X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.win3-l
Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 14:25:17 MET
From:         "Verheulpen W." <waverheu@VUB.AC.BE>
Subject:      Re: TRIDENT 8900/9000 - 256color mode?
              "steffens@VSIKP0.UNI-MUENS

In a posting steffens@VSIKP0.UNI-MUENSTER.DE writes :
>
> Hi there,
>
>       kindly helping people on this list pointed me to the final version
> of the trident TVGA drivers. After installing them windows *continued* to
> work, but - what looks strange to me is that windows will not display more
> than 16 colors and not the 256 colors I expected. More precisely said,
> the desktop colors are still being dithered, and not solid, as one would expec
> when running on hardware capable of displaying 256 colors. Nevertheless, the
> 256 color driver works, for instance if you do the following you see that
> windows IS aware of a 256 color device, it only doesn't make use of it:
>
>       a) do a PRT-SCR keypress
>       b) start the Clipboard
>       c) change the display-mode to palette ---> there you see, that
>          now 256 different colors are available.
>
> Second, also LOGITECH FotoTouch recognizes the enhanced capabilities of
> the video card ... To create good looking grey shades for the scanned
> images it NOW makes use of palette entries, which are not being used by
> the DESKTOP. So looking at a scanned image doesn't anymore interfere with
> the colors choosen for the desktop and doesn't anymore turn them to grey,
> as a plain vanilla VGA used to. (FotoTouch came bundled with my ScanMan,
> its the only picture handling software I have, and probably the only
> application I have that makes use of more than 16 colors)
>
> SO, the question is: is it possible to advice Win3.1 to use a 256 color
> palette for displaying the desktop and window colors, for instance by
> applying the appropriate switch in WIN.INI or SYSTEM.INI? (BTW, hardware
> is a Trident TVGA with 8900c chip and drivers TVGAW31A.ZIP and TVGAW31B.ZIP
> from simtel.) Or is the Win3.1 programmed in such a simple way, that it
> always assumes 16 colors at maximum for the desktop? Users of true-color
> cards must THEN be much more disappointed than me!
>
> Regards,
>       Karsten Steffens                STEFFENS@VSIKP0.UNI-MUENSTER.DE
>
>
Trident drivers are known to behave a bit strange.
I do not know if this might be any use but there is an entry in the
system.ini file, right near the end, which is set as 'svgamode='.
I'm using a Paradise accelerator card 800x600x256 and the svgamode
seeting reads

[display]
svgamode=88

I have seen other values depending on the screen resolution & nr of
colors. You might try to browse through the oemxxx.inf file that
comes with the drivers and try to pinpoint the value that goes with
a particular setup.
Hope this is of any use.
If anyone could clarify or say more on this parameter I would be glad to
hear about it. Seems to be undocumented as far as I know.

--
====================================================================
Willy Verheulpen                            Systems Coordination
                   Institute for Molecular Biology
Brussels Free University                                 Belgium
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