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Autodesk Multimedia Forum · Hware/OpSys/video

#Targa+ and 3DS4 help.

16 messages in this thread

#159646From: Michael BahrMar 18, 1995 11:03 AM

Hello again! My old '486/33 has just turned into this wonderful new pentium with a Stealth 64 and my ratty old copy of 3DS2 is now 3DS4! Everything moves *so* much faster now… However, I am trying to get my old Targa+ to work under the new system, and am having some slight difficulties with this dual screen setup. During Vibrant Configuration, I told it to use the RDPADI for the rendering screen, and have pointed the DOS RDPADI variable to the new driver supplied with 3DS. The monitor kind of flickers a little during rendering but nothing appears. When I config using the `VIBRANT' selection, and tell it to use the TARGA+ NTSC selection it works fine, but the flip screen is all screwed up…. In other words I am unable to see the rendering in-progress on the screen *and* see the rendering dialogue box simultaneously; one screen always remains blank while the other is showing stuff. So, how do I get to my old 3DS2 setup where I could see both screen active simultaneously. Do I have to work on the RDPADI setup or the VIBRANT setup. And what should I be looking for in each to ensure it all works? Thanks! -Mike.

#159651From: Paul Sanford [LVL5]Mar 18, 1995 11:20 AM

>> During Vibrant Configuration, I told it to use the RDPADI for the rendering screen, and have pointed the DOS RDPADI variable to the new driver supplied with 3DS. << I use the RDPADI setting for my Targa+ too, but I believe I point it towards the drivers that came with my Targa+, not any of the 3DS/Vibrant supplied drivers. I *do* have my flic playback set up using the 3DS supplied Targa+ drivers, and it works fine for playback, although it does blank out my computer monitor while playing a flic on my NTSC monitor. Paul S.

#159783From: Michael BahrMar 19, 1995 8:51 PM

Paul, When I try to point it towards the Targa driver, I get no image on the screen! I believe I have all of the proper settings in the device= statement in config.sys, because it works fine when rendering using the vibrant targa selection (w/ the exception of the dual screen not working properly). Do you have any idea what I should look for to get my RDPADI working properly? -Mike.

#159807From: Paul Sanford [LVL5]Mar 19, 1995 11:38 PM

Michael, I'll get back to you in the next day or two, I'm currently away from my office. Paul S.

#160092From: Michael BahrMar 21, 1995 6:35 PM

No need to look into this for me…. I solved it! Thanks! -Mike.

#160111From: Paul Sanford [LVL5]Mar 21, 1995 8:01 PM

Glad you're up and running. FWIW, the chapel renders in 3:37/4:04 on my Pentium 60, at 512×486. Regarding the missing 64+ MB of RAM, Jonas posted a message to someone about this today. Search for messages from him today, 73172, 1351 and you'll find it. Paul S.

#159859From: Thomas FlanneryMar 20, 1995 1:22 PM

Michael, I'll jump in here and see if I can help. When your Targa drivers load at boot can you see the board initilize on the NTSC screen. I assume that you have done a Tmode command. Try using TPLCR.EXE and verify that you have a blue screen on the monitor. (you could also use Vmaker or gettga.exe to load and image and further verify the display is correct.) If none of this is working before you start 3DS, then you wont get any thing to show up on the Targa+. I have the Targa +64 and all is fine with version 4 on my system. Thomas Flannery AM Productions

#160093From: Michael BahrMar 21, 1995 6:35 PM

Thanks for the help. I figured out where I went wrong. The person who actually moved the Targa+ from the prior workstation decided to put the defaults in for the Device= statement, which put the card at A000. Not a great place with SVGA cards. I moved it to D000 (the setting used in the other workstation) and set the TARGA= properly and BANG it works! I think the reason the Vibrant drivers were working was that it was set to single screen mode, which blanked out the SVGA before the Targa+ jumped in, so they didn't conflict at A000. Man, this stuff is all so difficult! But it renders the Chapel in 3:23. Sounds fast, don't know if it is… Anyway, all is working now except the upper part of the RAM is unavailable (3DS only shows 64MB, not the full 97MB). Do you have any ideas on *this* on? Thanks! -Mike.

#160140From: Thomas FlanneryMar 21, 1995 11:43 PM

Michael, >>Anyway, all is working now except the upper part of the RAM is unavailable (3DS only shows 64MB, not the full 97MB). Do you have any ideas on *this*>> This is a luxury I don't have a problem with I only have 32meg in each of my 3 machines. So far all of my stuff has fit…but to answer the problem: If you use qemm, there is a switch setting you must use, I think it's maxram= or something. Maybe one of the software configuration experts will jump in here. I know tihis problem has been discussed. Check some of the archived threads. Tom

#160406From: Michael BahrMar 23, 1995 9:21 AM

I currently have the DOS EMM386. I will poke around and see what I can get (so far I have been unsuccessful). -Mike.

#159938From: Mar 20, 1995 11:22 PM

Mike: I had some problems with a Targa+ with 3DS4, and switched from RDPADI to the Vibrant Targa+ drivers, problem went away! Greg Pyros

#160094From: Michael BahrMar 21, 1995 6:35 PM

Gregory, I got it all to work properly with the RDPADI, now. See my message to Thomas Flannery. Also, do you have any ideas on how to get memory above 64MB available? Thanks for your help! -Mike.

#160190From: Jonas Ruikis [ADESK]Mar 22, 1995 9:21 AM

Hi Michael, <<I look for a helping tip, using 3D-Studio with more than 64 megs of ram. >> Here's a repost from Jamie Clay..(slightly dated but still valid) "If you ever have someone call in who has a system with more memory than AutoCAD or 3DS show available, here is one possible solution. (First, does all the memory count up during initial boot?, if so read on) o Get QEMM 7.04 (actually you can't yet purchase this, the patch is on CIS in the QEMM forum) o Then you use the(undocumented) SCANMEM command to display the amount of memory the machine has. SCANMEM returns a memory range called USEMEM. o That range then needs to be plugged into the QEMM386.SYS's USERAM option in the CONFIG.SYS. Example: DEVICE=C:\QEMM\QEMM386.SYS RAM USERAM=XXXXX-XXXXX From there it works like a champ. Note – you needed to add the RAM option to get Windows to work with it." ————————- Following the above, Tyler writes.. I had trouble with Jamie Clay's instructions until I got on the QEMM forum and learned that I had to boot my computer "clean" before I ran SCANMEM. This means when "Starting MS-DOS…" is displayed, press F5 to bypass your config.sys and autoexec.bat. _Then_ run SCANMEM and add the appropriate "USERAM=XXXXXX-XXXXXXXXX" to your QEMM line in config.sys. -Tyler Colwell Sierra Analysis Group ———————–

#160407From: Michael BahrMar 23, 1995 9:21 AM

Thanks for the input, Jonas. Is there any way to get around purchasing QEMM? Is it possible to achieve all of this using EMM386? I am sure we have an old copy somewhere of QEMM that we can update, but *another* piece of software to keep track of…. Arrrgghhh. -Mike

#160419From: Jonas Ruikis [ADESK]Mar 23, 1995 9:58 AM

Hi Michael, << Is it possible to achieve all of this using EMM386? >> I really don't know. I've been using QEMM for a long time and I don't recall any threads regarding EMM386 with > 64Megs in the past year. Sorry 🙁 .. jonas[adesk]

#160551From: Michael BahrMar 23, 1995 9:50 PM

Thanks anyway. Looks like it is time to upgrade one of our QEMM's and load in on this system. BTW, 3DS4 is a *huge* improvement over 3DS2. Can't wait to see 5.0… -Mike.