DOS/V Power Report 1997 March

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Text File | 1995-09-14 | 26KB | 522 lines

README.NT MATROX GRAPHICS INC. September 15, 1995 Matrox MGA Millennium Drivers for Windows NT 3.5/3.51 on x86 CPUs Rev. 1.10.024 (3.5.24) History ~~~~~~~ Rev. 1.10 (3.5.24) This version is based on Rev. 1.10.023. Miniport: modified to blank out all VGA-disabled boards after DDC check. User-mode: modified multi-screen clipping for text; modified clipping for FromScreen blting; modified source coordinates for ScreenToScreen punting. Rev. 1.10 (3.5.23) This version is based on Rev. 1.10.022. Miniport: support for multiple DDC monitors; modified DCI code; correct programming of MACCESS. User-mode: multi-screen clipping for text. Rev. 1.10 (3.5.22) This version is based on Rev. 1.10.020. Miniport: modified to build list of modes that includes both 2D and 3D modes. User-mode: modified offscreen heap management. 3D-DDI: fixed RXCMD_READ_RECT. Rev. 1.04 (3.5.21) This version is based on Rev. 1.03.018. Miniport: corrected ScanSDA parameter in DDC code. Rev. 1.10 (3.5.20) Miniport: added support for refresh rates; added support for DCI; modified the code so that the Registry HardwareInformation is updated for every board detected. User-mode: optimized driver, mostly based on the S3 code supplied with the Windows NT 3.51 DDK, including support for device bitmaps and DCI; added code to support user-selected values from the Registry. 3D-DDI: optimized RXCMD_SWAP_BUFFERS command; optimized RXCMD_FILL_RECT command; fixed RXCMD_WRITE_RECT to Z buffer. Rev. 1.10 (3.5.19) User-mode: modified bltmod to BFCOL when writing 32bpp; removed masking when reading 16/32bpp; modified PlnWt at 15bpp; modified Build number. 3D-DDI: optimized triangle primitives; removed WaitFIFO macros; adapted to fully support OpenGL on the final version of NT 3.51, Build 1057. Rev. 1.03 (3.5.18) User-mode: modified offset convention in FastFill; modified Build number. Rev. 1.10 (3.5.17) Miniport: added Int10 call in RESET_DEVICE User-mode: modified Build number. Rev. 1.02 (3.5.16) Miniport: added Int10 call in RESET_DEVICE User-mode: modified Build number. Rev. 1.10 (3.5.15) Miniport: updated FindAdapter. User-mode: added MTX_QUERYPITCH escape code; modified Build number. Rev. 1.02 (3.5.14) Miniport: updated FindAdapter. User-mode: added MTX_QUERYPITCH escape code; modified Build number. Rev. 1.10 (3.5.13) Miniport: updated FindAdapter routine for systems with PCI bridges. Rev. 1.02 (3.5.12) Miniport: updated FindAdapter routine for systems with PCI bridges. Rev. 1.10 (3.5.11) Added 3D DLL (DDIRX.DLL). Rev. 1.02 (3.5.10) Miniport: updated FindAdapter routine; new and improved PCI access routines; added services for 3D DDI; User-mode: added back complex rop3 support; fixes in blt routines; added entry points for 3D DDI; modified Build number. Rev. 1.02 (3.5.09) Miniport: updated low-level code; added DPMS code; adapted for TVP3030; adapted for Alpha AXP. User-mode: added DPMS and DDC entry points; removed complex rop3 support; optimized write and read macros; adapted for TVP3030; adapted for Alpha AXP; modified Build number. Rev. 1.02 (3.5.08) Experimental build. Rev. 1.01 (3.5.07) User-mode: modified Build number. New MGA.MON file. Rev. 1.01 (3.5.06) Miniport: fixed VGA trashing by mtxCheckHwAll; added default build of list of modes; added DDC support. User-mode: added DrvFillPath support; modified cache limit for fonts; modified Build number. Rev. 1.00 (3.5.05) Miniport: modified YDstOrg computation. User-mode: modified full clipping limit; modified Build number. Rev. 1.00 (3.5.04) Miniport: updated low-level code; added code to validate PCI mechanism before any access, since some drivers use undocumented features to modify the access method. User-mode: modified Build number. Rev. 1.00 (3.5.03) Miniport: added mechanism 1 in PCI search. User-mode: modified Build number. Rev. 1.00 (3.5.02) Miniport: small change in MGA.C. User-mode: modified Build number. Rev. 1.00 (3.5.01) Miniport: updated with latest low-level code; modified Chip and Adapter strings. User-mode: modified Build number. Rev. 1.00 (3.5.00) Initial version. Windows NT Files on this Disk ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ \MGAX64.TAG Tag file for Windows NT Setup \MGAX64.SYS MGA Millennium miniport driver \MGAX64.DLL MGA Millennium user-mode driver \OEMSETUP.INF MGA Millennium driver installation file for Windows NT \TXTSETUP.OEM MGA Millennium driver installation file for Windows NT \MGA.MON MGA monitor file \MGASET.CPL Monitor selection applet for Control Panel \MONDLG.DLL DLL required by the Monitor selection applet \DDIRX.DLL MGA Millennium 3D-DDI driver \README.NT This file About These Drivers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These drivers support 2, 4, and 8Mbytes MGA Millennium boards. Multiple boards are also supported. The drivers, together with the 3D-DDI DLL, also support hardware-accelerated 3D. Installation ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Refer to your MGA Millennium Owner's Manual to install your board in your system. If you are installing two MGA Millennium boards in your system, please note that only one should be VGA-enabled through the on-board switch. Dual- board installations are similar to single board installations. The system will automatically assign separate addresses to each PCI board, allowing the driver to issue commands to each board. In a dual-board configuration, both boards must run with the same resolution and pixel depth (number of colors). The VGA-enabled board will drive the top left monitor. The general procedure for changing a display driver is the following: - Open the ControlPanel/Display applet. - Press the 'Change Display Type...' button. - In the Display Type dialog box, press the 'Change...' button. - In the Select Device dialog box, press the 'Other...' button. - In the Install From Disk dialog box, type the location of the Matrox MGA Millennium installation files (e.g. "A:\WINNT"). - From the displayed list, select a resolution and pixel depth supported by your board and monitor, then press 'Install'. Modes requiring 4 or 8 MBytes are called out in the displayed list. Dual-board modes are not available at driver installation time, since the number of installed boards cannot be determined at this time. - Answer 'Yes' to the Installing Driver dialog box. - If the MGA Millennium drivers are already installed on your system, you will be prompted to choose between the currently installed drivers or new ones. If you select 'New', you will be prompted for the path to the new driver files. This will default to the path entered in the Install From Disk dialog box. - In the Display Settings Change dialog box, you should select 'Restart Now' so that the new settings take effect. - If your system does not reboot at the expected resolution, it is probable that your board does not support the selected resolution/ pixel depth combination. Open ControlPanel/Display again and press the 'List All Modes...' button to get all the modes available for your particular board. You can also experiment with the 'Color Palette' and 'Desktop Area' controls to select a new mode. Use the 'Test' button to make sure that the new mode is supported by your monitor. Changing Resolution ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Whenever you want to change resolution, run the ControlPanel/Display applet. The available modes are displayed through the 'List All Modes...' button. If you are using a dual-screen configuration, the driver will spread the desktop over the two monitors. Special dual-screen resolutions will be listed where the horizontal or vertical resolutions are twice their normal size. Selecting one of these resolutions will permit testing of both monitors. Monitor Customization ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are two ways to select refresh rates for your monitor. Whenever a new driver is installed, it is assumed that refresh rates are selected through the ControlPanel/MGA Monitor applet. If your preference goes to selecting refresh rates through the 'Refresh Frequency' field of the ControlPanel/Display applet, you will have to edit a value in the Registry. Both options are described below. The section 'Editing the Registry' gives details on how to modify the values that control driver behavior. After installation, the display driver assumes that refresh rates will be set through the MGA Monitor applet. However, since the applet has not been run yet, the driver will assume that your monitor is capable of handling all resolutions from 640x480 up to 1600x1200 at a 60 Hz refresh rate. If your monitor does not support the higher resolutions, or if it is capable of higher refresh rates, you can run the ControlPanel/MGA Monitor applet and select a suitable monitor from the list. This will ensure that your monitor will not be over-driven, and that you will get the benefits of higher refresh rates. The MGA Monitor applet should have been copied by the Windows NT Setup program into your SystemRoot\SYSTEM32 subdirectory when the MGA Millennium drivers were installed. To customize your monitor: - Open the ControlPanel/MGA Monitor applet. - If your monitor supports DDC (Display Data Channel), a dialog box will allow you to exit without creating an MGA.INF file. If you decide to create an MGA.INF file, its settings will override the capabilities provided by your monitor through the DDC. - From the list of monitors, select the appropriate monitor, or one whose maximum refresh rate matches the one you are using. An MGA.INF file will be created in the SystemRoot\SYSTEM32 subdirectory. To make sure that the newly created MGA.INF is correct for your monitor: - From Control Panel, start the Display applet. - Select the resolution and pixel depth you wish to test. - Press the 'Test' button. The test will use the video parameters appropriate for the monitor selected in MGA Monitor. If your monitor does not display a stable test screen, then the parameters set by MGA.INF are not suitable for your monitor. Press the 'Cancel' button to close Display, run MGA Monitor again to select another monitor from the list, and repeat the Display test. If the test screen is not displayed, but you get instead a message box about the screen not being visible due to a limitation of your video card or display monitor, then it is probable that the tested resolution (say, 1280 x 1024) was above the limit set by MGA.INF (say, 1024 x 768). If your monitor is capable of the higher resolution, then run MGA Monitor again to select an appropriate monitor. The new MGA.INF will take effect when you restart Windows NT. Any resolution higher than the set limit will not appear in the Display applet mode list. Deleting MGA.INF will remove all monitor limits to the resolution, although the refresh rate will default to 60Hz. In a dual-board configuration, both boards will output the same refresh rate to each monitor. It is recommended that the monitor selected in MGA Monitor be compatible with the less capable monitor in your setup. If you would rather select refresh rates through the ControlPanel/Display applet, set the 'User.MgaInfoFile' value in the Registry to 0 (see the 'Editing the Registry' section for details). The next time you reboot, refresh rates available for each mode will be returned to the Display applet. The system will probably reboot in the 640x480x8 mode, and a warning message will be displayed. This is normal, since the system could not find the hardware default setting that was used previously for refresh rates. You can now select refresh rates from the list displayed by ControlPanel/Display. You should test any new mode to make sure that your monitor actually supports the new resolution/refresh rate combination. In a dual-board configuration, both boards will output the same refresh rate to each monitor. The less capable monitor in your setup will determine the maximum refresh rate. Editing the Registry ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Information held in the Windows NT Registry can have a direct effect on the whole system. Introducing incorrect values can cause serious problems and may make it necessary to reinstall Windows NT. The changes outlined below should have effects limited to the MGA Millennium drivers. However, if you accidentally modify values that make your system unusable, please note that it is often possible to undo the damage by using the 'Last Known Good Configuration' option at boot time. Modifying keys and values in the Registry is done through the Registry Editor. The Registry Editor can be invoked in the following way: - Open a Command Prompt window. - Type 'regedt32'. The Registry Editor will come up. To modify the values that govern the behavior of the MGA Millennium driver: - Select the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE window. - Travel down to the key named: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\mgax64\Device0. In the right window pane, you will find many values. Three of these control the use of 3D-accelerated modes. They are described in the 'Hardware- accelerated 3D' section. They are: User3D.DoubleBuffer, User3D.ZBuffer, and User3D.SubPixel. Four values control the general behavior of the driver: User.CenterDialogs when set to 1, allows centering of dialog boxes and pop-up windows on the top left display of a dual-screen setup. The centered windows can still be moved over the whole desktop. A value of 0 will have no effect on the position of these windows. There are serious side-effects to this feature. For instance, testing a dual-screen mode from the ControlPanel/Display applet will actually test only the corresponding single-screen mode. Other side-effects include toolbars that will not use the whole desktop, and screen savers that will work only on the top left screen. The default value of User.CenterDialogs is 0. User.DeviceBitmaps when set to 1, allows use of off-screen memory for caching bitmaps. This will allow the hardware to accelerate drawing to bitmaps. A value of 0 disables bitmap caching, allowing the CPU to draw onto all bitmaps. Bitmap caching is internally disabled when a desktop requiring more than one board is in use, regardless of the Registry setting. The default value of User.DeviceBitmaps is 1. User.MgaInfoFile when set to 1, allows use of the MGA Monitor applet to control refresh rates. A value of 0 will allow the Display applet to list available refresh rates. See the 'Monitor Customization' section for more details. The default value of User.MgaInfoFile is 1. User.SynchronizeDac when set to 1, will require the driver to wait for a vertical sync before programming the ramdac with a new pointer shape or a new palette. If you notice stray pixels flashing around the pointer, setting this flag to 1 might fix the problem. Setting it to 0 will result in slightly better performance. The default value of User.SynchronizeDac is 0. If you wish to change any of these values: - Double-click on the selected value. - In the DWORD Editor, change the value to '0' or '1'. The new value will take effect the next time you reboot. Hardware-accelerated 3D ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The DDIRX.DLL file supplied with the MGA Millennium drivers allows for hardware-accelerated 3D, with a few restrictions: - Hardware-accelerated 3D is available only for Windows NT 3.51. - The 3D DLL does not support 8bpp (256 colors) modes. These modes use an index-based color scheme, which does not lend itself to 3D acceleration, instead of the RGB color representation of higher- color modes. RGB-based displays are generally unsatisfactory when limited to 256 colors. Modes identified as '16777216 Colors' are 24bpp modes and do not support 3D acceleration, as opposed to 'True Color' modes, which are 32bpp modes that can accelerate 3D drawing. - The 3D DLL does not support dual-board modes. - Limitations to the available resolutions are to be expected. All 3D modes require extra memory to handle double buffering and/or Z buffering, and this memory is no longer available for display. The DDIRX.DLL file will have been copied into the SystemRoot\SYSTEM32 subdirectory when the MGA Millennium drivers were installed. Also, three values will have been created in the Registry under the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\mgax64\Device0. These values are User3D.DoubleBuffer, User3D.ZBuffer, and User3D.SubPixel. They were initialized to one, effectively enabling 3D acceleration for those combinations of resolution and pixel depth that can support it on your board. These values can be modified through the Windows NT Registry Editor (regedt32.exe). The procedure for modifying value entries is straightforward, and is described in the 'Editing the Registry' section and in the Registry Editor help. New Registry settings take effect only after a system reboot. The functions controlled by the User3D values are as follows: User3D.DoubleBuffer when set to 1, allows a back buffer to be allocated from the MGA Millennium memory. It should be set to 0 if no back buffer is required. This value should be set to 1 if 3D animation is to be fully accelerated. User3D.ZBuffer when set to 1, allows a Z buffer to be allocated from the MGA Millennium memory. It should be set to 0 if no Z buffer is required. This value should be set to 1 if 3D rendering is to be fully accelerated. User3D.SubPixel when set to 1, allows the 3D-DDI driver to perform rendering with sub-pixel precision. It should be set to 0 otherwise. This value should be set to 1 if high quality 3D rendering is to be performed. Faster rendering can be achieved by setting the value to zero, although some artifacts may then appear near objects boundaries. The values User3D.DoubleBuffer and User3D.ZBuffer will be read from the Registry and their settings will be taken into account when building the list of available modes. If both values are set to zero, only normal (N) modes will be selected. Other settings will allow Z-buffering (Z), double- buffering (DB), or both (DBZ). Valid combinations of resolution and pixel depth that do not support 3D acceleration will be available as normal modes, so that all valid resolutions will appear once, and only once, in the list of available modes in the ControlPanel/Display applet. Display does not provide any way to specify the 3D capabilities of a given mode. After installation, all available DBZ modes are enabled, and the remaining modes are N modes. The available modes depend on the amount of WRAM installed on your board. They are: For 2MBytes boards: | | 8bpp | 15bpp | 16bpp | 24bpp | 32bpp | +-------------+------+------------+------------+-------+------------+ | 640 x 480 | N | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N | N,Z | | 800 x 600 | N | N,Z,DB | N,Z,DB | N | N | | 1024 x 768 | N | N | N | - | - | | 1152 x 882 | N | N | N | - | - | | 1280 x 1024 | N | - | - | - | - | | 1600 x 1200 | N | - | - | - | - | For 4MBytes boards: | | 8bpp | 15bpp | 16bpp | 24bpp | 32bpp | +-------------+------+------------+------------+-------+------------+ | 640 x 480 | N | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N | N,Z,DB,DBZ | | 800 x 600 | N | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N | N,Z,DB | | 1024 x 768 | N | N,Z,DB | N,Z,DB | N | N | | 1152 x 882 | N | N,Z,DB | N,Z,DB | N | N | | 1280 x 1024 | N | N | N | N | - | | 1600 x 1200 | N | N | N | - | - | For 8MBytes boards: | | 8bpp | 15bpp | 16bpp | 24bpp | 32bpp | +-------------+------+------------+------------+-------+------------+ | 640 x 480 | N | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N | N,Z,DB,DBZ | | 800 x 600 | N | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N | N,Z,DB,DBZ | | 1024 x 768 | N | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N | N,Z,DB,DBZ | | 1152 x 882 | N | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N | N,Z,DB | | 1280 x 1024 | N | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N,Z,DB,DBZ | N | N,Z | | 1600 x 1200 | N | N,Z,DB | N,Z,DB | N | - | Please note that all User3D values are reset to one whenever a display driver is installed. Board Testing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Known Bugs and Limitations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ HCT/DispTest The DispTest application for testing full-screen VGA modes may crash the system when some modes are tested. An updated BIOS is required. Screen 13/13 is wrong when viewed in a window. Systems using PCI bridges There are systems where Windows NT reports conflicts between adapters installed beyond the PCI bridge. In this case, the MGA Millennium miniport driver cannot access its own board. If your system appears unable to find the Millennium board, try moving it to a different PCI slot.