RayeR wrote on 2023-12-11, 06:00:

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-12-11, 02:00:

I recall there was a notice for removal of VBE from AMD cards, here's a third party link:

https://www.scribd.com/document/578511765/Rem … -8-bbb-graphics

This is near 10 year old, what's the current status on AMD cards? Nvidia even broke VGA compatability at IO regs level on RTX, does at least VGA modes still works on current AMD cards? And VBE?

Can't say. On my monitor with a WX5100 (Polaris) most of the games still work fine, though not as good as it would on a period-correct environment. Things indeed get worse with W6400 (Navi 24) -- Some games such as Titus the Fox exhibit flickering, especially during intro fade in/out, which was not observed on WX5100.

On the other hand (off-topic), it seems AMD handles VGA/VESA output timings a bit differently from nVidia, that I cannot force an arbitrary VGA/VESA resolution/refresh rate with a modded EDID dongle like I could with a nVidia card. With an ATI/AMD card, forced timings are only honored in an OS with actual drivers (Linux/Windows), while with a nVidia card, forced timings work virtually everywhere, including BIOS, DOS, as well as other OSes using generic VESA driver. In regards to forced refresh rates, it's very easy to check whether it works, as text mode cursors would blink significantly faster when the card outputs at a high refresh rate like 120/144Hz.

Still, on my monitor, with an ATI/AMD card, the video output feels sharp in general, whereas with nVidia everything looks a bit blurry as if "Bilinear" is turned on.

RayeR wrote on 2023-12-11, 06:00:

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-12-11, 02:00:

I recall there was a notice for removal of VBE from AMD cards, here's a third party link:

https://www.scribd.com/document/578511765/Rem … -8-bbb-graphics

This is near 10 year old, what's the current status on AMD cards? Nvidia even broke VGA compatability at IO regs level on RTX, does at least VGA modes still works on current AMD cards? And VBE?

I could try on my GTX 1050Ti but I don't recall seeing a BIOS/CSM mode on the motherboard 😀

Also I don't think UEFI and BIOS have something inclusive to them that it will work

Edit: Idk I booted with the BIOS entry inside the Boot menu and the bootloader loaded, but with an error that has relevance as old as 2007. Gotta wait af ew weeks to fix that now 🤣

The VBEVSTST program from Falcom reports the following on a 1050Ti:

GetStart is supported
GetStart call failed
GetStart is Supported <00h>
GetStart call failed <00h>

GTX 1xxx should be ok but since RTX 2xxx it should be more crippled, afaik...

Yes, GTX 1xxx should have the same DOS compatibility level as GTX 9xx.
That is Function 07h - Set/Get Display Start calls fail and as an64 pointed out Function 0Ah - Return VBE Protected Mode Interface calls also fail.
But both of these problems can be cured the same way on GTX 1xxx as on GTX 9xx.

Falcosoft wrote on 2023-12-11, 22:19:

Yes, GTX 1xxx should have the same DOS compatibility level as GTX 9xx.
That is Function 07h - Set/Get Display Start calls fail and as an64 pointed out Function 0Ah - Return VBE Protected Mode Interface calls also fail.
But both of these problems can be cured the same way on GTX 1xxx as on GTX 9xx.

Quake gets a GPF on both my machines, I used FreeDOS to run it. Not sure how to fix that, I have both HIMEMEX and JEMM386 loaded.
On the machine that has a working "Legacy USB support" motherboard setting, I played the first level of Duke Nukem 3d but I don't recall seeing any problems on the Ivy Bridge chipset. On the GTX1000 series machine the keyboard doesn't work in games, maybe I will need a PS2 keyboard after all, but once I get it to work I should be able to test it. Is there some specific spot that I should check? Btw the game runs and starts the demo and I don't see any issue there..

One thing that I can't recall, if it is true or not, when I tested the DN3D on the Ivy Bridge machine with the menu on launching the game (not exiting to title screen), the menu demo runs that when DN drops into the water, and all the menu elements turn into pink from red-orange.

Edit: I decided to perform the test on the VMware BIOS and that one is even more crippled: Falco's test freezes even before the whole square is displayed.

Falcosoft wrote on 2023-12-11, 22:19:

Yes, GTX 1xxx should have the same DOS compatibility level as GTX 9xx.
That is Function 07h - Set/Get Display Start calls fail and as an64 pointed out Function 0Ah - Return VBE Protected Mode Interface calls also fail.
But both of these problems can be cured the same way on GTX 1xxx as on GTX 9xx.

Do you know about this issue with GTX 1060 3GB(MSI) but not with GTX 750 1gb(MSI)?:
gtx 1060(3gb), when booting I get error 'vdd protection error', booting with gtx 750(1gb) there is no error:

vdd may be basic video driver ?:
display=*vdd,*vflat ; from system.ini, section [386Enh])

bootlog stops at:
...
[000BB02E] Dynamic load success C:\WINDOWS\system\IOSUBSYS\bigmem.drv
[000BB02E] DEVICEINITSUCCESS = IOS
[000BB02E] DEVICEINIT = PAGEFILE
[000BB02E] DEVICEINITSUCCESS = PAGEFILE
[000BB02E] DEVICEINIT = PAGESWAP
[000BB02E] DEVICEINITSUCCESS = PAGESWAP
[000BB02E] DEVICEINIT = PARITY
[000BB02E] DEVICEINITSUCCESS = PARITY
[000BB02E] DEVICEINIT = REBOOT
[000BB02E] DEVICEINITSUCCESS = REBOOT
[000BB02E] DEVICEINIT = EBIOS
[000BB02E] DEVICEINITSUCCESS = EBIOS
[000BB02E] DEVICEINIT = VDD

Tested on asrock h87(haswell) and on z690(alder lake), its the same issue.
Also on gtx 1060 the blinking cursor in dos blinks many times faster than normal. This is not an issue with gtx 750.
in autoexec, I tried with nvuvafix.com /v:
VBEVSTST.EXE reports this, and switching between 00h and 80h seems accelerated, did it a few times and it froze:

GetStart is supported
GetStart call failed
GetStart is Supported <00h> (and 80h)
GetStart call failed <00h> (and 80h)

in autoexec, i tried with MSKVBEF7.COM:
VBEVSTST.EXE reports this, switching between 00h and 80h seems normal and after I did it a few times it did not freeze:
GetStart is supported
GetStart call failed
GetStart is Supported <00h> (and 80h)
GetStart call failed <00h> (and 80h)

With both it does not fix the fast blinking cursor in dos and still the same VDD error when booting windows.

Can't boot win98 if the gtx 1060 is in the pcie slot.
I can dual boot win10 and win98 with GTX750 and ati x600 pcie.
VBETEST.EXE:

trannks wrote on 2024-01-08, 10:15:

Do you know about this issue with GTX 1060 3GB(MSI) but not with GTX 750 1gb(MSI)?:

Hi, this topic is about VESA BIOS problems of these cards (that is "SVGA" modes that DOS games/applications use). Your problem is completely different.
Windows drivers of Geforce cards and Windows itself do not use VESA at all.
So do not expect that either MSKVBEF7 or NVUVAFIX can cure general compatibility problems. They only fix specific VESA related issues (even fast cursor blinking is not one of them).

What drivers he use on w9x? Afaik nvidia drivers don't support 7xx cards on w9x so he has only choice to use VBEMP by Bearwindows that relies on VESA so it may b affected by vbe bugs, I don't know what specific functions vbemp use...