README.NT MATROX GRAPHICS INC. November 02, 1994
Matrox MGA
8-, 16-, and 24-bpp Drivers for Windows NT 3.1
Rev. 1.21
History
~~~~~~~
Rev. 1.21 Updating registry with board information;
Both Rev. 1 and Rev. 2 of Impression Plus should
work correctly.
New programming for TVP3026 ramdac.
Rev. 1.20 GDIINFO.cBitsPixel is 24 instead of 32 in MGA24.DLL;
Updated low-level code in miniport driver, including
detection of MGA-III Rev. 2, support of 8-bit block
mode, and sync polarity for Viewpoint.
Rev. 1.20B Modifications for TVP3026 ramdac.
Numerous changes ported from modifications required
for Windows NT 3.5.
Rev. 1.13 Modifications for ATT ramdac and for clock
frequencies (MGA.SYS).
Rev. 1.12 New code for MGA rev. 3 accelerator (MGA.SYS).
Addition of TXTSETUP.OEM file.
Rev. 1.11 Implementation of alternate PCI mechanism (MGA.SYS).
Rev. 1.10 Upgrade from Rev. 1.00.
Windows NT Files on this Disk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
\MGA_VID Tag file for Windows NT Setup
\TXTSETUP.OEM MGA driver installation file for Windows NT
\WINNT\MGA_VID Tag file for Windows NT Setup
\WINNT\MGA.SYS MGA miniport driver
\WINNT\MGA8.DLL 8bpp (256 colors) MGA user-mode driver
\WINNT\MGA16.DLL 16bpp (65536 colors) MGA user-mode driver
\WINNT\MGA24.DLL 24bpp (16777216 colors) MGA user-mode driver
\WINNT\OEMSETUP.INF MGA driver installation file for Windows NT
\WINNT\MGAVGA.EXE Utility used to initialize the MGA to VGA mode
\WINNT\MGAMON.EXE Monitor selection utility
\WINNT\MGA.MON MGA monitor file
\WINNT\README.NT This file
About These Drivers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These drivers support all MGA Ultima, Ultima-Plus, Impression, Impression-Plus,
Impression-Lite, and Impression-Pro boards.
Installation
~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can install or re-install Windows NT using an MGA board. To do so,
install your MGA board and reboot your system to install Windows NT.
- At the beginning of the installation process, the Windows NT Setup
program will display a list of your system components. In this
list, 'Display' will be identified as 'Standard VGA (640x480, 16
colors)'. Select the 'Display' item, then press 'Enter', read the
warning screen, and press 'Enter' again.
- Go to the bottom of the list in the next screen, select 'Other',
and then insert this disk when prompted to do so.
- From the list in the next screen, select a resolution and pixel
depth supported by your MGA board and your monitor, then press
'Enter'.
- From the next screen, select 'The above list matches my computer.',
and press 'Enter'.
- Proceed with the Windows NT installation.
- When the installation is complete, you will be asked to press a
Restart button to reboot your system. A cold reboot is required
with an MGA board: You should either press the 'Reset' button on
your machine, or turn your machine off and then on again.
The general procedure for changing a display driver is the following:
- Boot Windows NT with Administrator privileges.
- In 'Program Manager/Main', double-click on 'Windows NT Setup'.
- When it opens, select 'Options/Change System Settings...'.
- Select 'Display' to get a list of the available display drivers.
From this list, select the driver you want, or 'Other'. If you
select 'Other', you will be prompted for a disk from which the
new driver is to be installed.
- After the change has been made, select 'Options/Exit'.
- The change will take effect when you restart Windows NT.
If you are installing the MGA driver for the first time, boot Windows NT
using your current adapter, and run Windows NT Setup as outlined above.
When prompted for a disk, just insert this disk into the appropriate drive,
type in [Drive]:\WINNT as the path to the driver files, and select the
resolution and number of colors you want. Some of these combinations might
not be supported by your board and/or your monitor. Refer to your MGA Owner's
Manual or run the SETUP program (see Board Testing below) to determine the
supported resolution and pixel depth combinations.
If you are updating your MGA driver, you might have to select a different
resolution or number of colors before Windows NT Setup prompts you for the
new driver. Select 'Options/Change System Settings...'. From the list,
select the new resolution, then press OK. Setup will tell you that the
driver is already on the system; press the 'New' button and answer the
prompts to have Setup install the new driver. You can then switch back
to the resolution you were using previously.
Running a full-screen Command Prompt application in a single-screen system
requires that MGAVGA.EXE be executed at the start of the DOS session.
MGAVGA.EXE has been copied into the \WINNT\SYSTEM32 at installation time.
To make sure that it is run automatically at the start of each Command Prompt
session, you can include the following line in your AUTOEXEC.NT file:
%SystemRoot%\system32\mgavga
Changing Resolution
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Whenever you want to change resolution, run the Windows NT Setup. Again
select 'Options/Change System Settings...'. From the list, select the
new resolution, then press OK. Setup will tell you that the driver is
already on the system; press the 'Current' button, then exit. Your next
Windows NT session will run at the new resolution.
Monitor Customization
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By default, the display driver assumes that you have a 60 Hz monitor. If
your monitor is capable of higher refresh rates, then you should run the
MGAMON program and select a different monitor. MGAMON.EXE should have been
copied by the Windows NT Setup program into your \WINNT\SYSTEM32 subdirectory
when the MGA drivers were installed. To customize your monitor:
- From the Windows NT desktop, start a Command Prompt session.
- If you are in a full-screen Command Prompt session, first run the
MGAVGA utility (see "Known Bugs and Limitations" below). Do not
run MGAVGA in a windowed Command Prompt session.
- Change the working directory to \WINNT\SYSTEM32 and then run MGAMON.
- From the list of monitors, select the one whose maximum refresh rate
matches the one you are using. An MGA.INF file will be created in
the \WINNT\SYSTEM32 subdirectory. The change will take effect when
you restart Windows NT.
Board Testing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you encounter any problem running Windows NT with your board, you should
first determine whether it is a system or hardware problem. The best way
to check for a potential hardware problem is to use the MGA Setup program.
SETUP is a DOS program included on Disk #1 of the Power Driver package.
It cannot be run from a Command Prompt session.
If you have a DOS (FAT) partition on your hard disk, simply install the
Setup and Utilities product using the provided Installation program. Then
go to the \MGA\SETUP program and type SETUP.
If you do not have a DOS partition, you will have to create a bootable
disk with SETUP on it. Here is the procedure:
- insert Power Driver disk#1 in your diskette drive
- copy a:\setup\files1.zip and a:\pkunzip.exe to your hard disk
- type "pkunzip files1" to unzip the files
- format a DOS bootable disk
- copy the following files to your new floppy disk:
SETUP.EXE, DOS4GW.EXE, MGA.MON
- reboot your computer with the the new diskette
- type "setup"
In SETUP, select "Graphic Mode Test" to test the different modes available
for your board. The program will not attempt to test a mode which is not
supported by your board. The default testing will be done at a 60Hz refresh
rate for all resolutions.
If you have a customized monitor file (MGA.INF) in your \winnt\system32
subdirectory, SETUP can take it into account, if you set the MGA environment
variable as follow:
set mga=c:\winnt\system32
Known Bugs and Limitations
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Running a full-screen Command Prompt application in a single-screen
system might not work quite as expected. If you encounter problems,
try running MGAVGA.EXE at the start of the DOS session. You can
include this program in the \WINNT\SYSTEM32\AUTOEXEC.NT batch file,
so that it is run automatically at the start of each Command Prompt
session.
- Pressing the "Restart" button in the "Shutdown Computer" dialog box
(the Windows NT closing dialog box) does not reset the MGA boards to
the VGA text mode required for a warm reboot. A cold reboot must be
effected to start a new session.
This problem will be fixed with Windows NT 3.5.
- There are some problems starting the Microsoft Hardware Compatibility
Tests TESTMGR program. When TESTMGR is run for the first time, it
requires the user to fill in information about the test system. With
the MGA 24-bits-per-pixel (16 million colors) driver, TESTMGR crashes
when opening the Video information form. The problem could not be
traced back to the driver itself. A work-around is to fill out the
forms using the 8-bits-per-pixel driver, and then to switch to the
24-bits-per-pixel driver to run the tests.
- If your board is a MGA-I VL-bus board you might get the following
error message soon after log-in:
Dr. Watson for Windows NT
An application error has occurred
and an application error log is being generated.
ntvdm.exe
This error will prevent you from running most DOS applications in a
Command Prompt window and all Windows 3.1 applications. However,
there are ways to eliminate or work around the problem.
You should check first whether your computer can shadow the video
BIOS. If it can, there will be an entry for this capability in the
BIOS setup program, which can be run at boot time on some machines,
or at any time on some other, by depressing a combination of keys.
If this capability exists, you should enable it and then boot
Windows NT to check whether this solves the NTVDM problem. We are
aware that this procedure does not work on all computers. If BIOS
shadowing is impossible or if it does not fix the NTVDM error,
then there are two work-arounds.
To run DOS applications, you will have to create a special Command
Prompt icon. To do this, go into your 'Main' window, then click on
'File' and 'New'. Select 'Program Item' in the dialog box and
click on OK. In the Program Item Properties dialog box, type in
a 'Description:' (say, "Special Command Prompt"), and type in the
'Command Line:' "CMD.EXE /Kc:\winnt\system32\mem.exe", where you
should substitute "c:\winnt" with the appropriate path to your
Windows NT directory. Press the Change Icon button to select an
appropriate icon, and then press OK until the new program icon is
displayed in your 'Main' window. Double-click on your Special
Command Prompt icon; you will get the ntvdm error message, but
just go on. Click on the Close button, then select 'Settings...'.
In the dialog box, set 'Full Screen' and 'Save Configuration', and
then press OK. Type 'exit' to close the Command Prompt session.
From now on, a Special Command Prompt session will always start as a
full-screen session and will execute MEM.EXE automatically. You
should then be able to run a DOS application either from the full
screen prompt or, by pressing Alt-Enter, from a windowed session.
To run Windows 3.1 applications, you will first have to find out
the path to any of your Windows 3.1 applications. To do this, click
on its icon and press Alt-Enter; the 'Command Line:' box holds this
information. Close the dialog box and start a Command Prompt session
(NOT a Special Command Prompt session), then switch to full screen
by pressing Alt-Enter, change to the appropriate subdirectory and
start your application from the command line, typing in the name of
its .EXE file. Your screen should revert to graphics mode and your
application should start. From now on, and until you exit your
current Windows NT session, you can start any Windows 3.1 application
by double-clicking on its icon.
- If your board is a MGA-I AT-bus board mapped at 0xAC000 you might
get the same problem as listed above with the VL-bus board. Again the
easiest workaround is to shadow the video BIOS through your system
configuration. If your system does not support shadowing, it is
possible to avoid the problem by either booting your board in 16-bit
bus access mode (switch #5), or by changing your base address. If you
can't do that because of a conflict with another device, you must
revert to the "software" work-arounds outlined above.
