VOGONS


First post, by DosFreak

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Okay, status of VESA gaming in NT:

Geforce 3/4
NT4: No VESA gaming at all except pre-vesa modes.
NT5: No VESA gaming at all except pre-vesa modes.
XP: Vesa works!

Radeon 9700
NT4: Vesa works
NT5: Vesa works (except cursor stuck in upper-left hand side..aka "the box)
XP: Vesa works

Now, I've heard before that ATI card's provides more VESA modes in NT but I've never had the chance to verify it for myself. From my testing so far it looks like it does. Tonight or tommorow I'm gonna stick my GF4 back in and perform the same tests...hopefully the GF4 will not have VESA and I (and many others) will be proven correct that ATI does support VESA.

I'm not going to come to any conclusions at this point because I could ramble off a couple.....I'll just wait until I finish testing. Just thought I'd post this ahead of time to see if anyone else has noticed this.

Also when the 9700 does access a VESA mode when you quit the VESA mode the desktop corrupts and you have to change the desktop res to get a viewable desktop again. With my GF4 this never happened in XP but with my 9700 in NT4/2K/XP whenever it access's a VESA mode the desktop corrupts.

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Reply 1 of 19, by Nicht Sehr Gut

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At the risk of making it more complicated, could you distinguish between VESA 1.2 and VESA 2.0 on these checks? (IE: If it doesn't work use NOLFB.COM to force 1.2 mode availability

Reply 2 of 19, by DosFreak

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NOLFB had no effect on any other game except BUILD engine games on my computer. I will check to see if it enables VESA with my GF4 but there's nothing to check with the 9700 since all games with VESA work and those that don't are the BUILD engine games which NOLFB enables to work.

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Reply 3 of 19, by Nicht Sehr Gut

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DosFreak wrote:

nothing to check with the 9700 since all games with VESA work

So you're saying you don't know of any non-BUILD games that fail to display in VESA mode under the ATI card?

Reply 4 of 19, by DosFreak

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Any of MY games. I'll doublecheck my list but it's seems that it's only the BUILD games....

Mechwarrior 2 is the only game that I had to use NOLFB for (if I don't use it then I cannot get past the login screen) Unfortunately the game still freezes upon trying to launch a game.

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Reply 6 of 19, by chanza

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On my gf256 VESA works:)

At least, it does in the 3 non-build games i have that I know use VESA (warcraft II. moo2, ascendancy). Of course, I cant actually play any of them 'cause the mouse gets stuck in "the box", but they run without VDMS's vesa compatibility or nolfb, which is nice.

Yes another case of older hardware beating newer, speaking of which, my friend with a gf4 and more ram cant run the ut2k3 demo, and I can. I win again:)

"How appropriate. You fight like a cow."

Reply 7 of 19, by Stiletto

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What were those VESA mode testing utilities that we used to mess around with at VDMSound's old forum, again? I know one was from SciTech... Vlad?

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do the Fandango!" - Queen

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Reply 8 of 19, by DosFreak

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Is this 2K or XP?...I'm assuming 2K. Is so then War 2 works in 2K..dunno about the others. The GF4 can also play UT 2003 fine so it's probly his config.

chanza wrote:

On my gf256 VESA works:)

At least, it does in the 3 non-build games i have that I know use VESA (warcraft II. moo2, ascendancy). Of course, I cant actually play any of them 'cause the mouse gets stuck in "the box", but they run without VDMS's vesa compatibility or nolfb, which is nice.

Yes another case of older hardware beating newer, speaking of which, my friend with a gf4 and more ram cant run the ut2k3 demo, and I can. I win again:)

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Reply 9 of 19, by Snover

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UT 2003? What are you talking about?
In any case, those testing utils would be good.
All VDMSound's basic VESA compatibility does is start the command prompt in fullscreen instead of in a window. Nothing else.

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 10 of 19, by chanza

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Wasn't it Scitech Display Doctor? Will have a look around for it, but I think they stopepd making it :/

Update:

You can still get SDD v7.0b from here: http://www.scitechsoft.com/products/enterpris … n_download.html

Last edited by chanza on 2002-10-02, 10:58. Edited 1 time in total.

"How appropriate. You fight like a cow."

Reply 11 of 19, by Stiletto

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...that wasn't what I was thinking of, though... no, it wasn't SDD but could have been a utility included with it... but there were others, too...

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

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Reply 12 of 19, by chanza

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Hmn, the only one's I ever remember using were Scitech Display Doctor, UniVBE (which came with SDD afaicr), and Sisoft Sandra, which, if memory serves, was just a general system diagnostics tool with a VESA mode-checking module.

"How appropriate. You fight like a cow."

Reply 13 of 19, by Stiletto

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I guess this was sort of what I was thinking of, but I still don't think this was what we were using to test what VESA modes were available. DosFreak? Nicht? Vlad? Help!

VBEHz - http://www.informatik.fh-muenchen.de/~ifw98223/vbehz.htm
UniRefresh - http://unirefresh.demonews.com/
VBEPlus - http://unirefresh.demonews.com/download.html
FreeBE - http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/freebe/
Ken Silverman's VESA Utilities (search page for "VESA") - http://www.advsys.net/ken/utils.htm

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

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Reply 14 of 19, by Stiletto

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DosFreak wrote:

Radeon 9700
NT5: Vesa works (except cursor stuck in upper-left hand side..aka "the box)

Did you try MOUSESET?
showthread.php?s=&threadid=139

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

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Reply 15 of 19, by DosFreak

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Stiletto wrote:

Did you try MOUSESET?
showthread.php?s=&threadid=139

Mouseset has never worked for me...but I don't think I've tried the latest ver yet. That's what this weekend is for! 😀

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Reply 16 of 19, by DosFreak

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Stiletto wrote:
I guess this was sort of what I was thinking of, but I still don't think this was what we were using to test what VESA modes wer […]
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I guess this was sort of what I was thinking of, but I still don't think this was what we were using to test what VESA modes were available. DosFreak? Nicht? Vlad? Help!

VBEHz - http://www.informatik.fh-muenchen.de/~ifw98223/vbehz.htm
UniRefresh - http://unirefresh.demonews.com/
VBEPlus - http://unirefresh.demonews.com/download.html
FreeBE - http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/freebe/
Ken Silverman's VESA Utilities (search page for "VESA") - http://www.advsys.net/ken/utils.htm

IIRC, Unirefresh won't work with NOLFB since it needs VESA3.0. Haven't tested with the others yet.

I use SDD 6.2's (or the beta 7) vbetest and Profiler to test my vid modes and to view available resolutions. Seem to be the best.

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Reply 17 of 19, by Stiletto

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DosFreak wrote:

Mouseset has never worked for me...but I don't think I've tried the latest ver yet. That's what this weekend is for! 😀

And me, I've never tried it. Who knows, maybe all this will get Vlad to see if he can mess with it some more. I already mentioned it to Paul. 😀

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

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Reply 18 of 19, by Stiletto

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DosFreak wrote:

I use SDD 6.2's (or the beta 7) vbetest and Profiler to test my vid modes and to view available resolutions. Seem to be the best.

I wonder how mad SciTech would get if we... no, never mind. 😀

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto