#Vibrant Drivers
12 messages in this thread
Chris,
Check the thread entitled ATI Pro Turbo M64 ISA. The comments there I
believe refer to both ISA & VLB versions. The gist is: Vibrant is aware of the
problem and actively pursuing the cause. They currently believe it is in the
ATI bios, not their drivers, and therefore something ATI will have to address.
More info will be uploaded in the near future when they verify.
JDH
Jeff,
I did get a response from the same message left for ATI which explains
why it happens, but not really what they intend to do about it. We Will see.
See Below.
The current drivers for 3D Studio 3.0 are VESA drivers, they are
not mach64 specific and do not make use of the accelerated
features of this card. ATI does not write these drivers.
The delay you are experiencing is due to the way the VESA modes
are implemented on the mach64 card. The delay occurs because the
mach64 initializes and verifies ALL available features, all
available colour depths, resolutions and fallback refresh rates
that are configured.
We are investigating ways to reduce this initialization time.
Michael Hopkins
ATI Customer Support
Chris,
Thanks for the specifics. I'm definitely glad I cancelled my order of the
ATI card. I will be interested to see what develops on this. In the mean time I
will investigate other video card options.
JDH
Jeff,
please don`t let me put you off the card. Especially if you intend to use
it for Windows. The card is an excellent product, with ATI`s usual care and
attention to detail as far as the manuals & packaging. It is also one of the
fastest cards i have tested along with ( Cirrus 5434, Diamond S64, (S3 chipset)
Genoa Phantom (Tseng 32i/p).
If they solve the problem with 3D studio I will definatley keep the
ATI.
Chris
Chris,
The original impetus to upgrade was to make Painter/X2 usable in Windows
and speed up 3D Studio redraws. Until the driver and/or BIOS problems are
resolved I don't intend to pay now for speed I can't get until, perhaps, a
month down the line. I will keep my eyes open for more on this as I look into
other choices.
JDH
Jeff,
if its redraw speeds in 3D studio your after , you might look out for a
product called Liquid Speed available from Vibrant. Although I have yet to try
it out, it apparently increases the Editor & Keyframer redraws by 50%. It also
costs about L195 . ( I dont know the equivalent $ price. )
> if its redraw speeds in 3D studio your after , you might look out for a
>product called Liquid Speed available from Vibrant. Although I have yet to try
>it out, it apparently increases the Editor & Keyframer redraws by 50%. It also
>costs about L195 . ( I dont know the equivalent $ price. )
It is actually 2X in the Editor and 50% in the Keyframer. I believe the price
is $295.
Chuck Walbourn – Vibrant Graphics
Chuck,
as a matter of interest, does Liquid Speed decrease the time taken to
display selected items. In a large scene, where the objects are complex, even
selecting one object can take some time to redraw each Viewport.
>Chuck, > as a matter of interest, does Liquid Speed decrease the time
taken to >display selected items. In a large scene, where the objects are
complex, even >selecting one object can take some time to redraw each Viewport.
Liquid Speed helps all line drawing in the viewports of the Editor and the
Keyframer. A 'selected' object is redrawn at the enhanced speed in the new
color… In otherwords, yes.
Chuck Walbourn – Vibrant Graphics
>> …3D Studio 3.0 are VESA drivers, they are not mach64 specific and do
>> not make use of the accelerated…
That's not true but it does explain the problem. The Vibrant drivers talk
directly with the ATI chip set and don't use VESA. They do, however, issue (by
mistake or otherwise) a call that triggers the VESA initialization stuff. This
initialization call goes into a chain reaction and generates a ton of other
calls for each supported mode. This process alone is slow, the fact that it is
invoked twice when booting 3D Studio and once each time you do a mode switch is
what makes it slow.
To prove they do not use VESA, if you disable VESA all together the problem
goes away and 3D Studio comes up as fast as usual with no delays between mode
switches. The catch is that VESA, in the ATI, is supported in ROM. The only way
to disable that is to patch the BIOS on the fly (easy for me but not a trivial
task for "non geeks").
To sum this up, the delay problem is ATI's, not Vibrant's. Just load a game or
something that uses VESA and you will notice a delay before switching to
graphics mode. Vibrant's problem is that, by mistake, it issues some call
(either intentionally or otherwise) that triggers the VESA initialization
process twice (if once was bad enough). The task is to find which function they
call triggers the VESA call and avoid it. If they can't find it, just patch the
VESA handler themselves before doing anything and restore it on the way out.
Piece of cake!
Gus
Thanks for the info, I`m not sure I understand your answer. The problem
as I see it being a "non geek" is that ATI say its not their problem and you
say its not strictly the Vibrant drivers ( the first delay anyway ). All I need
is a patch or otherwise, which solves the problem.
🙂
Chris
>The current drivers for 3D Studio 3.0 are VESA drivers, they are >not mach64
specific and do not make use of the accelerated >features of this card. ATI
does not write these drivers.
I am unsure what exactly this is refering to… The Vibrant Inline Driver
version 1.0.3 does include native Mach64 draw-code. 1.0.4 adds native ISA
support. VESA is not used for these modes and the initialization is peformed
by the ATI BIOS.
>The delay you are experiencing is due to the way the VESA modes >are
implemented on the mach64 card. The delay occurs because the >mach64
initializes and verifies ALL available features, all >available colour depths,
resolutions and fallback refresh rates >that are configured.
>We are investigating ways to reduce this initialization time.
We too are looking for a solution to this problem in the Inline driver. Tim
Little is continuing his research into the causes of these delays and any
possible work-arounds.
Chuck Walbourn – Vibrant Graphics