****************************************************************************
**** This is a work-around to prevent 3dfx cards enabling themselves in ****
**** all full screen DOS sessions after abnormal termination of a DOS   ****
**** based 3dfx application.                                            ****
****************************************************************************

PLEASE NOTE: This is not an official fix provided by 3dfx Inc, nor do I work
             for 3dfx nor am I affiliated with 3dfx in any way. I just own
             one of their products!

I am an owner of a 3dfx based Righteous 3D video card, and am very pleased
with it. However, I noticed a very annoying bug in the drivers provided with
the card. When a 3dfx application terminates abnormally (sometimes even when
it ends like normal), the next time I try and go into a full screen DOS
session, my computer thinks the Righteous 3D is active and displays what
is in the Righteous 3D frame buffer. This results in my monitor turning
completely black.

I found a very simple solution to this problem, however, just by writing a
simple little batch file to run a program 3dfx provides to force the display
back to the 2-D card.

Files Included in this thing:
-----------------------------
FSDOS.BAT    An example batch file (should work for most people)
PASS.EXE     A utility 3dfx provides to manually switch to the 2-D card
README.TXT   What you are reading
FILE_ID.DIZ  For BBS purposes

How to use this simple fix:
---------------------------

***************************************************************************
MAKE SURE YOU PUT PASS.EXE IN YOUR C:\WINDOWS DIRECTORY (or some other
directory in the search path) !!!!!! Otherwise it won't be found and your
DOS session will give a "Bad command or filename" error.
***************************************************************************

1. Create a directory, and in there place the included files.

2. Somehow edit the properties of any or all of your MS-DOS Prompt shortcuts.
   What I did was open a DOS prompt like normal and force the display into a
   windowed mode. Then click on the "Properties" button at the top (looks
   like a hand holding a piece of paper).

3. Go to "Program" and next to a field that says "Batch File" there should
   be a blank. Put the full pathname to the batch file that runs PASS.EXE
   in this blank (FSDOS.BAT in this case) and apply these changes.

4. Repeat this process for any and all DOS sessions that are affected by
   the problem.

***************************************************************************
MAKE SURE YOU PUT PASS.EXE IN YOUR C:\WINDOWS DIRECTORY (or some other
directory in the search path) !!!!!! Otherwise it won't be found and your
DOS session will give a "Bad command or filename" error.
***************************************************************************

Here is whats in the batch file:

     @echo off
     pass.exe  


Thats it!

If a DOS based game has created a shortcut on your Start Menu and you need
to run this PASS.EXE program to switch the screen to the 2-D card, just edit
the game's Properties like before and see what happens. 

I have used this method and closed Tomb Raider down while running, and the
next MS-DOS prompt comes up in full screen perfectly by using this method.

Feel free to edit the batch file to your needs, I just provided it mainly as
an example.


Have fun...

Robbie Diehl
E-Mail: lepper@parodius.com


Disclaimer:
-----------

If for some reason your computer spontaneously combusts, or something else
goes wrong as a result of applying this work-around, I am not responsible!
The included exe was not programmed by me, it was written by 3dfx and
originally included in their S3 fix for 864/964/868/968 based cards. I just
decided to include it with a batch file and procedural description for
convenience sake.