Aleph One Windows Driver Release Notes -------------------------------------- Files supplied for the Windows driver: Oemsetup.inf Information needed by Windows 3.X Setup Win95Vid.inf Information needed by Windows 95 'Display' ARMDRV.DRV The Windows Driver These are now supplied in two directories 'Win3' and 'Win95'. You must select the correct one when doing the installation under Windows. These files will be copied into your DOS partition by the !PCInstall application in C:\WINDOWS\DRIVERS\ The Windows Drivers ------------------- The enhanced Windows Driver provides a substantial increase in speed for many common Microsoft Windows (3.0, 3.1, 3.11 & 95) drawing functions, by using the Archimedes as a Graphics Co-processor. This driver supports 16, 256, 32 thousand and 16 million colours in any resolution that your system can display. It replaces the standard VGA driver VGA.DRV. It also gives full palette support, so everything will have the correct colours, if a palette mode is used. The Driver supplied is: ARMDRV.DRV: (v2.16 1996.10.16) To use this driver, you will need !PC version 2.03 or later. This driver is compatible with StrongARM. The drivers should be installed using Setup in Windows 3.X, or Control Panel, Display in Windows 95. See below for details. Manual installation is also possible for Windows 3.X. After installing the driver you need to use !PCconfig to specify the RISCOS mode that the driver will use. Installation for Windows 95 --------------------------- This driver now supports Windows 95, apart from the DirectX library, which we are working on currently. * Already have ARMDRV installed in Win95: * !PCInstall will update your files automatically with the 'Update existing Windows driver' option. You need do nothing more. This is an explanation should you need to do it manually: If you have already installed the Windows driver into Win95 then you can just copy the new ARMDRV.DRV into the Windows/system directory. If you experienced 'stripy' or miscoloured icons (due to incompatibilities in earlier versions of the driver) then you need to reset the Icon DIBs, as well as installing the new driver, to remove the problem. The 'stripy icon' problem will happen if you have run Win95 in a 256p mode with a driver older than than v1.99 (which was first supplied with !PC v1.993). The easiest fix is to delete the file C:\WINDOWS\SHELLI~1 (called ShellIconCache if using Win95FS). This is a hidden system file so it is easiest to remove it via RISCOS. Make sure !PC is not running, access your WINDOWS directory via the RISCOS desktop, and delete this file. From henceforth Windows 95 should look right. If this is not possible, you need to: Quit !PC, Run !PCConfig, and change your video mode to a 16 colour mode, Save settings, Start Windows 95, Close it down, Quit !PC, Change your video mode back to 256p, Save Settings, Restart !PC. Windows 95 icons will now stay correct. * Fresh installation of ARMDRV: * If you are installing this driver under Windows95 for the first time then you should proceed thus: 1) Ensure that !PCInstall has copied the driver files from your !PC software disk to the DOS partition, as detailed in the 'Installation' section of the Readme file. 2) Run !PC and start up Win95. You are now going to actually install the driver. 3) Click Start and go to Settings, Control Panel. Click on that to run it. Then double click on 'Display' in the control panel. 4) In the Display properties dialog click the Settings tab, then the 'Change Display Type' Button. In the Change Display Type dialog click the 'Change' button after Adaptor type. 5) In the Select Device Dialog click the 'Have Disk' button to get the Install from Disk Dialog. Here you can either type in C:\DRIVERS\WINDOWS\WIN95 or use the Browse button to find that directory. Then press return or Click OK to confirm. 6) This should give you another Select Device dialog containing the single option 'Configurable ARM driver (4,8,16,32 bpp)'. Click OK and it will copy the driver files, thus installing the new driver. Installation for Windows 3.x ---------------------------- Note that if you have already installed the Windows Drivers, then !PCInstall should have updated your driver automatically, and you need do nothing further. If not you need to install them either when installing Windows, or afterwards, using Setup; see the relevant section below. The OEMSETUP/INF file supplied with this version has to assume a particular version of windows when prompting for floppies. This version assumes version 3.11 (of both Windows and Windows for Workgroups). If you have a different version (3.1, or 3.0), or even a version supplied by a manufacturer other than Microsoft, then some of the files required may be on different floppies. Insert the disk containing the requested file, rather then the prompted disk if this is the case. Setup will then proceed. Using Setup when installing Windows 3.X --------------------------------------- 1. !PCInstall should have copied the ARMDRV.DRV & OEMSETUP.INF files to your DOS partition in the DRIVERS\WINDOWS\WIN3 directory as detailed in the 'Installation' section in the main Readme file - henceforth referred to as the 'Aleph One Windows Driver directory' 2. Start to install Windows as described in the PC Card Manual, using the 'Custom Installation' option. 3. When you get to the screeen that displays your settings, do not choose the 'VGA (version 3.0)' display option as described in the Manual, but go to the bottom of the list and select the 'Other display (Requires disk from OEM)...' option, at the bottom of the list. 4. Enter the path of the Aleph One Windows Driver directory, C:\DRIVERS\WINDOWS\WIN3' 5. Select the driver 'Configurable ARM driver v2.16 (4,8,16,32 bpp)'. 6. Continue with the installation, supplying disks as prompted. Note that when asked for original Windows disks you will have to change the drive back to A:\, and then (because Windows Setup is not terribly clever, and has forgotten what you just told it) when it asks for the 'Aleph One Windows Driver Disk' tell it to look in C:\DRIVERS\WINDOWS\WIN3 Using Setup after Windows 3.X is installed ------------------------------------------ You can change the display driver at any time by running Windows Setup either from DOS (with your Windows directory as the current directory) or from within Windows. You will also need to do this if you receive updated versions of the Windows Drivers. Select the 'Change System Settings...' menu item from the 'Options' menu, and then proceed from step 3 above (Not forgetting step 1 first). You will have to restart windows for the changes to take effect. Note that if you already have the driver installed then the 'Update existing Windows driver' in !PCInstall is the easiest way to get your driver updated. Manual installation: -------------------- To install the driver, first copy the driver file (ARMDRV.DRV) into your PC's \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. Next, load the file SYSTEM.INI (in your PC's \WINDOWS directory) into a text editor or SYSEDIT. Find the line in the [boot] section which reads display.drv=vga.drv and replace it with the line display.drv=armdrv.drv Don't worry if your SYSTEM.INI file has something other than 'vga.drv' after the '=' sign. The new driver will be used the next time you start Windows. To change the description as well as the driver (not necessary, but recommended) you also need to change the display.drv line in the [boot.description] section of the SYSTEM.INI file to: display.drv=Configurable ARM Driver v2.16 (4,8,16,32 bpp) !PCconfig options: ----------------- You need to specify the mode for the Windows Driver to use. This can be either a decimal RISCOS mode number, or a RISC-PC style mode specifier of the form x640y480c16 - Note that spaces aren't currently allowed, and neither are the optional eigen and refresh values. Here are the strings used to represent the different colour depths: BitsPerPixel Palette Colours String 4 Fixed 16 c16 8 Fixed 256 c256 8 Definable 256 c256p 16 Fixed 32 thousand c32K 32 Fixed 16 million c16M eg x640y480c16M for a 640x480 display in 16 million colours Then you must allocate enough RAM for this mode. To find out how much memory a mode uses change to it on the desktop and use the Task Manager to display the 'Screen Memory' value. Note that we recommend allocating an extra 10-60% if you can spare the RAM as this will improve performance. This memory is used for blitting when Windows puts up a dialogue box or menu. If there is enough memory to keep the whole of the display area under the box/menu then update will be much quicker than if it has to go back into PC card memory. It is sensible to allocate more extra for small modes (eg 60% for 640x480), and less for big modes (eg 10% for 1280x1024), because a given dialogue covers less screen area in a bigger mode. Note that values below 256K are not valid, as at least this much must always be allocated. Some example modes: Modes Colours Memory needed Memory recommended 12 16 80K 105K (256K) 15 256 160K 210K (256K) 27 16 150K 200K (256K) 28 256 300K 400K 31 16 235K 300K 39 16 154K 200K 40 256 308K 400K These options appear like this in the !PC.Config text file: WinDrvMode <mode string> VideoRAM nnDownload Driver Pack
After your driver has been downloaded, follow these simple steps to install it.
Expand the archive file (if the download file is in zip or rar format).
If the expanded file has an .exe extension, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
Otherwise, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Device Manager.
Find the device and model you want to update in the device list.
Double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
From the Properties dialog box, select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button, then follow the instructions.
Very important: You must reboot your system to ensure that any driver updates have taken effect.
For more help, visit our Driver Support section for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.