and the Driver and Software no longer work.

If I put the BIOS that has been adjusted by Hercules on an S3 Virge DX from another brand, it is also recognized by the driver and software as a Hercules Terminator 3D/DX. So the detection is in the BIOS of Hercules. Almost all brands use the standard BIOS of S3 without any customizations.

I used a hex editor to look at the BIOS of Hercules and S3 to see if I could adjust the BIOS of S3 itself so that it would be seen as Hercules Terminator 3D/DX. I copied parts from the BIOS that I thought would be the detection of Hercules, but unfortunately that resulted in the card not showing any image.

Who can help me or tell me how to adjust the BIOS for my Hercules Terminator 3D/DX or the BIOS of S3 itself, so that the software sees the card as a Hercules Terminator 3D/DX and I can continue to use the Hercules Driver and Software? without brightness bug black becomes gray (gamma Bug) and with VESA 2.0 support.

Is there anyone who can tell me which parts of the S3 BIOS contains the brightness bug repair and which part has the VESA 2.0 support?

See below my message the modified BIOS by Hercules and the BIOS of S3 itself without the gamma Bug bug and with Vesa 2.0 support.

Filename
HERCULES G5H.rar
File size
17.37 KiB
Downloads
40 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception
Filename
S3_ViRGE_DX_GX_2.01.07_50MHz.rar
File size
18.17 KiB
Downloads
38 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 1 of 6, by egbertjan

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I continued searching to get the Hercules software to work on an S3 bios that does not have the brightness bug and has Vesa 2.0 support. Now I saw in NSSI, see the picture below at the video card on the video card with the Hercules bios, Hercules and at the s3 bios Unknown or Noname. Who can tell me where this is located in the S3 BIOS so that I can also put Hercules there, so that perhaps the Hercules software will work.

nssi.jpg
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nssi 2jpg.jpg
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nssi 2jpg.jpg
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Reply 3 of 6, by Gmlb256

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Not related to replacing the VBIOS, but the easiest way to mitigate the brightness bug is by setting the BLANK pedestal bit (on the S3 ViRGE/DX it is located in the SR1A register, bit 5) to 0.

Here is how to do it with DEBUG:

o 3c4 08
o 3c5 06
o 3c4 1a
i 3c5
<subtract 20h from given value>
o 3c5 <resulting_value>
q

Those commands must be executed outside Windows and the downside is that it is only effective until the computer is restarted.

As for VBE 2.0, consider using the S3VBE20 TSR which is an excellent alternative to UniVBE for supported S3 video cards.

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 4 of 6, by wbc

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egbertjan wrote on 2023-10-12, 23:26:

Is there perhaps another way to get the Herclues drivers and software working under DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 with a bios of s3 Self

I suppose Hercules utilities either check for PCI Subsystem ID or Video BIOS content, and refuse to install if these do not match. As these BIOSes predate VBE 3.0, I think 120Hz refresh rate support is done via custom Int10 calls and CRTC timings tables in Hercules Video BIOS, and I doubt it's possible to port these to S3 reference BIOS without much hassle.
If 120Hz rate support is desired (especially in case of Win3.x), the best solution is the software BLANK pedestal batch to fix the black level bug (re: S3BRIGHT) and any VBE 2.0 TSR (I strongly suggest SDD 6.53 there, if you can handle the memory footprint). Although SDD 6.53 supports own VBE3.0 refresh rate management for S3 chips, I am not sure if it will work under Win3.x with S3 drivers.

--wbcbz7

Reply 6 of 6, by egbertjan

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I'm sorry for the mistake. Here I uploaded the G5h BIOS-file.

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  • Filename
    G5H.rar
    File size
    17.31 KiB
    Downloads
    27 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
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