Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!iuvax!cica!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!srcsip!falcon!rogers
From: rogers@falcon.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Brynn Rogers)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Orchid ProDesigner VGA+ (Problems.. & vugif 1.00)
Keywords: VGA problems & vugif 1.00 problem
Message-ID: <24760@srcsip.UUCP>
Date: 29 Jun 89 14:08:08 GMT
References: <T36273C.89Jun29022346@saha.hut.fi>
Sender: news@src.honeywell.COM
Reply-To: rogers@falcon.UUCP (Brynn Rogers)
Organization: Honeywell Systems & Research Center, Camden, MN
Lines: 94

In article <T36273C.89Jun29022346@saha.hut.fi> t36273c@saha.hut.fi (Ari Huttunen) writes:
>
>Hey! I've been an (un)happy owner of the Orchid ProDesigner VGA+ for some
>time and I'd like to know if any of you have had similar experiences..

I also bought a Orchird Prodesigner, and made it a plus for $52
  I am happy with it though.
 
>The main problem is that the VGA-card can't seem to handle 10MHz bus speed..
>(I have a Mitac MPC 2000s motherboard) Instead I have to lower the speed to
>6MHz to get the card working. This seems a little rough. Surely a new VGA
>card should be able to handle 10MHz!? If I use 10MHz speed, in a graphics
>program a part (10%) of the pixels go anywhere in the screen. This happens
>also if the program writes through the BIOS.. If I put the card in an 8-bit
>slot, it doesn't have this problem. (even in 10MHz speed..) Using the jumper
>to set 8-bit operation doesn't have the same effect.

My DTK clone runs the bus at 10 Mhz also.  Standerd bus speed (and the speed
most cards are designed to handle) is 8 Mhz.

In graphics mode maybe 1% of my pixels miss there mark, and in text mode
I have seen 2 characters (out of zillions) with different color/attribute.

I called Orchird and they said that it might help if their card was in the
slot closest to the power supply. I moved it and it seemed to help marginally,
but still didn't fix everything.   
  What DID fix the problem completely is to use the VGASPEED.SYS
driver that comes with the board to load the BIOS into RAM.  eats about
30k of your memory, but works great.

>Problem 2: in 800x600x16 and 800x600x256 graphics modes there is a plainly
>visible dark vertical line at the right side of the picture. About .5 cm
>from the side. (2.5 cm = 1 inch, if you didn't know ;) I can't get it to
>dissapper. And I'm quite certain it DOESN'T come from the monitor! (Which is,
>by the way, TVM MD-11A)

I haven't seen anything like this.  I am useing a princeton Ultra-sync untill
I have enough money for a NANAO 9070s.   Note that Most VGA moniters are
not rated for 800x600, just 800x560 (if that even).  moniters that are
rated for 800x560 may give wierd results like this.
  I haven't seen any really decent moniters that can handle 800x600 for
less then $500 [for mail order or wholesale]

<Problem 3: The windows driver (Windows 2.x , 800x600x16) doesn't work properly.
<The background is (by default) green and when I move a window around, it leaves
<dark horizontal lines on green at the background. Also, if I minimize (for 
<example) the MSDOS-executive and move it around, I still can read 'msdos 
<executive' on the place the icon was previously!!

I don't have this problem.  I bet the VGASPEED driver fixes it.

<You can reply to the net or if you like, directly my e-mail addres below. The
<last problem conserns vugif 1.00 . If a GIF has background other than black,
<and vugif tries to change the border color in 800x600 modes, the colors go 
<'dark'.. This means most GIFs become almost black but some only a little dark..

I have noticed that sometimes the background is white, and then you can't
see the picture (it is washed out) untill the last interlace is drawn.
I didn't attribute that to the vga board, because so many of the other
pictures look great.

<(I haven't registered yet, so vugif uses BIOS calls..)
I didn't realize that I would get a better version if I registered.
I'll have to check into that.
VGASPEED.SYS will double the perrformance of the BIOS modes in vugif.
 
           *****************
I decided (before I found how well VGASPEED works) that my 6/10Mhz
clone didn't need the 6 Mhz speed, and I could switch the 6 Mhz crystal
(probably 2x or 3x 6Mhz) with an 8Mhz crystal (2x or 3x of course).

Another solution I am going to try is to burn the BIOS on the VGA board
into faster EPROMs. I will let you know if this works.  I can live with
the 30k that VGASPEED.SYS eats up, so that will probably always  be faster.

One  very very good solution that I would contemplate more often if I had 
the money,  is to swap your motherboard with a 16 Mhz unit.  these
must have their IO bus running at 8 Mhz (because while lots of peoples
boards may squeek by at 10Mhz, I doubt if any would run at 16Mhz)
  I can get DTKs new 16 Meg motherboard for <$400 dump my 10Mhz mother
for $250 (put it in a case and sell it to someone) and probably would
have to get 2 1Meg banks of memory for the new one.
  This would be a interrim measure until 486 ESIA (EISA??) bus systems
are out and debugged a bit. (2-3 years for me, less if you have lots of $$)

My Opinion:   Orchid makes a great board. (prodesigner) I am very happy with
it.  I am impressed with the boards features,and thrilled with the price;
I got mine locally for $279 +tax, 256k more of ram for $52 (yes RAM is coming
down)  

Reply direct if you have more questions about this board. (or anything :-)

 Brynn Rogers    Honeywell S&RC        rogers@src.honeywell.com
                                       nic.MR.net!srcsip!rogers