list of known issue GF with vbe 2.0 card like intel, nivia

[GreatLord]

Intel 845G, 865G, 915G (may be others)
PRB: Cannot set resolution higher than 800x600x8bits and 640x480x16bits.
DETAILS: In Video BIOS frame buffer size hardwired to 832 Kbytes, which is not enough even for 1024x768x16bit = 1024*768*2 = 1572864, 1572864 > 832K.
FIX: Update your BIOS with latest version or patch it.

Intel 810E, 815E series
PRB: Cannot use linear frame buffer, but card identifies itself as VBE 3.0 compatible.
DETAILS: In Video BIOS linear frame buffer support is absent, but card itself supports linear frame buffer.
FIX: None known.

nVidia GeForce 5xxx/6xxx/7xxx (and newer ones)
PRB: Cannot set any resolution higher than 800x600.
DETAILS: In Video BIOS mode tables - 1024x768 modes and higher are absent or filtered. When you try to ask BIOS to set it, BIOS returns an error.
FIX: Update your BIOS with latest version or patch it.

Updated Infromations 21/5-2008

Different VESA cards that contain 16Bits rom code
PRB: When calling VBE functions, highword bits of EAX register and may be others (i.e. 0x????0000) may contain garbage.
DETAILS: In Video BIOS VESA that is writen in pure 16Bits asm code when you using 32 bit registers in the call the higher part can be croupted then.
FIX: Filter highword bits of EAX. Patch applay to ReactOS VBE Driver today 21/5-2008



Thank you beer windows to compile it from his own project
http://www.bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbemp.htm

[jimtabor]

Hi!
How about support for 1440x990? Widescreen.
Thanks,
James

[elhoir]

and how can we update a video BIOS?

[GreatLord]

jim
it depns on u graphic card. our vbe driver do not care how high u can go up to. it extract the mode list from the video card. than mean even 2048x2048 works if i video card support it or higher and that

elhoir
about update the video card bios
go to each manufactor website and look for
a update of the video card bios. the name of
it can be diffent. but most manufactor call it
bios update for the video card or something simluare that

[elhoir]

i find drivers only, not video bios... :S

my gpus are:
LAPTOP: Intel 915GM
TABLE PC: nVidia GeForce 6600

[GreatLord]

for intel 915gm and other intek chip bios

see
http://support.intel.com/support/chipse ... 009192.htm

[Falcon4]

Pardon my newbness, but the information regarding 810E/815E are quite relevant to my interests

What does it mean?

I mean, does that mean I can't use a 81x-based integrated video at all, or just that it doesn't work properly? =\

[GreatLord]

Hi
for u case, it mean reactos vbe driver does not work with your 810E/815E . and none known way to solv it. it need a vga drv or vbe 1.2 drv. ReactOS does not have a working vga drv at moment and we do not have vbe 1.2 drv either

[z180]

it is possible to write a tweaked mode VGA driver that does
modes like 360X480X8 on every card even on my old laptop
that abuses half of the 512k video ram.I had this mode working
with the OPENGEM GUI and tested other tweaked modes with fractint.I also had 400X800X8 on a external monitor
but I doubt that this is possible with every gpu and screen.
Also it is possible to display 4096 colors in 8bit modes by merging
two RGB pixels into one.The allegro library provides example source
code but merging horizontal pixels means that you lose the half of
your screen width but it looks for your eyes like 16bit colour depth

[GreatLord]

mode x with some trix you getting the res like 360x480x8
and it works on most monitor. it alter some freq and thanks to it some monitor will not be avail show it.

about 4096 color trix
it is a old trix it base on mixer color on the screen
it got diffent name, one of the name is HAM
it fake 4096 color with 256clor it also invlode in some alpha blend trix as well. if you want it look nice. if you simple mix two color it will not look nice The Mix of two work like this in teori on pixel 1 u set one color that is say 128,128,128 next pixel you set to 64,64,64 you eyes will see the two pixel as one color for the diff are so small and it lure u eyes it is one pixel
so on. it is so u getting 4096 color from 8bits color mode, but you can talk about other or simluare trix that works also equal good or better. but this is the basic how it is done.

[z180]

MY question: Would it be possible to revive the old VGA driver in
ReactOS and add other resolutions then 640x480x4bit?
Maybe someone has a special hardware where the driver is necessary
and VGA mode could be used as a fallback mode.

My old Compaq notebook (with the AVGA chip I talked above)does not run reactos because ram because it can only upgraded to 20mb RAM
and also I dont know if reactos can be compiled for 486.

The pixel combining would not be very useful for reactos(my opinion!) but I remembered my Amigas that had HAM6 mode and one had AGA
Chipset with HAM8 mode.

[Haos]

z180: it has to be done sooner or later. Its all the effect of lack in manpower. Only few devs could do something here and they are those particulary busy with different things.

[z180]

waiting is OK for me ,because reactos always runned well on my graphics adapter in vesa 2.0,i have example sourcecode for vga programming on my hdd (not here), but I cant do anything right now and i dont have the reactos coding style in my head and other things hinder me to write a multiple resolutions driver for vga/svga/avga... based on the original
driver and maybe tweaked modes (mode X) and 720x480 pixels in 4bit.

[aicommander]

Right now our VGA driver is really messed up. It needs to be rewritten.

[coldReactive]

This affects me, but I can't update my BIOS nor the video BIOS, since gateway (who bought out eMachines) doesn't give me a new BIOS program to reflash or anything.

Model: T5026, if you wanna go look yourself.