Rendition Installation

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>To those of you who had no problems installing this card, I am happy for >you. For those who, like me, had to remove every stinking card and replace >them one by one to get it to work, I can relate. Man, what a night. > ...snip... > Then I moved the darn thing to >another PCI slot and it works. Thing is, the other card worked there. Go >figure.

Sounds to me like your motherboard is of the type that does not allow busmastering on all PCI slots (an older board, probably more than a year old). I believe that the card must be plugged into a busmasterable slot. My Intergraph card is running on IRQ9. /===================================================\ | John Simmons (Redneck Techno-Biker) | | http://www.paddedwall.org/john | \===================================================/

According to the documentation, I have 4 32 bit PCI Bus master slots. And only one of them is in use at this time. Maybe it was just a bad slot. Did you configure it, or did it come that way? Mine is using IRQ 10.

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> To those of you who had no problems installing this card, I am happy for > you. For those who, like me, had to remove every stinking card and replace > them one by one to get it to work, I can relate. Man, what a night. > It's in now, it works, and I am happy so far. But it was a near thing. > First I had to turn off Video ROM Shadowing in the BIOS. Still no joy. > Then had to yank the SB16 soundcard. Still locking Win95 up. Finally got > fed up and yanked the gamecard, modem, and network card as well. Still > locking up in Win95. DOS was fine. Man. Then I moved the darn thing to > another PCI slot and it works. Thing is, the other card worked there. Go > figure. > So I guess my only _real_ complaint is that they use IRQ10 for the card, > and it is not configureable. At least mine would not change. This was > conflicting with my network card, so I had to reconfigure it before things > worked. > Also, I had to change my monitor as well. The monitor I was using would > not sync with the card in 1024x768 mode. It did with my old card. What > the heck, I janked my daughters monitor and all is well. > ICRII really smokes! Everything on, all cars drawn ahead, and it stays in > the mid 20s in traffic and pegs at 30 when alone. This thing is sweet. > And the resolutions you get with Quake is mind blowing. And this is with a > P120, not a 166 monster.

There is a possible fix for these problems called vgafix.zip on our home page (its also on the IBBS). Go to http://www.intergraph.com/ics/reactor/support.htm. Apparently this driver that comes with win95 causes some kind of conflict. We are working to get this documented and explained on the web page. I'll make sure all the Support Engineers try this fix first when you call. As for the IRQ, the system allocates IRQ's for PCI cards but you must reserve the ones for ISA and EISA cards. Some vendors have a ISA/EISA configuration utility that reserves them in the CMOS and some do it in the CMOS settings page. If you dont have your others reserved, there could be conflicts. The PCI bus will give the first available IRQ to the card so it will be different on different machines depending on whats installed. -- ?tD

I had the same problem last night and couldn't figure out why I was locking up in Win 95. Moved card to different PCI slot and everything was working like a champ again. Luck Maybe?

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>To those of you who had no problems installing this card, I am happy for >you. For those who, like me, had to remove every stinking card and replace >them one by one to get it to work, I can relate. Man, what a night. >It's in now, it works, and I am happy so far. But it was a near thing. >First I had to turn off Video ROM Shadowing in the BIOS. Still no joy. >Then had to yank the SB16 soundcard. Still locking Win95 up. Finally got >fed up and yanked the gamecard, modem, and network card as well. Still >locking up in Win95. DOS was fine. Man. Then I moved the darn thing to >another PCI slot and it works. Thing is, the other card worked there. Go >figure. >So I guess my only _real_ complaint is that they use IRQ10 for the card, >and it is not configureable. At least mine would not change. This was >conflicting with my network card, so I had to reconfigure it before things >worked. >Also, I had to change my monitor as well. The monitor I was using would >not sync with the card in 1024x768 mode. It did with my old card. What >the heck, I janked my daughters monitor and all is well. >ICRII really smokes! Everything on, all cars drawn ahead, and it stays in >the mid 20s in traffic and pegs at 30 when alone. This thing is sweet. >And the resolutions you get with Quake is mind blowing. And this is with a >P120, not a 166 monster.

#1 SBX Racing Monte Carlo

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>Subject: Re: Rendition Installation >Date: 2 Nov 1996 02:49:42 GMT >> > My Intergraph card is running on IRQ9. >> Did you configure it, or did it come that way? Mine is using IRQ 10. >Mine is on IRQ 11. I didn't adjust anything.

Mine is at IRQ 11 as well.

Mine is on IRQ 11. I didn't adjust anything.

> As for the IRQ, the system allocates IRQ's for PCI cards but you > must reserve the ones for ISA and EISA cards. > If you dont have your > others reserved, there could be conflicts. The PCI bus will > give the first available IRQ to the card so it will be different > on different machines depending on whats installed. Thanks for the info. This would have been nice to know last night when installing the card. Perhaps a few more pages could have been added to the manual? Robert

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> > As for the IRQ, the system allocates IRQ's for PCI cards but you > > must reserve the ones for ISA and EISA cards. > > If you dont have your > > others reserved, there could be conflicts. The PCI bus will > > give the first available IRQ to the card so it will be different > > on different machines depending on whats installed. > Thanks for the info. This would have been nice to know last night when > installing the card. Perhaps a few more pages could have been added to the > manual? > Robert

We will beef up the manual soon. The difficulty is that the situation differs from vendor to vendor so there is no way to account for every situation. Someone will still have problems-that's why we have excellent toll free technical support. Im really surprized at how may people call after a day of frustration and get the problem fixed on the first phone call. Intergraph understands that customer service is one of the most important features of purchasing hardware and software. I believe our tech Support is second to none. David Anderson Customer Support Manager Intergraph Computer Systems

Problem I had is that I am in MST, and when I got off work I only had 1 hour left of your tech support. After 30 minutes or so of messing with the card, that only left 30 minutes for tech support. Then it took about 15 minutes before they called me back. Down to 15. Then I was supposed to remove the cover again and yank out the SB card..... See the problem? Anyway, I understand the situation with tech support. Not complaining about it. Still, some of us have to work the same hours as you, and can't take the day off for a tech support call. Besides, if I can't figure it out after 4 or 5 hours, I don't want it. And a section in the manual, or a cheat sheet regarding the card setup along with the game sheets would have been greatly appreciated. Robert

> Robert Johnson of Intergraph replied! This is the kind of support that sells products, Thrustmaster being one of the pioneers, having been debating about which new graphics card to buy for a couple of months, my mind is now made up Congratulations & Keep it up. Dannie

I am still deciding if I should send it back. It is working, sort of, for now. Problem is that my monitor will no longer change to 1024x768 mode. It worked fine before with my S3 864 card. I had a seriously hard time getting it to work as well as it does, and it isn't perfect yet. Various games switch the screen resolution on their own ( MTM, Hellbender ) and I cringe every time it does so. The darn monitor goes into convolutions every time. And I suspect that the card 'encouraged' one of my monitors to give up the ghost. I can't prove it, and maybe it was it's time to go, but it seemed highly suspicious to me. It croaked right in the middle of all those screen changes. But a second monitor ( yes, I know ) is slightly newer, and has taken the abuse so far. Still looking for a REASONABLY priced 14 or 15" monitor to replace the other. To get it to work, I was instructed by tech support to remove my SB16 card. Just to be sure, I ended up removing all but the Reactor before the thing would boot. Seems like a lot of time and money just to play a few games, doesn't it? Heck, I don't even like ICR2 that much, and Quake isn't that big of a draw either. The graphics are great in both, but still..... I downloaded this also, but fail to see how a WIN driver is gonna fix the problem I have with DOS programs. ICR2 tends to put pure trash on the screen about 50% of the time, and a reboot to DOS mode is a 50% gamble as well. Perhaps I should be running Scitech's Display Doctor? And speaking of utilities, where the heck is the mention of the settings under the 'Verite' tab? Been there, done that. Worked for me. But what I did was re-install the old card, then yank all the cards out and stick in the Reactor to let the ' Plug and Pray ' card install itself. Frankly, Hellbender looks to be another Terminal Velocity / Fury type of game. Bought one, passed on the other. Neither is installed. Now, Monster Truck Madness is another matter. Gotta have some fun! You did, I did, and I know there are others or else the tech support wouldn't be as busy as it is. They are probably either unaware of this SIG, or too embarrassed to say they had troubles. Me? Heck, I don't care who knows. Maybe someone out there can help. Won't know until you ask, right?

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> > Sounds to me like your motherboard is of the type that does not allow > > busmastering on all PCI slots (an older board, probably more than a year > old). > > I believe that the card must be plugged into a busmasterable slot. > According to the documentation, I have 4 32 bit PCI Bus master slots. And > only one of them is in use at this time. Maybe it was just a bad slot. > > My Intergraph card is running on IRQ9. > Did you configure it, or did it come that way? Mine is using IRQ 10.

I had MAJOR problems installing this card. Windows95 just locked up totally. Only safe mode booted. I tried everything I could think of, even changed slot. No go. Reinstalling Windows entirely eventually solved it. I had to reinstall the sound card dirvers, the modem also. My wife later tried to run NFS SE, I believe it uses it's own directX drivers. Not only did NFS not work, but it was back to square one after that, that is windows95 lock up. Another reinstall. Man what a nightmare. I downloaded vgafix fron Itergraph' site later. Apparently it solves this problem, but who can be sure. Should I try removing the card and reinstall it to test this ? Fat chance. The manual states that if you install Hellbender and some other game, it will overwrite the verite drivers. Oh no.... Just reinstalling the verite drivers as re: the manual does not work after a lockup. Hopefully you won't run into this, but I am sure many will.