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UniVBE Brightness Issue

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First post, by dominusprog

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Hello all

I have been working on a socket 7 build for the past few months. The graphic card is a Trident 3DImage 9750 and thanks to the good people at Vogons I downloaded the latest driver, and it works very well. I've tried a bunch of games on it, including Duke3D, Quake and Tomb Raider and in their native resolution (320x200), they work just fine. But when I increased the resolution to 640x480 VESA mode in Duke3d, the frame rate dropped by half, so I tried the UniVBE 5.x which doesn't support this model, so I downloaded version 6.53 from archive.org, and it worked. It detects the card and boosts the performance by about 10 fps in Duke3d. However, the problem is the brightness. It decreases the brightness to the point that the image is barely visible on the CRT. So is there any way to fix it? And what is causing this?

Thanks in advance.

Duke_2600.png
A-Trend ATC-1020 V1.1 ❇ Cyrix 6x86 150+ @ 120MHz ❇ 32MiB EDO RAM (8MiBx4) ❇ A-Trend S3 Trio64V2 2MiB
Aztech Pro16 II-3D PnP ❇ 8.4GiB Quantum Fireball ❇ Win95 OSR2 Plus!

Reply 1 of 5, by auron

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things like this are why i still think univbe is a bad tool and avoid it in favor of vendor-specific TSRs whenever possible.

you could try the 6.7 version, or try to change the refresh rate with one of the VBE 3.0-based tools, because arbitrarily changing the refresh rate is something else univbe likes to do and this can be related to the brightness issue.

Reply 2 of 5, by Gmlb256

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dominusprog wrote on 2022-08-11, 10:24:

Hello all

I have been working on a socket 7 build for the past few months. The graphic card is a Trident 3DImage 9750 and thanks to the good people at Vogons I downloaded the latest driver, and it works very well. I've tried a bunch of games on it, including Duke3D, Quake and Tomb Raider and in their native resolution (320x200), they work just fine. But when I increased the resolution to 640x480 VESA mode in Duke3d, the frame rate dropped by half, so I tried the UniVBE 5.x which doesn't support this model, so I downloaded version 6.53 from archive.org, and it worked. It detects the card and boosts the performance by about 10 fps in Duke3d. However, the problem is the brightness. It decreases the brightness to the point that the image is barely visible on the CRT. So is there any way to fix it? And what is causing this?

Thanks in advance.

Hello.

Try the UNICENTR utility after UniVBE is loaded. It can adjust the refresh rate, screen position, etc. for each VESA resolution. It could help with the brightness issue.

auron wrote on 2022-08-11, 15:25:

things like this are why i still think univbe is a bad tool and avoid it in favor of vendor-specific TSRs whenever possible.

you could try the 6.7 version, or try to change the refresh rate with one of the VBE 3.0-based tools, because arbitrarily changing the refresh rate is something else univbe likes to do and this can be related to the brightness issue.

I disagree.

Many vendor-specific TSRs (there are exceptions though) are inferior compared to what UniVBE is capable with a better supported video card and proper configuration. Lastly, I don't recommend the 6.7 version which has regressions with older video cards.

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce2 GTS 32 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 3 of 5, by dominusprog

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auron wrote on 2022-08-11, 15:25:

things like this are why i still think univbe is a bad tool and avoid it in favor of vendor-specific TSRs whenever possible.

Well, it can actually improve the performance of the card, especially on S3 family. And according to Wikipedia, IBM used SDD as a display driver for OS/2.

Last edited by dominusprog on 2022-08-11, 20:11. Edited 1 time in total.

Duke_2600.png
A-Trend ATC-1020 V1.1 ❇ Cyrix 6x86 150+ @ 120MHz ❇ 32MiB EDO RAM (8MiBx4) ❇ A-Trend S3 Trio64V2 2MiB
Aztech Pro16 II-3D PnP ❇ 8.4GiB Quantum Fireball ❇ Win95 OSR2 Plus!

Reply 4 of 5, by dominusprog

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Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-08-11, 17:28:
dominusprog wrote on 2022-08-11, 10:24:

Hello all

I have been working on a socket 7 build for the past few months. The graphic card is a Trident 3DImage 9750 and thanks to the good people at Vogons I downloaded the latest driver, and it works very well. I've tried a bunch of games on it, including Duke3D, Quake and Tomb Raider and in their native resolution (320x200), they work just fine. But when I increased the resolution to 640x480 VESA mode in Duke3d, the frame rate dropped by half, so I tried the UniVBE 5.x which doesn't support this model, so I downloaded version 6.53 from archive.org, and it worked. It detects the card and boosts the performance by about 10 fps in Duke3d. However, the problem is the brightness. It decreases the brightness to the point that the image is barely visible on the CRT. So is there any way to fix it? And what is causing this?

Thanks in advance.

Hello.

Try the UNICENTR utility after UniVBE is loaded. It can adjust the refresh rate, screen position, etc. for each VESA resolution. It could help with the brightness issue.

Thanks! I've increased the refresh rate to 75Hz, and it fixed. I've thought about the refresh rate and my CRT need some adjustment on high voltage, but I don't think it can have such an effect. Anyway, thank you for your reply.

Duke_2600.png
A-Trend ATC-1020 V1.1 ❇ Cyrix 6x86 150+ @ 120MHz ❇ 32MiB EDO RAM (8MiBx4) ❇ A-Trend S3 Trio64V2 2MiB
Aztech Pro16 II-3D PnP ❇ 8.4GiB Quantum Fireball ❇ Win95 OSR2 Plus!

Reply 5 of 5, by Gmlb256

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dominusprog wrote on 2022-08-11, 20:10:
Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-08-11, 17:28:
dominusprog wrote on 2022-08-11, 10:24:

Hello all

I have been working on a socket 7 build for the past few months. The graphic card is a Trident 3DImage 9750 and thanks to the good people at Vogons I downloaded the latest driver, and it works very well. I've tried a bunch of games on it, including Duke3D, Quake and Tomb Raider and in their native resolution (320x200), they work just fine. But when I increased the resolution to 640x480 VESA mode in Duke3d, the frame rate dropped by half, so I tried the UniVBE 5.x which doesn't support this model, so I downloaded version 6.53 from archive.org, and it worked. It detects the card and boosts the performance by about 10 fps in Duke3d. However, the problem is the brightness. It decreases the brightness to the point that the image is barely visible on the CRT. So is there any way to fix it? And what is causing this?

Thanks in advance.

Hello.

Try the UNICENTR utility after UniVBE is loaded. It can adjust the refresh rate, screen position, etc. for each VESA resolution. It could help with the brightness issue.

Thanks! I've increased the refresh rate to 75Hz, and it fixed. I've thought about the refresh rate and my CRT need some adjustment on high voltage, but I don't think it can have such an effect. Anyway, thank you for your reply.

You're welcome!

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce2 GTS 32 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS