Autodesk Animator Pro. tweak mode driver v1.0 by Thaco (c) EPOS, May 1993 -- DOCUMENTATION -- -INTRODUCTION: Autodesk Animator Pro. is a professional tool for making animations and graphics on IBM PC compatible computers. With the program comes a VGA/MCGA driver for BIOS mode 13h (320x200x256) and some SVGA drivers. As several computers do not have SVGA cards they are limited to the 320x200x256 mode. It is known that BIOS video modes can be 'tweaked' to achieve different resolutions on a standard VGA card. The AATweak is a video driver that tweaks your VGA card under mode 13h to get 8 new resolutions in AA Pro (up to 360x480x256!). Because doing graphics under tweaked (unchained) video modes are a little bit more complicated than the plain (chained) mode 13h, AATweak has a lower performance than the VGA/MCGA driver. Speed tests for the standard VGA/MCGA driver and AATweak mode 0 (320x200x256) are enclosed in the SPEED TEST section of this document. In tweaked video modes it looks like 320 and 360 pixels per line are safest to use (works on all VGA/MCGA cards), so the AATweak driver only contains video modes with these resolutions. However, there are numerous other tweaked video modes. An unsafe version of AATweak called AATweak2 has therfore been made. Look in the POSTWARE section to get more information abouth it. -INSTALLATION: To install AATweak copy the AATWEAK.DRV file to the RESOURCE catalog under your AA Pro directory. Then start AA Pro as usual, and look at the Select Screen option under Extra in the main menu. You should now have the ability to choose between the 8 tweaked modes. It is also possible to start AA Pro with a selected video mode as a command line option (see ANI -? for help). -WARNINGS: AATweak uses non standard tweaked video modes to achieve higher resolution on your VGA/MCGA cards. As the name says these modes are tweaked and although they should work on any VGA/MCGA card it can not be guaranteed. -AVAILIBLE MODES: The available modes for AATweak are: # resoulution pages 0 320x200x256 4 1 320x240x256 3 2 320x400x256 2 3 320x480x256 1 4 360x200x256 3 5 360x240x256 2 6 360x400x256 1 7 360x480x256 1 -SPEED TEST: Below is a detailed test result of the AATweak driver compared with the standard VGA/MCGA driver. The 'times' column is the number of times bigger or smaller the AATweak time is compared to the VGA/MCGA time. A value of ñ1.0 indicates that the times are the same. test# test purpose: MCGA TWEAK times 1) wait_vsync() then set_colors() 0.004 0.004 1.0 2) put_dot() with solid color 3.791 2.990 1.3 3) get_dot() for solid color 3.202 2.962 1.1 4) put_dot() with a changing color value 3.790 2.990 1.3 5) get_dot() with a changing color value 3.201 2.962 1.1 6) cput_dot() writing only in-bounds data 3.026 2.958 1.0 7) cget_dot() reading only in-bounds data 4.136 2.895 1.4 8) cput_dot() writing out-of-bounds data 10.471 8.289 1.3 9) cget_dot() reading out-of-bounds data 9.702 8.101 1.2 10) put_hseg() using short line segments 3.089 5.244 -1.7 11) get_hseg() using short line segments 4.358 8.023 -1.8 12) put_hseg() using full-line segments 1.989 2.961 -1.5 13) get_hseg() using full-line segments 2.499 4.823 -1.9 14) put_vseg() using short line segments 11.563 1.262 9.2 15) get_vseg() using short line segments 1.951 2.058 -1.1 16) put_vseg() using full-line segments 10.244 0.916 11.2 17) get_vseg() using full-line segments 1.426 1.495 -1.0 18) set_hline() using short line segments 4.182 2.676 1.6 19) set_hline() using full-line segments 3.114 1.049 3.0 20) set_vline() using short line segments 17.473 1.908 9.2 21) set_vline() using full-line segments 13.093 1.198 10.9 22) put_rectpix() 1.539 2.111 -1.4 23) get_rectpix() 1.865 3.169 -1.7 24) set_rect() 1.788 0.540 3.3 25) set_rast() 1.981 0.564 3.5 26) xor_rect() 5.730 6.269 -1.1 27) mask1blit() 4.909 7.053 -1.4 28) mask2blit() 5.855 8.808 -1.5 29) blit_in_card() 3.550 4.951 -1.4 30) blit_to_ram() 2.057 4.063 -2.0 31) blit_from_ram() 1.650 2.786 -1.7 32) swap_in_card() 4.209 11.228 -2.7 33) swap_to_ram() 2.960 2.980 -1.0 34) swap_from_ram() 2.963 2.922 1.0 35) tblit_in_card() 2.839 3.206 -1.1 36) tblit_to_ram() 2.547 3.021 -1.2 37) tblit_from_ram() 1.710 2.126 -1.2 38) xor_to_ram() 1.267 0.897 1.4 39) xor_from_ram() 1.516 1.205 1.3 40) zoom_in_card() 5.830 8.436 -1.4 41) zoom_to_ram() 4.664 5.006 -1.1 42) zoom_from_ram() 5.394 6.636 -1.2 43) set_colors() 5.507 5.507 1.0 -CREDIT GOES TO THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE: Jim Kent at Autodesk for providing me with the AA Pro development kit and answering my numerous questions while making this driver. All in all this driver could NEVER have been made with out his patience and kindness. Robert Schmidt (robert@solan.unit.no) for his excellent tweak-package which most of the modes are taken from. Themie Gouthas (egg@dstos3.dsto.gov.au) who pointed me to his XLIB-package and at the source of fractint for even more tweaked modes. Lee Hamel (hamell@cs.pdx.edu) for being so kind as to spellcheck this document. A very special greeting goes to the á-testers: Jim Kent Ophir 'Pru2' Prusak (s1369046@technion02.technion.ac.il) Oyvind 'Plys' Bratland (oyvind.bratland@ban.aid.no) Lars 'Rubber' Ekhougen (laekh@hpx11.aid.no) Robert 'Buuud' Schmidt (robert@solan.unit.no) Daniel 'Leinad' Falk (d91-fad@tekn.hj.se) -POSTWARE: This driver is published under the PostWare policy. This means that if you like the driver or find it useful, you should (in order to save your reputation) send the author a postcard! If you would like to have the AATweak2 driver (contains the following 15 modes: 320x200, 320x240, 320x400, 320x480, 360x200, 360x240, 360x360, 360x400, 360x480, 376x282, 376x308, 376x564, 400x300, 400x564 and 400x600) you must say so on the postcard. Postcards marked 'AATWEAK' should be sent to: Eirik Milch Pedersen Stp. 153 7034 TRONDHEIM - NTH NORWAY -DISCLAIMER: In no event will the author (me) be liable to the user (you) for any damages, including any lost profits, lost savings, or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or inability to use this driver, or for any claim by any other party. -COPYRIGHTS: Tweak v1.0 is copyright Robert Schmidt of Ztiff Zox Softwear XLIB is "user supported freeware" made by Themie Gouthas. Fractint is copyright the Stone Soup Group. Autodesk Animator Pro. (or AA Pro.) is copyright Autodesk Inc. If you have any questions/ideas/sugestions/requests for this driver, please feel free to send me email at thaco@solan.unit.no, or snail mail. Trondheim 17/5-93 Eirik Milch Pedersen