Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!maytag!watstat!dmurdoch
From: dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: ATI VGA Wonder versus Multisync 3D
Message-ID: <430@maytag.waterloo.edu>
Date: 31 Aug 89 04:35:49 GMT
References: <411@maytag.waterloo.edu> <1895@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu>
Sender: daemon@maytag.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch)
Distribution: na
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 51

In article <1895@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> gcw20877@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (G. Wang) writes:
>In article <411@maytag.waterloo.edu> dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch) writes:
>>
>>I've just got a new ATI VGA Wonder card, and am using it with a NEC Multisync
>>3D monitor.  My problem is that the ATI card doesn't consistently 
>>recognize the monitor as a Multisync:  about half the time, it thinks I
>>have an EGA, and the other half, a Multisync.

>I also have an ATI VGA Wonder card with BIOS V3M-1.03... I use it
>with a Goldstar Superscan 1440 with no problems... However, sometimes
>the cable conntecting to the card gets loose and as a result the computer
>boots up in the wrong mode, EGA mode as you stated.. What I do then is
>re-adjust the cable and then re-boot the computer (A cold boot not warm)
>and it works fine...

I may have a cable problem, but it's quite tightly attached - I even did up
the screws, to no effect.  An ATI techie told me that some NEC cables have
pins pushed in, and lo and behold, mine did.  Fixing it didn't help, though.

>As for configuring the card, the program you want to use is VSETUP
>*NOT* VCONFIG... Vsetup will do the low-level settings such as monitor
>type, boot up video mode, mouse port, etc... VCONFIG is to be used
>once you have all the hardware settings correct (say you just want
>to change the current video mode to EGA, CGA or HERC)...

Actually, it appears that VSETUP only sets things that the card can't figure
out for itself.  Since it thinks it knows I have an EGA (sometimes), it
ignores the fact that I told it I have a Multisync.  I think it uses this
information to distinguish among all the Multisync types, but only when
it thinks it has to.

But, I finally got a solution from ATI.  There's an _undocumented_ option
to VCONFIG that allows you to override the monitor detection.  What I use is
  VCONFIG MONITOR MULTISYNC
in my Autoexec, and when the card comes up as an EGA, it stops and waits while
I "switch monitors", then comes up again as a Multisync.  If it recognized the
Multisync first off, then nothing goes wrong.

>The manual does a fairly good job of explaining which files do what...

Except for the undocumented stuff... :-(

Thanks for your suggestions, and also thanks to everyone who responded via
email.  

Now all I want to know is what the video formats are - the manual says
the extended modes are all stored the same as VGA 320x200x256, but that's
all stored in a single page.  Can you (or anyone else) tell me how 
the card splits up pixels across the 64K pages?

Duncan Murdoch