Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

?? You mean tracking down the tiny details, right. Don't tell me Mr.Network Admin isn't comfortable with a hex editor.
*blink*
*blink*

Nah, Figuring out the VESA access issue. Stuff that you know is simple if you simply sat down and learned it ...along with 100+ other things you need to learn & do. 🙁 Need to learn that Matrix Focus skill or better yet a time stop spell....or a Time Machine. Yeah, a Time Machine. Gonna go call Doc Brown.

Nah, time machines don't make things easier to learn. One of those sexy interfaces that plug into the back of your head, oh man, gimme one of those ANY day. I mean, sure, you'd have a huge hold in the back of your head, but hey, free knowledge!

Originally posted by DosFreak Stuff that you know is simple if you simply sat down and learned it ...along with 100+ other things you need to learn & do. :( Need to learn that Matrix Focus skill or better yet a time stop spell....or a Time Machine.

Ahh...So you've finally entered into the phase of accellerated time along with myself. It gets worse.

You find yourself remembering useless things in great detail, but critically important things become incredibly difficult.

How am I going to get my car to pass inspection in the next few days? No idea.

How do you format a floppy disk with a Commodore 64 and a 1541 drive without using any extra software.

OPEN15,8,15:PRINT#15,"N0:15LETTRDSKTITLE,ID":CLOSE15,8,15

You can imagine how helpful that is...

PS: I didn't notice the 'Disable Smilies in This Post' option at the bottom of the form, so Snover went ahead and checked it for me, what a swell guy.

Update: Post-Midnight posts are always hap-hazard.

*blinks*

*blinks*

ROTFL!

(Sorry, haven't seen anyone other than myself format a drive that way in a LOOOOONNNNGGGG time!)

Hello, Folks,

I finally managed to get here thanks to Vlad's hints 😉

First of all, there is a different behaviour with Nvidia Cards between Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I haven't researched Win2000 for that reason. The real issue for us was WinXP only.

What I don't get at this point is the crashes respective disabling of the full screen modes in WinXP as reported here. I have to admit, that I actually didn't yet modify the VGA.SYS driver but manipulate the memory image only at this point (waiting for MS to respond for a DDK - to enable a proper and easy go-around the file protection). With that fix I didn't encounter any problem whatsoever, but a full working VESA, that enables proper pixel clock and timing for all modes up to 1280*1024. That's why I approached Vlad with the idea to have that hack perhaps incorporated into NTVDM (which isn't feasable for technical reasons as Vlad told me).

I shall certainly try to get to the point, where I can trick out the SFC either via DDK or other hacks and then see, what is happening on my machine. To answer someone's questions: My debugging system has been a WinXP professional with an Nvidia MX440. I look forward to test the hack on my WinXP home machine with considerable interest, too.

As I indicated, I don't get why the modified VGA.SYS causes problems. I can only imagine, that the driver isn't loaded because of a check sum problem or the like, which clearly results in lack of full screen support altogether - and may perhaps even cause crashes.

I hope, that helps to clarify some of the issues and provide some thoughts of how some of the details can be worked around.

Simon

a bit later ...

just checked the issue with the modified vga.sys (managed to get around SFC now) - and indeed, this is a check sum problem. The driver simply isn't loaded anymore after modification. Therefore the full screen modes are no longer available.

The checksum is not easy though - the whole certificate including the checksum is stored somewhere else in Windows. So, the driver would need to get "recertified" by computing the proper values for the certificate and then reinstalled somehow ...

I still think, the better methode is to not touch vga.sys at all, but instead hang a separated ring 0 driver into Windows, which does the modification to the memory image only and only. Solves a few legal issues, too ... 😉

Simon

Curiously, how did you manage to find what needed to be changed and then, as follow-up, not test it?

I did test the fix, however just in internal memory image 😉 The methode of how to transfer into the file system was deemed a second step.

Thanks to some notes in this forum here, I have managed to create a proper vga.sys file (with correct checksums) now, that can be put into the Windows directories successfully using the methodes described here (note, that I attach the test file to test the fix on AS2 user machines as well - use the included vgafix.txt file for installation).

Hope, that helps.

Simon Hradecky wrote:

Hello, Folks,

I finally managed to get here thanks to Vlad's hints 😉

Thanks for stopping by - we really appreciate it 😉

With that fix I didn't encounter any problem whatsoever, but a full working VESA, that enables proper pixel clock and timing for all modes up to 1280*1024

Does this include linear framebuffer modes and the like?

I still think, the better methode is to not touch vga.sys at all, but instead hang a separated ring 0 driver into Windows, which does the modification to the memory image only and only. Solves a few legal issues, too ... 😉

Couldn't someone make a standalone memory-patcher program to do it? I'm using something like that now to modify Morrowind's graphics detail levels on the fly to maintain a playable framerate on my slow computer. That way no system file modification would be necessary.

Had to kill the attachment, Sorry. You'll have to email for transaction of the file.

M$ is on the rampage lately with the handling of their files. Just look at Bart's PE Builder. 🙁

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Going to try this out tonight tho.

No problem with the attachment ...

Let me know, how it works for you - and perhaps there is a way to perform a "beta test" with other users, too. Once it is confirmed I have caught the thing indeed, I shall do it more elegantly without actually needing to distribute (portions of) Microsoft code.

Simon

Well vga.sys loads fine.

Just tried it with Duke3d and instead of receiving the DPMI Map Physical to Linear error I received distorted graphics on the screen. Running NOLFB fixes it of course. Hopefully we can figure out a way of accessing the LFB while in NT...

Going to look through my list and see what I can test with....

I went past the checksum problem with an evaluation copy of PE Explorer and finally loaded a modified vga.sys on my Windows 2000 SP3. Initial tests are running ok. VBETEST from SciTech Display Doctor tested 800x600 and 1024x768 banked modes without a glitch, something I was never able to do before. I guess it's time for some real testing now.

Some notes: booted in another OS to copy modified vga.sys over the copies on %systemroot%\system32\drivers and %systemroot%\system32\dllcache. Upon reboot there were no warnings, no windows asking for the original CD and no events from Windows File Protection were logged. The Windows 2000 version of vga.sys does not seem to have a digital certificate, or at least none is shown in the file properties, so it was not an issue.

Regards,

MajorGrubert wrote:

VBETEST from SciTech Display Doctor tested 800x600 and 1024x768 banked modes without a glitch, something I was never able to do before. I guess it's time for some real testing now.

Marvelous news! Thanks for the info!

Simon

DosFreak wrote:

Well vga.sys loads fine.

Thanks, too, for the good news 😀

I haven't looked at the memory issues that most likely are involved with the linear modes.

Simon

I have a problem. I use Windows 2000 SP3 with VDMSound 2.0.4.
VDMSound works great, but all games with higher resolutions than 320x240, like The Settlers 2 and Earth 2140 give me an error messages like this: "Vesa BIOS not found".
I get this message also with a resolution at 640x480.
I have settup a dos bootdisk with my dos soundcard driver, but it would be great when I can play this games directly under Win2k.

Have anybody a solution? It sems that Win2k doesnt read any Vesa Information from my gfxcard. I have a NVidia Geforce 2MX 400. Under DOS I can play also with 800x600.

Start with NOLFB. Then, if the game uses Univbe, there is some site that has special drivers for it. Also, try SciTech Display Doctor.

NOLFB should work for The Settlers 2, although your NVIDIA card may have problems so at some point you *might* want to try Simon's patch:
showthread.php?threadid=1659
Use in combination with NOLFB.

With Earth 2140, you should download the latest patch and try again:
http://www.interplay.com/support/patches.aspx

For those who want to help and don't own the game, there's a demo here:
http://www.interplay.com/interact/downloadlist.asp?Dltype=7

Looks like it was also an Amiga and Mac game, so emulation might be possible.

Or talk to these guys, they might be interested in your plight.
http://www.epic-interactive.com/

[EDIT] After testing EARTH.EXE in the demo, I receive this error:
"Your display card is not VESA-compliant, or its VESA implementation does not support a resolution of 640x480x64k colors."

When testing SETUP.EXE, I receive this error:
"Error while switching to 640 x 480 x 65535 colors mode"

NOLFB does not effect the issue. May have to use the new DOSBOX or emulate the Amiga or Mac version. See if the latest patch helps, as i don't own the game.

Originally posted by Schadenfreude NOLFB should work for The Settlers 2, although your NVIDIA card may have problems so at some point you *might* want to try Simon's patch

I wouldn't advise this patch, still just for people tinkering with VESA in NT right now.

For those who want to help and don't own the game, there's a demo here

Done.

Looks like it was also an Amiga and Mac game, so emulation might be possible.

It appears the Amiga version was never completed, Titan Computer at http://www.titancomputer.de/ was in charge of the port, yet have no listing for it. There's rumor that BlueByte and Titan had "problems". Supposedly all the game code was finished, but BlueByte changed their minds about the port and refused to allow use of their sound and graphics files. Besides that, chunks of Titan's site appear to be dead.

The Mac version shouldn't be too hard to emulate since it's processor requirement was a 68030. Getting it may be another issue.

Or talk to these guys, they might be interested in your plight.
http://www.epic-interactive.com/

Probably not, as they concentrate on porting titles from the PC to the Amiga and Mac.

[EDIT] After testing EARTH.EXE in the demo, I receive this error: "Your display card is not VESA-compliant, or its VESA implemen […]
Show full quote

[EDIT] After testing EARTH.EXE in the demo, I receive this error:
"Your display card is not VESA-compliant, or its VESA implementation does not support a resolution of 640x480x64k colors."

When testing SETUP.EXE, I receive this error:
"Error while switching to 640 x 480 x 65535 colors mode"

Works for me, 640x480 and 800x600. No NOLFB needed. Maybe it's your video card. Horrors! Schadenfreude! your system specs aren't in your profile! I'm shocked!

*shakes head in disappointment*
Well, anyway I did find audio problems. Appears that manual audio settings always fail for me (cannot initialize). Must use autodetect to work. Native XP, no audio detected, manual selection doesn't help. With VDMSound, it only detects SB16.
Unfortunately SB16 doesn't appear to work properly (results in looping noise). So you must edit the DSP setting on your .VLP files (both SETUP.EXE and the EARTH files) to the SBPro or earlier settings. It works properly with these.

Not sure why a GF2 wouldn't work with this.

He should probably run VBETEST on his machine to confirm what VESA support he's got.

VBETEST.EXE comes from the UniVBE v6.7 package:
http://www.scitechsoft.com/products/enterpris … ree_titles.html

It allows you to individually test SVGA video modes. When you start up VBETEST, it should come up with text like this:

OEM string: IBM SVGA BIOS, (C) 1993 International Business Machines Version: VBE 1.2 with 4096 Kb memory […]
Show full quote

OEM string: IBM SVGA BIOS, (C) 1993 International Business Machines
Version: VBE 1.2 with 4096 Kb memory

Select test to perform:

[0] - Interactive Tests
[Q] - Quit

You then select zero for Interactive tests:

Select color mode to test: […]
Show full quote

Select color mode to test:

[0] - 4 bits per pixel modes [3] - 16 bits per pixel modes
[1] - 8 bits per pixel modes [4] - 24 bits per pixel modes
[2] - 15 bits per pixel modes [5] - 32 bits per pixel modes
[6] - Text modes
[Q] - Quit

Test modes like these to see what kind of response you get. The 640x480 using the "8, 16, 24, and 32 bits per pixel" modes are the more important ones.

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

Works for me, 640x480 and 800x600. No NOLFB needed. Maybe it's your video card. Horrors! Schadenfreude! your system specs aren't in your profile! I'm shocked!

Er, sorry. It's a stock Dell Inspiron 8000 with an ATI Rage Mobility M4 (based on Rage 128, but with 32MB accessable video RAM and 4x AGP) integrated.

I've been having some video issues recently so I am not surprised. Expect a lengthy messageboard topic (in Milliways maybe) discussing my problems at length.