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UniVBE_/Pro 5.0
User's Guide
SciTech Software USA, 97 E. St. James #44
San Jose, CA 95112 United States of America
SciTech Software Australia, Unit 5, 106 Southbank Boulevard
South Melbourne Victoria Australia 3205
COPYRIGHT
UniVBE_/Pro is copyright 1993-1994 SciTech Software. All Rights
Reserved. The product names UniVBE/Lite, UniVBE/Pro, UniCENTER and
UniPOWER are copyrighted by SciTech Software.
UniVBE/Pro is not copy protected, but it is copyrighted. As a
licensee of UniVBE/Pro, you may only use this product on only one
computer at a time. You may install the product on multiple computers
as long as there is no possibility of the product being used at the
same time on different computers. You may make backup copies for your
personal archival use only. The documentation included with this
software is copyrighted to SciTech Software, and may not, in whole or
in part, be copied, photocopied, reproduced or translated without
prior written permission from SciTech Software.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE
PRODUCT IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PRODUCT PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME
THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
IN NO EVENT WILL SCITECH SOFTWARE, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY HAVE
REDISTRIBUTED THE PRODUCT AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR
DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PRODUCT
(INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED
INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE
OF THE PRODUCT TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH
HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGES.
Produced in Australia, and printed in the United States of America.
UniVBE/Pro was written with Borland C++ and Borland Turbo Assembler,
and this manual was produced using Microsoft Word for Windows.
All brand and product names mentioned in this documentation are
trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
Contents
Introduction .............................................2
What is it? .........................................2
Why use it? .........................................3
Installation .............................................5
Hardware requirements ...............................5
Automated Installation ..............................5
Command line options ................................6
-s .............................................6
-c .............................................6
-m .............................................7
-d .............................................7
-g .............................................7
-u .............................................7
-b .............................................8
-l .............................................8
-i .............................................8
-p .............................................8
-x .............................................8
386 Memory Managers .................................8
Whats the .INI file for? ............................9
Upgrading your video card ...........................10
Video modes supported by UniVBE .....................10
Testing UniVBE ...........................................12
UniPOWER .................................................13
Problems with the Standby State .....................13
What do the DPMS states mean anyway? ................13
UniCENTER ................................................15
Video cards tested with UniVBE ...........................16
- 1 -
Introduction
What is it?
The Universal VESA VBE (or UniVBE_ for short) is a small Terminate
and Stay Resident (TSR) program that extends the Video BIOS of
SuperVGA video cards to make them compatible with the Video
Electronics Standards Association (VESA) recommended Video BIOS
Extensions (VBE). Many new programs like Microsoft Flight Simulator
5 rely on a fully functioning VBE in order to obtain the highest
performance possible. UniVBE provides the latest VBE 1.2 standard so
you can be sure these programs will not only work correctly, but will
run as fast as possible on your system. UniVBE comes in two flavours,
the Shareware or unregistered trial version (UniVBE/Shareware) and
the full professional version (UniVBE/Pro). The professional version
also includes a high performance 32 bit protected mode interface
based on the soon to be released VBE 2.0 standard, and programs
written to take advantage of this can run with blinding speed
compared to normal VESA VBE implementations. The shareware version is
not a cut down version, but a full featured trial version of
UniVBE/Pro. You have 21 days after installing UniVBE to try out all
of its features, before you are required to register your copy with
SciTech Software (if you received a Bundle version of UniVBE/Lite or
UniVBE/Pro with some application software, you do not need to
register UniVBE).
Apart from making your programs run faster and better, UniVBE/Pro can
also save you money and help the environment at the same time!
UniVBE/Pro fully supports the new VESA VBE/PM and DPMS standards for
Energy Star compliance, and comes with the UniPOWER_ power management
screen savers. If you have one of the new Energy Star compliant video
monitor that supports the Display Power Management Standard (DPMS),
you can install the UniPOWER DOS and Windows screensaver programs to
power down the monitor when not in use. This allows your monitor to
shut down and use less than 5 watts of power while you are having a
coffee break or otherwise engaged!
And lastly, to help you configure your video card for optimum results
with your monitor, UniVBE/Pro comes with the UniCENTER_ utility
program, that allows you to adjust the centering and sizing for all
video modes supported by UniVBE/Pro. Fantastic for getting those
video modes to look just right!
Note that if you received a bundle version of UniVBE/Lite or
UniVBE/Pro with some application software, the UniCENTER and UniPOWER
utility programs will not have been included. You will need to
purchase the full registered version of UniVBE/Pro from SciTech
Software in order to obtain these utilities.
- 2 -
Why use it?
You may already have a vendor supplied VESA VBE TSR program for your
video card, or you video card may have VESA VBE compliance built into
the BIOS, so why would you want to use this program?
The simple answer is that most of the vendor supplied TSR's that
exist today, and a lot of the not-so-new SuperVGA cards that are
around implement an older version of the VESA VBE interface (if any
at all), or they are just plain buggy. For this reason, many of the
latest games and graphics related programs that use the advanced
features of the new VBE 1.2 standard will probably not work with the
TSR or BIOS that you currently have.
UniVBE fully implements the VBE 1.2 standard, which supports the
following advanced features:
SuperVGA double buffering. High performance animation programs
can use your card to full potential to implement double
buffering in all video modes. Smooth, flicker free animation in
800x600 and 1024x768 video modes with 256 colors is no longer a
fantasy. Or even the new 32k and 64k color modes, if you have
enough memory on your card.
SuperVGA virtual screens. Programs may set up a huge virtual
display resolutions, and smoothly scroll a window with less
physical resolution around within this buffer.
Support for the 32k, 64k and 16.7 million color video modes. As
well as supporting the industry standard 16 and 256 color video
modes for resolutions from 320x200 right up to 1600x1200.
Speed. The bank switching code in UniVBE tends to run as fast or
faster than the routines embedded in the VIDEO BIOS of most
video cards.
Extremely small size. When the TSR is resident in your computer
it only requires about 5k of memory which is smaller than the
size of most vendor supplied TSR's that support only a single
video card!
The professional version, UniVBE/Pro also includes the following
features:
High speed 32 bit protected mode interface. Many of the latest
programs are being developed in 32 bit protected mode, which
changes many of the rules related to obtain high performance
from your video card. UniVBE/Pro's 32 bit protected mode
interface will give programs written to take advantage of it
that extra zing of performance.
Supports emulation of all 640x350 and 640x400 resolution video
modes on video adapters that do not directly support this. Works
for all 256, 32k and 64k color video modes, which is perfect for
high speed animation.
- 3 -
Supports mapping out video modes not available on your
particular video card.
Supports the UniCENTER_ program for adjusting the supported
video modes for optimium performance on your video monitor.
Can be loaded into high memory. UniVBE/Pro also comes with an
option to force it to load high if the normal DOS loadhigh
command fails.
Can be unloaded from memory once installed for use in batch
files.
Supports the new VBE/PM 1.0 standard for correctly signalling
power management states to DPMS compliant video monitors.
Supports the following states:
Standby
Suspend
Off
- 4 -
Installation
Hardware requirements
UniVBE will run on any 80x86 based IBM PC compatible running MSDOS,
or an OS/2 2.x DOS shell. In order to take advantage of the 32 bit
protected mode interface of UniVBE/Pro, you must have at least an
80386 based computer. Currently UniVBE supports the following
SuperVGA cards, and more are being added as they are released:
ATI Technologies 18800, 28800, Mach32
Ahead A & B
Chips & Technologies 82c451/452/453/450, 655x0
Everex EvNR
Genoa Systems GVGA
OAK Technologies OTI-037C/057/067/077/087
Paradise PVGA1A, WD90C00/10/11/20/21/26A/30/31/33
NCR 77C20/21/22E/32BLT
Trident 88/8900/9000/8900CL/8900D/9200CXr/9400CXi/GUI9420
Video7 VEGA, HT208/209/216
Tseng Labs ET3000, ET4000, ET4000/W32
S3 86c911/924/801/805/928
Advance Logic AL2101/2201/2228/2301 SuperVGA
MXIC 86000/86010 SuperVGA
Primus 2000 SuperVGA
RealTek RTG3103/3105/3106 SuperVGA
Cirrus Logic CL-GD6205/15/25/35/45, 5402/20/22/24/26/28/29/30/34
UMC 85c408
Hualon HMC86304
Weitek 5086/5186/5286 (on P9000 based boards)
Compaq IVGS/AVGA, QVision QV1024/1280
Automated Installation
Installing UniVBE on your system is a snap. Simply following these 6
simple steps:
1. Insert the UniVBE distribution diskette into drive A or drive B.
2. Type 'A:INSTALL' or 'B:INSTALL' (depending on which drive you
inserted the diskette into), and then press the Enter key.
The installation program will start, and you will be presented with a
screen describing the installation configuration.
3. Verify the installation directories for installing UniVBE into,
and change them if necessary. If you are installing the UniPOWER
screensaver for Windows, change the Windows directory to the place
where you have installed Windows. By default this is C:\WINDOWS.
- 5 -
4. Select the options you wish to install (by default all options
will be turned on).
5. Click the 'INSTALL' button, and the installation program will
begin the installation process.
6. Follow the instructions on the screen, and eventually you will be
prompted to enter your name to register UniVBE. Enter your full
name and hit the Enter key and follow the instructions until your
are returned to the DOS prompt (simply click Cancel to install
UniVBE as the unregistered trial version).
Thats it! When the installation is completed, you will be returned
into the directory that you installed UniVBE into (by default
C:\UNIVBE). If you selected the option to update your AUTOEXEC.BAT
file, you will need to reboot your machine before UniVBE will be
active.
Command line options
UniVBE supports a number of different command line options. Running
UNIVBE.EXE with the -h command line option will provide you with a
list similar to the following:
-s<x> - Force detection of SuperVGA (-s0 for list)
-c<x> - Force detection of SuperVGA chipset (-c0 for list)
-m<size> - Force memory size to 'size'
-d<x> - Force DAC type (-d0 for list)
-g - Regenerate default .ini file
-u - Unload the Universal VESA VBE from memory
-b - Swap RED and BLUE bytes in 24 bit modes
-l - Force resident code to be loaded high
-i - Ignore a buggy underlying VBE BIOS
-p - Disable Power Management (PM) extensions
-x - Disable 32 bit protected mode interface
Following is a detailed reference to all of the command line options:
-s
The -s command line option is used to force UniVBE to only run
the detection logic for a particular type of SuperVGA chipset.
It is possible that the detection logic for some of the video
cards supported by UniVBE will hang the machine in some
configurations. If this happens, you can try forcing UniVBE to
only run the detection logic for your video card for maximum
compatability. If UniVBE is behaving strangely on your system,
this is the first option that you should try.
Specifying a command line of -s0 will provide you with a list of
all supported SuperVGA types.
-c
The -c command line option is used to force UniVBE to use a
particular chipset revision. Within each SuperVGA type, there is
usually a number of different chipset revision levels that
- 6 -
UniVBE must identify in order to work correctly. UniVBE can
normally automatically detect the chipset revision correctly,
however you can use this option to force a chipset revision if
UniVBE incorrectly detects this. Note that this command line
option is handled for you in the automated installation program.
Specifying a command line of -c0 will provide you with a list of
all supported chipset revisions for your video card.
-m
The -m command line option is used to force UniVBE to recognise
a specific amount of video memory. Generally UniVBE can
automatically detect the correct amount of video memory
installed on your video card, however in some cases UniVBE may
detect this value incorrectly, and you will have to force the
correct amount (consult your video card documentation for your
proper memory configuration). Note that this command line option
is handled for you in the automated installation program.
The amount of memory is specified on the command line in units
of 1Kb, so the value for a 1Mb video card would be -m1024.
-d
The -d command line option is used to force UniVBE to recognise
the presence of a different type of RAMDAC. The RAMDAC is used
by the video card to convert the image in video memory to the
correct colors to be sent to the video monitor, and different
RAMDAC's support different maximum color resolutions (some
support only 256 colors, while others support 32k, 64k or even
16.7 million colors). Generally UniVBE will be able to
automatically detect the correct RAMDAC installed on your video
card, however in some cases this may be incorrectly identified.
Note that this command line option is handled for you in the
automated installation program.
Note that UniVBE is unable to detect the presence of some 16 bit
RAMDAC's, and these may be misidentified as 15 bit RAMDAC's.
Specifying a command line of -d0 will provide you with a list of
all supported RAMDAC's.
-g
The -g command line option is used to generate the default .INI
file for UniVBE/Pro. This is normally handled automatically for
you by the installation program, however you can use the command
line option to do this manually if you wish. In order to do
this, you must first install UniVBE/Pro, then run with the -g
option to re-generate the .INI file, and the finally un-install
UniVBE/Pro and re-install again (the changes will not come into
effect until you re-install UniVBE/Pro).
-u
The -u command line option is used to unload UniVBE/Pro from
memory. This allows you to create batch files to install
UniVBE/Pro into memory, run a specific program and then remove
- 7 -
UniVBE/Pro from memory when you are finished running the
program.
-b
The -b command line option is used to swap the RED and BLUE byte
ordering in 24 bit or 16.7 million color modes. On some video
cards (most noteably the Diamond cards that include the SS24
RAMDAC) the order of the RED and BLUE bytes in video memory is
different to that supported by most other video cards. This
command line option is used to force these order to be changed.
If the colors look ridiculous in the 24 bit video modes of your
favorite applications, then you probably need to use this
command line option.
-l
The -l command line option is used to force UniVBE/Pro to be
loaded high. This is similar to the normal MSDOS LoadHigh
command, however because of the size of the non-resident
portions of UniVBE/Pro sometimes this command will fail and load
UniVBE/Pro normally into low memory. This command line option
will then force UniVBE/Pro to relocate the resident portion into
high memory, leaving only a few hundred bytes in low memory.
Note that this option is fully compatible with your normal
LoadHigh command, and can be used in combination with any of
these commands.
-i
The -i command line option is used to force UniVBE/Pro to ignore
an underlying VBE BIOS if one is present. By default UniVBE/Pro
will use pass through techniques to support functions provided
by the underlying BIOS that UniVBE/Pro does not provide. In some
severe cases the underlying BIOS is buggy and will cause
UniVBE/Pro to behave incorrectly, so you will need to force
UniVBE/Pro to ignore it.
-p
The -p command line option is used to disable the VBE/PM and
DPMS power management features of UniVBE/Pro. You would only
want to use this option if you have a vendor supplied TSR or
BIOS that you wish to use instead of UniVBE/Pro's built in
support.
-x
The -x command line option is used to disable the 32 bit
protected mode interface provided by UniVBE/Pro. Normally you
will want to leave this option active, however this option is
useful for testing purposes to ensure that software works
correctly both with and without the protected mode interface
installed (and to see how slow it runs without it!).
386 Memory Managers
Sometimes a 386 memory manager can conflict with the correct
operation of UniVBE for certain video card configurations. If you
- 8 -
have a 386 Memory Manager installed such as EMM386, QEMM, QRAM or
386MAX and when attempting the install UniVBE the machine just hangs,
or an application attempting to use UniVBE hangs you possibly have a
memory manager conflict. Specifically if you have an ATI Mach32 or
Mach64 based video card (Graphics Ultra Pro, Graphics Ultra Turbo)
you will need to exclude the video BIOS region for correct operation,
so proceed to step 2. To attempt to solve this, try the following
steps (you might also like to refer to the documentation on your
memory manager - QEMM for instance has a long section on
troubleshooting such installation problems):
1. First do a clean boot (with no memory managers or TSR programs
installed apart from HIMEM.SYS and MSDOS) and attempt to install
UniVBE. If UniVBE works in this configuration, then you have a
conflict, and proceed to step 2. If UniVBE still does not work,
then you possibly have a video card that is not fully supported by
UniVBE - please contact SciTech Software and let us know so that
we can attempt to rectify this in a future release.
2. Use the EXCLUDE option of your memory manager to exclude the
entire video BIOS region, reboot your machine and attempt to
install UniVBE once again. For EMM386 and QEMM the command to put
on the command line is:
X=C000-CFFF
3. If step 2 is successful, you can try to reduce the amount of
memory excluded with the above option which will provide you with
more high memory for TSR programs. To do this, lower the value in
the second number from CFFF to a value such as C7FF and lower.
C7FF will probably work with most configurations.
Whats the .INI file for?
For most installations, UniVBE will automatically determine the video
modes that your card supports. However on some video configurations,
some video modes that UniVBE thinks are possibly available aren't and
so an error will occur if a program tries to set the video mode. The
UNIVBE.INI file is used to remove support for those video modes. If
you selected the 'Generate UniVBE.INI file' option in the
installation program, the installation program will automatically
determine which modes are not available and produce an appropriate
UniVBE.INI file for you. If you did not select this option, or the
automatic UniVBE.INI file generation procedure does not work on your
system, you can edit the UniVBE.INI yourself.
The format of the UniVBE.INI file is simple. All the video modes
removed by the program are listed under the section '[remove]' in the
.INI file. They are listed as the hexadecimal internal mode numbers
used by the TSR (see the section 'Video Modes supported by UniVBE'
below for more information). An example UniVBE.INI file might be:
[remove]
10D
10E
- 9 -
The UniVBE.INI file is also used to contain the information generated
by the UniCENTER program to adjust the centering and sizing of the
video modes supported by UniVBE.
Upgrading your video card
When the time comes to replace the video card in your system with a
new one, rest assured that UniVBE will probably work just as well
with the new video cards as with your old one. However when you do
so, you will need to delete the UNIVBE.INI file from your \UNIVBE
directory, and then should re-install UniVBE in order to correctly
generated a new UniVBE.INI file for the new video card, or use the -g
command line option to do so manually. You will also need to re-
center all of your video modes using the UniCENTER program if you did
this with your old video card.
Video modes supported by UniVBE
UniVBE fully supports the VESA VBE 1.2 standard, which defines a
number of standard video modes numbers. The new version of the VESA
VBE specs will allow the vendor to extend the video numbers used to
whatever values they wish, so we have taken the liberty to extend the
mode numbers used by the UniVBE to include modes not originally
specified in the VBE 1.2 specs, but supported by a number of popular
video cards on the market. Depending on how well your applications
have been written, they may or may not be able to use those modes. If
you are a developer wishing to take advantage of these modes, please
consult the SuperVGA Kit (available from SciTech Software) for more
information and programming examples. Specifically, the video modes
supported are (along with internal modes numbers used by UniVBE):
102 - 800x600 16 color
104 - 1024x768 16 color
106 - 1280x1024 16 color
123 - 1600x1200 16 color
11C - 640x350 256 color
100 - 640x400 256 color
101 - 640x480 256 color
103 - 800x600 256 color
105 - 1024x768 256 color
107 - 1280x1024 256 color
124 - 1600x1200 256 color
10D - 320x200 32k color
11D - 640x350 32k color
11E - 640x400 32k color
110 - 640x480 32k color
113 - 800x600 32k color
116 - 1024x768 32k color
119 - 1280x1024 32k color
125 - 1600x1200 32k color
10E - 320x200 64k color
11F - 640x350 64k color
120 - 640x400 64k color
- 10 -
111 - 640x480 64k color
114 - 800x600 64k color
117 - 1024x768 64k color
11A - 1280x1024 64k color
126 - 1600x1200 64k color
10F - 320x200 16m color
121 - 640x350 16m color
122 - 640x400 16m color
112 - 640x480 16m color
115 - 800x600 16m color
118 - 1024x768 16m color
11B - 1280x1024 16m color
127 - 1600x1200 16m color
128 - 640x480 16m+A color (32 bits per pixel)
129 - 800x600 16m+A color (32 bits per pixel)
12A - 1024x768 16m+A color (32 bits per pixel)
12B - 1280x1024 16m+A color (32 bits per pixel)
12C - 1600x1200 16m+A color (32 bits per pixel)
UniVBE also fully supports the new 32 bits per pixel 16.7 million
color video modes popular on the latest video cards. These modes
usually run much faster than the equivalent 24 bit modes, but take up
considerably more memory (you need at least 2Mb to run
640x480x32bit).
Note however that even though UniVBE may support a particular video
mode, this mode will only be available if there is enough video
memory installed, and if the underlying video hardware can support
it. UniVBE fully supports the 640x350, 640x400 and 640x480 modes with
256/32k and 64k colors on all video cards that have enough video
memory, using proprietry emulation techniques if the underlying VIDEO
BIOS does not directly support it.
UniVBE does not provide support for any of the extended text modes
that your video card may provide, but will provide support for any
extended text modes supported by an underlying VESA VBE compliant
BIOS or TSR. Thus if your video card already has a VBE compliant BIOS
or you install your vendor supplied VESA VBE TSR for your video card
before installing UniVBE, an automatic pass-through mechanism will be
used to ensure the extended text modes still work correctly.
- 11 -
Testing UniVBE
UniVBE is also installed with the SVTEST16.EXE, SVTEST32.EXE and
VBETEST.EXE programs for testing the operation of UniVBE. The
SVTest16 and SVTest32 programs are 16 bit real mode and 32 bit
protected mode applications built with the SuperVGA kit. These
programs will allow you to fully test all the different video modes
that UniVBE supports. The VBETest program is a stress test and
conformance testing program to full test the VESA VBE implementation
for compliance. You might want to run this program on your current
VBE BIOS or TSR, and then run it with UniVBE installed to see how
much better UniVBE is.
If UniVBE/Pro is installed, the SVTest32 program will use the high
speed 32 bit protected mode interface for maximum performance. You
can try turning off this interface with the -x command line option to
see how much slower the program runs without it.
- 12 -
UniPOWER
UniPOWER is a power management screen saver that will shut down any
DPMS compliant video monitor via the VESA VBE/PM interface (provided
by UniVBE/Pro). UniPOWER comes in two flavours, the UniPOWER.EXE
screensaver for DOS and the UniPOWER.SCR screensaver for Windows. By
default the installation program for UniVBE will install both
UniPOWER for DOS and UniPOWER for Windows.
The UniPOWER.SCR program is a standard Windows screensaver, so you
can use it just like you use all your normal Windows screensavers. By
default the installation program will have installed and activated
the UniPOWER for Windows screensaver. However you can change the way
that UniPOWER for Window operates. First you need to open up the
Windows Control Panel, and then hit the 'Setup' button for the
installed screensaver (which should be 'UniPOWER DPMS'). This will
bring up a dialog box allowing you to modify UniPOWER's
configuration. Extensive online help is provide for UniPOWER for
Windows, so please consult the online documentation for more
information.
Problems with the Standby State
By default when you installed UniPOWER, the Standby state is
disabled. Some monitors do not support this particular state, and on
some video card configurations, this state is difficult to signal
correctly. You may notice that when the Standby state has been
activated, the video monitor goes directly in the Off state, rather
than the Standby state. If this happens then your video card was not
able to correctly signal this state to the video monitor, and it
should disabled.
If you wish to activate the Standby state, be sure to test it for
correct operation with your video monitor using the provide TEST
button in the UniPOWER for Windows configuration dialog box. If the
state is not working correctly, you will not damage your video card
or your monitor, but the monitor will incorrectly detect this state
as the Off state.
What do the DPMS states mean anyway?
In late 1993 the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA )
completed and ratified the Display Power Management Signalling, or
DPMS standard. The DPMS standard allows normal VGA or SuperVGA video
cards to communicate with DPMS compliant video monitors via a special
signalling system. This signalling system allows the video card to
tell the monitor to go into a number of different power management or
power saving states, which effectively allow the monitor to turn
itself off when it is not in use. The primary benefit of this is
dramatically decreased (up to 90%!) power consumption when your
computer is sitting idle, but it also saves you money.
- 13 -
There are basically four states that a DPMS compliant monitor can be
in, and they are usually enter into one after the other in a
sequential fashion. Each of the different states provides a tradeoff
between minimum power consumption and minimum recovery time (the time
it take before you can see the picture again!). The following table
outlines the currently defined power management states, and how they
relate to each other. Also included are some ballpark figures for
power consumption and recovery times, but you should consult the
documentation that comes with your video monitor for more accurate
figures:
State Power Recovery Time Notes
On 100% N/A Normal use
Standby < 80% ~1 sec Minimal power reduction (optional)
Suspend < 30 watts ~4 secs Substantial
power reduction
Off < 5 watts ~8-20 secs Lowest level
or power - non operational
Note that the Standby state is optional and may not be provided by
some monitors.
- 14 -
UniCENTER
If you have installed the UniCENTER utility program, it will have
been placed into the directory where you also installed UniVBE/Pro.
To use UniCENTER, first change to the directory where UniVBE is
installed (the following example assumes the default installation):
CD \UNIVBE
Then run the UniCENTER program with the following command:
UNICENTR
You will then be presented with a hierarchy of menus allowing you to
display and adjust the parameters for each of the video modes
supported by your UniVBE/Pro installation. To adjust a video mode,
simply follow the instructions on the screen and using the arrow keys
to move and size the image. When you are finished hit the enter key -
if you adjust the image too far and it goes out of sync, hit the ESC
key and you will be dropped back to the previous menu.
When you have finished, exit UniCENTER and the adjustments will be
saved into the UNIVBE.INI file (note that you must re-install
UniVBE/Pro for the changes to take effect). That's all there is to
it!
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Video cards tested with UniVBE
The following is a list of video cards that have been fully tested
and are known to work correctly with UniVBE (if you want to add your
card to the list, please forward the details to SciTech Software and
it will be added):
Thoroughly tested by SciTech Software: Thoroughly tested by SciTech Software: Thoroughly tested by SciTech Software:
Actix GE32+ ISA 1Mb (S3 86c801 TrueColor DAC)
Actix GE32+ VLB 1Mb (S3 86c805 TrueColor DAC)
Diamond Stealth VRAM ISA 1Mb (S3 86c924)
Diamond Stealth 24 VLB 1Mb (S3 86c805 TrueColor DAC)
STB WINDX ISA 1Mb (S3 86c911)
NCR 77C32BLT VLB 2Mb (TrueColor DAC)
Cirrus Logic 5422 ISA 1Mb (TrueColor DAC)
Cirrus Logic 5226 VLB 1Mb (TrueColor DAC)
Cirrus Logic 5428 VLB 2Mb (TrueColor DAC)
Orchid Kelvin VLB 2Mb (Cirrus Logic 5434 TrueColor DAC)
Tseng Labs ET3000 ISA 512k
Orchid Pro Designer II ISA 1Mb (Tseng Labs ET4000)
MegaEva/2 ISA 1Mb (ET4000 HiColor DAC)
MegaEva/32i/VL VLB 2Mb (ET4000/32i TrueColor DAC)
Video 7 VRAM II ISA 1Mb (HT209)
ATI VGA Wonder ISA 512k (18800)
ATI Graphics Ultra Pro VLB 2Mb (Mach32 68800-6 TrueColor DAC)
Trident 8900C ISA 512Kb/1Mb
Trident 9000 ISA 512Kb
Oak OTI-037C 512k
Oak OTI-067 512k
RealTek RTVGA 3106 ISA 1M
Paradise VGA Plus Card ISA 256k (8 bit PVGA1A)
Paradise ISA 256k (16 bit PVGA1A)
Paradise Windows Accelerator ISA 1Mb (WD90C31 HiColor DAC)
Cardex C33 VLB 2Mb (WD90c33 TrueColor DAC)
Western Digital in Toshiba T4440C Laptop 512k (WD90C30)
Western Digital in Toshiba T6600 Laptop 512k (WD90C26A)
Everex Viewpoint VRAM ISA 1Mb (Ev623 + Tseng ET4000AX)
Reported to work from UniVBE users: Reported to work from UniVBE users: Reported to work from UniVBE users:
UMC 85c408 512k with HiColor DAC
HMC 86304 256k, 512k
Trident 9000i 512k with HiColor DAC
Trident 8900C 1Mb
Trident 8900B 1Mb
MXIC 86000 512k
Avance Logic ALG2101 1Mb with HiColor DAC
Oak OTI-077 1Mb
Oak OTI-087 1Mb with HiColor DAC
Oak OTI-067 256k
Western Digital WD90c31 1Mb with TrueColor DAC (AT&T 20c492)
Western Digital WD90c33 1Mb with TrueColor DAC (Sierra SC15025)
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NCR 77C22E 4Mb
Tseng Labs ET4000AX 1Mb with TrueColor DAC (SS24)
Tseng Labs ET4000/W32 1Mb with TrueColor DAC (AT&T 20c490)
Tseng Labs ET4000/W32i 2Mb with TrueColor DAC (Sierra SC15025)
Tseng Labs ET4000/W32i 1Mb with TrueColor DAC (Sierra SC15025)
Tseng Labs ET3000AX 512k
Primus P2000 2Mb with TrueColor DAC (AT&T 20c492)
Acumos AVGA2 512k (actually a Cirrus 5421 equivalent chipset)
Cirrus Logic 5420 512k with HiColor DAC
ATI Graphics Ultra Pro 2Mb with TrueColor DAC (TI34075)
Weitek 5186 256k (on a P9000 board)
Western Digital WD90c24 1Mb with HiColor DAC
RealTek RTG3105 512k
Trident 9000B 512k
Cirrus Logic 5426 2Mb
Chips & Technologies 82c450 in Macintosh Quadra 800 with DOS
card.
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