UniVBE and Riva TNT2 M64 totally incompatible? Alternatives? \ VOGONS

UniVBE and Riva TNT2 M64 totally incompatible? Alternatives?

Topic actions

First post, by Totempole

Posted on 2012-03-01, 23:23

Totempole Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 312
Joined: 2011-10-27, 22:45
Location: South Africa

Hi,

I'm having issues with DOS Games that require UniVBE to work properly i.e the game
"D".

I've tried everything to get UniVBE working in DOS on this PC. I managed to get hold
of Scitech Display Doctor 7 Beta, which claims to have support for the Riva TNT2,
but only the Windows Version actually supports the Riva TNT2 M64, the DOS version
only supports the standard TNT2.

So after trying various utilities and tweaks, and getting no joy, I gave up.

I'm considering buying a different Graphics card on eBay. Any Suggestions:
I don't want to downgrade the Graphics Card because I also use the machine to play
3D intensive games like Quake 3 and Carmageddon TDR 2000.

I was thinking trying to get a standard Riva TNT2, but if you're shopping on eBay, it's
almost impossible to distinguish between a TNT2 and a TNT2 M64, so that's off the
cards.

The other alternative is something like a Voodoo 3, but 3DFX cards are a bit rare and
pricey. Also I don't think the Voodoo 3 Supports UniVBE.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions:

Does anyone have any suggestions for a UniVBE compatible Graphics Card which is
faster than or equal to a Standard Riva TNT2?

Or is there a way to mod my current Riva TNT2 M64 to allow it to be detected as a
standard Riva TNT2 (without potentially destroying it 😵 )?

Or finally, is it possible to run a PCI card in conjunction with an AGP card and switch
between the two when necessary?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I tried adding a TSENG ET4000 to the PC in conjunction with the Riva TNT2 M64 and
the concequences were nothing short of disasterous (I had to format the PC), but
later I discovered the ET4000 was faulty, so I still don't know whether it could have
possibly worked.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks in advance for any advice, and sorry for the long post. 😊

Reply 1 of 9, by Davros

Posted on 2012-03-02, 08:02

Davros Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2702
Joined: 2004-03-01, 03:08

try forcing detection find a copy of univesa
ou may also use command line options to override the the automatic video
card detection logic. The following help message is produced by typing
'univesa -h' at the command line:

Options are:
-v - Check for VESA BIOS first
-s<name> - Force detection of SuperVGA 'name'
-c<x> - Force detection of SuperVGA chipset (numerical id)
-m<size> - Force memory size to 'size'
-d<x> - Force DAC type (0:VGA, 1:15 bit, 1:16 bit, 3:24 bit)
-i - Do not perform SuperVGA detection

Guardian of the Sacred Five Terabyte's of Gaming Goodness

Reply 2 of 9, by Totempole

Posted on 2012-03-15, 00:08

Totempole Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 312
Joined: 2011-10-27, 22:45
Location: South Africa

Sorry for the super late reply. I only got to try it today.
UniVESA doesn't seem to work for me 🙁 it says something like
SuperVGA not detected. I tried various other tweaks, but no luck.
This was in an attempt to get "Angel Devoid" up and running.

Any other ideas?

Thanks.

Reply 3 of 9, by Davros

Posted on 2012-03-15, 06:31

Davros Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2702
Joined: 2004-03-01, 03:08

dosbox

Guardian of the Sacred Five Terabyte's of Gaming Goodness

Reply 4 of 9, by keropi

Posted on 2012-03-15, 07:34

keropi Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 9695
Joined: 2003-09-08, 06:45
Location: Greece

AFAIK TNTx cards already have a VBE3.0 bios.
Never had a problem running dos-svga stuff with either a riva128 or a voodoo3 , since their bioses are vbe3.0 they just work... you don't need any univbe-like utility for them

🎵 🎧 ⏳ ⚡ MK1869, PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 5 of 9, by Totempole

Posted on 2012-03-15, 12:17

Totempole Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 312
Joined: 2011-10-27, 22:45
Location: South Africa

Yes, that's correct, the TNT2 M64 does have a VBE 3.0 bios, and theoretically should support all dos games out of the box, but unfortunately there are a select few FMV adventure games that insist on UniVBE (UVConfig).

🙁

Reply 6 of 9, by Norton Commander

Posted on 2012-03-15, 13:26

Norton Commander Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 232
Joined: 2009-03-14, 12:30
Location: Passed out drunk on couch

Mortal Kombat Trilogy DOS version is another game that requires UNIVBE for VESA even if your grapics card already has VBE in its ROM. Talentless programmers.

Reply 7 of 9, by Harekiet

Posted on 2012-03-15, 15:02

Harekiet Offline

Rank DOSBox Author

Rank: DOSBox Author
Posts: 1050
Joined: 2002-07-01, 07:14
Location: Fryslan

I thought there was some patched univbe's around that were just dummy drivers that forwarded to the real system's vbe.

Reply 8 of 9, by Gamecollector

Posted on 2012-03-15, 16:16

Gamecollector Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1413
Joined: 2010-10-06, 22:17
Location: RU

The trouble is - some games have univbe statically linked. Or - use the univbe.exe from the CD.
Plus - old version of the univbe have different drivers format.
So - I have the old PCI Matrox Millennium as the Radical Fix for these games...

Asus P4P800 SE/Pentium4 3.2E/2 Gb DDR400B,
Radeon HD3850 Agp (Sapphire), Catalyst 14.4 (XpProSp3).
Voodoo2 12 MB SLI, Win2k drivers 1.02.00 (XpProSp3).

Reply 9 of 9, by Totempole

Posted on 2012-03-15, 19:35

Totempole Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 312
Joined: 2011-10-27, 22:45
Location: South Africa

I had a Matrox G450 before I got the TNT2. It actually worked pretty well for the UniVBE DOS games, but was far too slow for 3D Accelerated Games like Carmageddon TDR2000 and Croc 2, so I scrapped it.

Go to top of page Go to top of page

Back to DOS