Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!samsung!ernie.viewlogic.com!m2c!umvlsi!umaecs!daly
From: daly@ecs.umass.edu
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: ATI 256 drivers here! Elvis sighted in Amherst, MA deli!
Message-ID: <11183.272b0b98@ecs.umass.edu>
Date: 28 Oct 90 16:47:20 GMT
Lines: 26

They're finally here!  The ATI 256 color windows drivers for 800x600 and
1024x768 (1MB boards only) have arrived at Cica!  And you guys thought we would
never see them.  

They actually do work, but performance is slow.  Text scrolling in a Wincomm 
seesion gave me the impression that I had a 300 bps hookup, instead of a 9600
bps one.  (It looks like I'm going back to a character mode terminal program.)

The earlier version of Winfract does not work (gives "unable to allocate global
memory" error) but I haven't tried the new version yet.  I was also unable
to get a 256 color .bmp as background, but that is probably due to the fact
that I only have a 1MB 286 motherboard.  (Yet another reason to upgrade)
I did get the .bmp to load into paintbrush, where it looked fine.

My overall impression is that, while the driver works, it slows the screen 
display performance down to the point where it might be worth it to go back to 
the 16 color driver if you don't need the 256 colors (At least on a 12 MHz 286,
this is true).

Are there any good apps that actually use the 256 colors to any advantage?

Bryon Daly
daly@ecs.UMass.edu

sig for sale - CHEAP!