CompuServe Thread

Chuck, I'm curious: you say, and both Vibrant and Panacea have also said in the past, that due to limitations in the ADI specification, that colored mapping icons and spline arrows are not possible in ADI main display drivers under 3D Studio r2. There is some evidence to support this, as none of the 16 colors one can change in the 3DS.SET file are for those items. So, my question is, if it WASN'T possible, how is it that Vibrant and Panacea are doing it now, without any changes on Yost/AutoDesk's part in the 3DSr2 or 2.01a software itself to permit this? If it IS possible, why didn't you provide these features all along? To all, re: ATI mach32 boards: We have two Graphic Ultra +s. Don't like 'em. Most of the vaunted speed increase for those cards apparently comes from the Memory Aperture feature (which maps the card's 1MB or 2MB of display DRAM [Ultra+] or VRAM [Ultra Pro] into the CPU's addressing space starting at the 16MB mark and going down from there), not the mach32 chip engine itself. Problem is, if you have more than 14MB of RAM in your computer and a 2MB mach32 board, OR more than 15MB of RAM in the computer and a 1MB mach32 board, you CANNOT ENABLE the Memory Aperture! I dare say that's almost everyone here — I can't imagine running 3DS2 in less than 16MB of RAM! Without the Memory Aperture, the Graphics Ultra+ benchmarks as SLOWER than the Diamond SpeedStar 24X, which is about a FOURTH of the price! (Granted, it's limited to 1MB of video DRAM, but there are other, better, faster, and in many cases cheaper than the mach32 cards, that can go to 2MB, or even 3MB or 4MB of video RAM!) CrystalFonts are highly overrated — they slow Windows down WAY more than their benefit warrants. The only real advantage is the bus mouse, as that frees up your serial ports for other uses — but there are other, better ways to get a bus or InPort mouse. On both of our machines equipped with Graphics Ultra +s, whenever we run a DOS program (including the Windows DOS Prompt) full screen and then switch back to Windows, the Windows wallpaper background turns to garbage, and shortly thereafter, Windows crashes entirely. Not impressed, no. The mach32 boards, despite having 16-bit and 24-bit modes and a VESA 1.2 driver, WILL NOT run Hi-Res QFX 3 (which requires VESA 1.2 and that such modes exist under VESA — apparently, there are serious bugs or design flaws in ATI's VVESA.EXE in the implementation of those modes.) Yet, the Diamond SpeedStar 24X can run Hi-Res QFX 3 in the 15-bit mode (but not the 24-bit mode) with no problem with its VESA driver. Hi-Res QFX 3 is one of the most important programs a serious video user can get, since it does anti-aliased text on the screen with a wide variety of effects, using its own fonts, PostScript/ATM Type 1 fonts, and TrueType fonts. Corel Draw (at least version 3 — I haven't tried 4) and most paint programs (including Corel PhotoPaint) don't truly anti-alias text. For these and other reasons, the ATI mach32 boards get a definite two thumbs down from M&M Communications Concepts.