In reference to the Rendition card's slow VGA core, Mike Boich of Rendition
responded with this interesting tidbit: "True, we didn't make old-style VGA
a priority. As you say, we feel we did a good job with VESA. For fun, we
have a little utility which configures the BIOS to run do VESA 2.0 320x240
when mode 13 is set, which score 140+ on 3DBench (instead of 30 or so). We
may distribute this if there is demand. It makes some mode 13 games
scream, and some not run, but you can set and reset it with a single
command." The demand is there and he just posted that when he goes into
work today he will find a way to distribute it, probably on their web page
or an FTP site.
If you don't know, mode 13 is regular 320x240 VGA (like lo-res Nascar or
IndycarII). This little BIOS 'hack' allows for the substitution of VESA
320x240, giving about a 500% increase in 3DBench speeds (an old VGA
benchmarking utility). On my Reactor card, lo-res Nascar was a little
slower than it was on my old ATI card which is quite slow in DOS as well.
5x the speed should do nicely =)
So, the next driver release will give faster Windows speed, the Direct3D
speed already looks good and will improve with the new drivers as well (not
as good as a Voodoo, but still good), VESA 2.0 SVGA speeds are currently
among the fastest, and we now have fast VGA speed. If anyone was
hesitating buying this card because of any of those previous shortcomings,
you may want to re-evaluate your decision.
--
Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/
: In reference to the Rendition card's slow VGA core, Mike Boich of Rendition
: responded with this interesting tidbit: "True, we didn't make old-style VGA
: a priority. As you say, we feel we did a good job with VESA. For fun, we
: have a little utility which configures the BIOS to run do VESA 2.0 320x240
: when mode 13 is set, which score 140+ on 3DBench (instead of 30 or so). We
: may distribute this if there is demand. It makes some mode 13 games
: scream, and some not run, but you can set and reset it with a single
: command." The demand is there and he just posted that when he goes into
: work today he will find a way to distribute it, probably on their web page
: or an FTP site.
: --
: Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
: Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/
it would be interesting to have a such a trap utility allowing to trap
any mode to instead use an alternate mode.
i'm sure gp2 would get a speed boost by having a utility re-route its int
10 call to set VBE2.0 LFB 640x480 rather than the old paged mode.
-carlos
Nope, fraid not. Unless the code has been written to use a Linear Frame
Buffer you're stuffed.
Writing a utility to "remap" video modes is quite straight forward......
