#Drivers for ATI MACH 32
4 messages in this thread
Help! I have a ATI Mach 32 local bus video card with 2mb. The card was
installed by a local computer dealer in my 496-33 local bus system. I am
rendering at the lowest resolution (default settings?) and I am sure the system
has more capability. My dealer is 1/help!! I am looking for 1) information,
and 2) drivers for this card and 3DS. Also, I have 16mb of ram. Would it help
my render time by going to 32 or 64mb. My last 7 second sequence took 12.5
hours to render to disk. As you can tell I am new to all of this so any help I
can get would be wonderful. James L.
Your video card comes with two disks (drivers and utilities) and a manual. If
your dealer didn't give them to you, get them. These disks include the 3DS,
Windows, and VESA drivers. If they were used at all (probably only to install
Windows drivers) you probably have a mach32 directory on your boot drive. The
install program will install 3DS drivers from the floppies to your hard drive.
Once the drivers are installed, print the file and follow the directions
exactly, and in the order given. When 3DS runs you will be given an
opportunity to configure the RCPADI and the RDPADI drivers. Unless you have
another video board in the machine, I suggest making one 640x480x16M, and the
other 800x600x16M. I also suggest you look at the power settings for the card
using the ATI install program. I recommend setting the power to: VGA, Shared
Memory, Memory Aperture enabled to the highest address it will allow.
Also there is a good chance the Windows drivers you have are out of date. When
running the FlexDesk Control panel from windows, the display driver version
should read 1.5(59). Build 59 is the latest version, good enough I'd call it
beta. You can get it from ATI in the GRAPHVEN forum. If you're familiar with
Windows you might want to jot down the contents of the [386enh] section of your
SYSTEM.INI file. Older versions of their install have been known to stomp on
some of the lines in there, particularly: "device=*int13" and
"device=vdtapi.386".
One last thing, once you get this all running, be sure to turn OFF the ATI VESA
driver before running 3DS (in case you put it in your autoexec.bat)
Aren't computers fun?
Good luck,
DanP
Hi Dan and James,
You guys sound like the two guys in Apple's new "Machintosh"
commercial!! I have a similar setup (486-66 local bus w/ ATI Ultra Pro) and
Dan's directions are right! If you print out the readme file included with the
ATI drivers, it will take you step-by-step through the procedure.
David
James,
By capability, I'm assuming you mean the ability to render faster. Your video
card doesn't have a whole lot to do with it — especially if you render to
"null". If you are paging to disk during rendering (check the Current Status
command in the 3D editor) then you will see a huge improvment in rendering time
after adding enough RAM to cover rendering requirements. Other rendering speed
issues involve type/speed of main and co-processor, anti-alias settings (turbo
on-off, etc.), and level of complexity of the models being rendered (among
others).
Check the Installation and Performance Guide for more memory-related
information!
Good luck,
Alan Iglesias