Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!hellgate.utah.edu!dog.ee.lbl.gov!ucsd!sdcc6!sdcc6.ucsd.edu!cg108dbd From: cg108dbd@icogsci1.ucsd.edu (Steve -Social Hacker) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware Subject: Re: Boca SVGA Board (again) Message-ID: Date: 22 May 91 05:07:40 GMT References: <9659@cognos.UUCP> Sender: news@sdcc6.ucsd.edu Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware Organization: University of California, San Diego -- Cognitive A. I. Lines: 119 In-reply-to: dbullis@cognos.UUCP's message of 21 May 91 21:17:33 GMT Originator: cg108dbd@icogsci5 --=}>> On 21 May 91 21:17:33 GMT, dbullis@cognos.UUCP (Dave Bullis) said: DB> The Boca SVGA board is available locally at a reasonable price. DB> I've seen it mentioned here so thought I'd ask a few questions, DB> mostly directed to people who have this board: DB> 1) The board has only one 14.? MHz crystal on it. How does it generate DB> the different clocks required? I assume it uses a VCO or something. DB> Is this an acceptable way of doing things? DB> 2) The manual says it supports 800x600 at 60Hz. This seems a little low DB> to me. Is there any way to speed this up to 70Hz? It also supports DB> 1024x768 at 60Hz. DB> (I saw a post that mentioned the speedStar Plus does 1024x768 at 70Hz. DB> Is this true. Is it common for Tseng 4000 based boards?) DB> 3) It has the tseng 4000 chip on it. Can I assume its compatible with DB> s/w which uses the 4000 (in particular Roell's X386 under ISC)? DB> 4) Is the board reasonably fast? Especially compared to other tseng 4000 DB> boards (STB, speedSTAR, ...)? DB> -- DB> Dave Bullis Cognos, Inc VOICE: (613) 738-1440 FAX: (613) 738-0002 DB> 3755 Riverside Dr. P.O. Box 9707 WORK: uunet!mitel!cunews!cognos!dbullis DB> Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA K1G 3Z4 HOME: dave@sillub.ocunix.on.ca DB> "I didn't know the terminals were haunted. The salesman didn't tell us." Well, I have sent about 10 reviews on the BOCA card by Email to people who were interested, so I figure that it merits posting. I bought the BOCA card with 512K RAM because the 1Meg version was out of stock at the time. The difference between the two is ONLY the 4 missing RAM chips, and they fully specified which chips I needed. After buying and installing the other 512, it knew it had 1Meg and functioned accordingly. The monitor I am using is a CompuDyne 1024, which is far from the highest quality, and I have seen some of the same model that did not work with the BOCA card at all. I am very aware that this is a low end monitor, but note that your mileage may vary. My previous experience with VGA was the STB PowerGraph, cloned by CompuDyne. I am told that it was an exact OEM copy of the PowerGraph. It had 512K and did all normal extended VGA modes _except_ for 800x600x256 and 1024x768x256. The high resolutions at 16 colors worked fine. There was a _noticeable_ speed increase over the STB card, so I pulled up a program called VidSpeed to check my hunch. (Vidspeed is a small shareware program that measures the data transfer rate to the video card in all available modes.) Sure enough, the BOCA card scored almost double the STB in speed. STB: ~2430 K/Sec in most modes, a little higher in some, and lower in others. BOCA: ~4600 K/Sec in all modes, with a fraction lower in some EGA modes. This difference is very detectable in the higher res modes (like GIF viewing), but I was surprised to note that DOS itself seemed so much faster on such commands as DIR and others that are primarily limited by the video text speed. I felt that the documentation was thorough and clear, and did contain a list of all valid video modes, and their specs. I do not have it here, so I can't say what the different frequencies are. I do know that 1024x768 has to be interlaced on my monitor, which gives it the usual annoying flicker. 800x600 does not have this problem, so it is my mode of choice. :) It came with a high-density disk containing some utilities and drivers. The supplied drivers were for Windows 3.0, Autocad, Wordperfect, Ventura Publisher, and a few others that I can't recall. The included software also had a nifty font loader and a font editor, but I think the default font is just fine. As a side note, the STB font did NOT slash it's Zero's, which was an incredibly annoying thing to use after getting used to years of properly slashed 0's. :-) There is also a program called VMODE that selects the active video mode. I find this very useful for programs that leave you in some absurd CGA mode. It uses a select-menu or takes command line parameters for use in batch files. If I remember correctly, the available VGA text modes are 80x25 80x43 100x40 80x60 40x25 132x?? and some others. If anyone really needs the specifics, send mail and I will dig up the manual at home and look it up. It uses a Tseng ET4000 chip set, and has been compatible with every ET4000 program I have tried (Quite a few.) I posted another article to this group yesterday concerning the problems with running ET3000 software. Overall, I am a happy customer, and I would recommend the BOCA card. The price seems pretty reasonable. (~ $150 w/ 1Meg ) Please forgive me if any of this is not correct, or if I have left something out. I don't have the docs here or I would write in more numbers. -Steve -- }>> Steve Haehnichen <<{ shaehnichen@ucsd.edu Disclaimer: UCSD and I do not share any opinions.