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Diamond Speedstar 24x 70Hz in Windows

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First post, by wbahnassi

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Hi guys, I have a lovely Diamond Speedstar 24X (WD chipset) that's capable of 16Mil color in 640x480, but I'm really after 800x600 32K colors under Windows 3.11.

I got the drivers installed, and Windows runs fine on said resolution, but I noticed it's running at 60Hz, and I would like to bump that up a bit to 72Hz.

I used 24xmode.com from Windows 3.1 drivers for Diamond Speedstar 24x to setup a custom monitor spec and have all resolutions run at 70/72Hz. The VDIAG.exe program confirms that the custom profile is working and indeed it displays 800x600 32K at 72Hz.

However, come into Windows 3.11, and it switches to 800x600 32K at 60Hz despite both 24xmode.com AND despite the switches that are on the back of the card.

It seems the Windows drivers force 60Hz no matter what. Any idea if there is a solution to this? It's not the end of the world of course, and I'm already happy with 800x600 32K colors, but if the card is also capable of 72Hz, then why leave that on the table 🙂

Oh, also wanted to mention that this is happening on both VBIOS ver. 1.01 and the latest one I found (2.03).

Turbo XT 12MHz, 8-bit VGA, Dual 360K drives
Intel 386 DX-33, Speedstar 24X, SB 1.5, 1x CD
Intel 486 DX2-66, CL5428 VLB, SBPro 2, 2x CD
Intel Pentium 90, Matrox Millenium 2, SB16, 4x CD
HP Z400, Xeon 3.46GHz, YMF-744, Voodoo3, RTX2080Ti

Reply 1 of 3, by Anonymous Coward

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Are you certain 70/72hz is supported at 800x600 when in hi-colour mode? Do you have the user manual to confirm?

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 2 of 3, by wbahnassi

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I don't have the user manual, but it is indeed what the CRT monitor reports when running 800x600 at hi color in DOS using the VDIAG tool.

The tool switches across all modes supported by the card, showing graphics that use hi color (smooth gradient ramps). During the 800x600 hi-color mode, I press the status button on my CRT monitor, and it shows the current mode resolution and refresh rate. In VDIAG under DOS, this is 70/72Hz.. but the moment I enter Win3.11 at 800x600, I check the monitor status, and it reports 800x600 at 60Hz. I can also feel the additional flicker of 60Hz just in my eyes compared to 70/72Hz that I'm used to in DOS.

Turbo XT 12MHz, 8-bit VGA, Dual 360K drives
Intel 386 DX-33, Speedstar 24X, SB 1.5, 1x CD
Intel 486 DX2-66, CL5428 VLB, SBPro 2, 2x CD
Intel Pentium 90, Matrox Millenium 2, SB16, 4x CD
HP Z400, Xeon 3.46GHz, YMF-744, Voodoo3, RTX2080Ti

Reply 3 of 3, by clb

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Not sure if this helps anything at all, though as part of developing CRT Terminator, I did test one Diamond SpeedSTAR24 (non-X version) in Windows 3.11, and got it running up to 1280x1024@87i Hz. Results are here: https://oummg.com/manual/adapters.html

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