INTRODUCTION
The ALi M3307 is an advanced single chip, PCI master, MPEG I video decoder.
It utilizes host processor for real time MPEG I Audio Layer I/II decoding
at sample rates of 32KHz, 44.1KHz and 48KHz with mono, stereo or separate
channel modes. The MPEGI Audio/Video synchronization is coordinated by the
M3307 and its driver.
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For Windows 3.1 installation, the system's display adapter and its driver
must have DCI support installed. For Windows 95 installation, the display
adapter must have DirectDraw driver installed.
The M3307 driver and application program installation requires three
megabytes of hard disk storage space.
Windows 3.x Installation Guide:
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Insert the driver diskette in the appropriate drive (A or B).
One of the three methods listed below can use to install the M3307 driver
and application program under Windows 3.x.
I. At DOS prompt, type "win <drive/path>install"
OR
II. At Windows' Program Manager, choose Run command,
then type "<drive/path>install"
OR
III. At Windows' File Manager, choose the correct drive, double click
on the file "install.exe"
Windows 95 Installation Guide:
==============================
First time installation:(Windows 95 will automatically detect newly installed
M3307 hardware)
1. When Windows 95 displays "New Hardware Found" dialog box, please
insert the driver diskette in the appropriate drive (A or B).
For example, insert the driver diskette in drive A:.
2. Select "Driver from disk provided by hardware manufacture" item,
and press the "OK" button.
3. When the "Install From Disk" dialog box appears, select the
drive/directory that the M3307.inf is located. For example, select the
drive A, "A:\".
4. Click on the "OK" button.
(Windows 95 installs the M3307 driver and its application.)
5. If there is any "Version Conflict" dialog box appears, click
on the "No" button to replace all older version driver/SW with newer
version SW which comes with the M3307 installation diskette.
6. When the "System Settings Change" dialog box appears, press the
"YES" button which completes the installation process.
(no system re-boot is required.)
If you skip the driver installation when Windows 95 prompts "New Hardware
Found", or something has gone wrong during the installation, you can run
install.exe from the M3307 driver disk to re-install driver. Please refer
to the Windows 95 Upgrade Guide.
Windows 95 Upgrade Guide:
=========================
(Upgrade M3307 driver under Windows 95)
If your system has M3307 driver version 1.04c/1.04d or later installed,
please follow the procedure listed below to upgrade the M3307 driver to
version 1.06D.
A. Upgrade driver via control panel
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1. Open control panel
2. Double click the M3307 icon
3. Click on the "driver upgrade" button
4. Insert M3307 driver diskette in drive A
5. Click on the "OK" button
(Windows 95 installs new M3307 driver. No system re-boot is required.)
B. Upgrade driver via running the install utility:
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(System re-boot is required after the installation if install utility is
used.)
I. At Windows' Program Manager, choose Run command,
then type "<drive/path>install"
OR
II. At Windows' File Manager, choose the correct drive, double click
on the file "install.exe"
When the "Restart Windows?" dialog box appears, please press
"Restart now" button to restart Windows 95.
The M3307 configuration menu appears after the system re-boot. A program
group called "ALi MPEG Driver" will appear and icons named "Diagnostic" and
"Video Station" will appear in the "ALi MPEG Driver" program group.
Executing the program "Diagnostic" reports the status of the M3307 IRQ,
Command Register, Memory Map address, I/O mapping port, M3307 system
ROM/SRAM/DRAM.
"Video Station" is an application which uses MCI interface. This application
program supports all the MPEG I media play back functions. Now, You are ready
to enjoy your Multimedia time with M3307.
***** NOTE: *****
The latest M3307 driver is available for download from the following BBS and
Website:
BBS: 886-2-7687392
WWW: www.ali.com.tw
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Product names used in this file are for identification purposes only and
may be trademarks of their respective companies.
No part of this file maybe copied or reproduced without written consent
from Acer Laboratories Inc.
Acer Laboratories Inc. makes no warranty for the use of its products and
assumes no responsibility for any errors which may appear in this file nor
does it make a commitment to update the information contained herein.
Acer Laboratories Inc. reserves the right to make changes to these speci-
fications in the future without notice.
Contact your local sales office to obtain the latest specifications before
placing your order.
ALi is a registered trademark of Acer Incorporated and may only be used to
identify Acer products.
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TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE:
Q: What VGA adapters will work with M3307?
A: VGA adapters based on the following VGA controller chips have been tested
with M3307 and found to be compatible:
1 : ALi M3147V
2 : S3 Trio64V+
3 : ATI 264VT, 264GT
4 : Trident 9680P, 9682, 9385
5 : C&T 65550
6 : Cirrus 5446, 7548
7 : IGS 1682
8 : BrookTree 2115 (only support Win 95)
Q: How do I upgrade M3307 driver?
(For Windows 95 users with installed M3307 driver version 1.04b or older)
A: If you have installed a copy of M3307 device driver which version is older
than 1.04b in your Windows, please follow the installation procedure listed
below.
Refer to the Windows 95 Upgrade Guide in this readme file.
Q: Why is there an ERROR message which shows "No DCI driver or no YUV overlay
support ......" (in Windows 3.x) or "No Direct Draw driver or YUV overlay
support......" (in Windows 95) when starting to play MPEG media?
A: The ALi M3307 works in conjunction with VGA display adapter for MPEG I
video playback. The quality of Video playback will be severely degraded
without the appropriates driver support from the VGA display adapter.
When you encounter difficulty during video playback, one of the following
maybe the cause of the problem.
* Your VGA adapter does not support Video playback function.
* Your VGA playback driver (DCI or Direct Draw) does not work under the
set resolution/color/monitor refresh rate. Please check with your
VGA adapter document for proper settings.
* Your VGA playback driver is used by other programs. Such as another
AVI file is using it.
Note: Under Windows 3.x, DCI driver is used.
Under Windows 95, DirectDraw driver is used.
Q: Why does the MPEG Video Frame Rate suddenly slows down and the video
playback is not smooth.
A: The ALi M3307 driver uses the Video chip driver for video playback.
The playback driver fails to work in some cases. Such as when
Video playback window is overlapped by other window or the Video playback
window size is scaled down. These situations vary on depending on the VGA
controller chip is used. Please check with your VGA adapter document
about which condition the playback driver can/cannot work.
When the playback driver encounters situations that it can not work
properly, the M3307 driver will skip Video frames and keep the Audio
playback with higher priority.
You can open the configuration box of MCI driver and select the display
item to find out whether the DCI or the DirectDraw driver is active.
If the DCI or the DirectDraw drive is not active, the display item will
show that GDI is used instead.
Q: Why does the MPEG video quality degrade when playing back MPEG I video
stream at full screen, while the VGA display adapter is set in high
resolution mode.
A: The M3307 driver only process the original MPEG I video data stream.
High resolution full-screen video playback is accomplished by stretching
the original screen to full-screen size. This video stretching function
is handled by Video playback driver. Please check with the
capability/quality of your VGA display adapter for the video stretch
function. Conversely, shrinking the video display window smaller than the
original video screen size may affect playback performance.
Q: Why is the Audio playback not smooth ?
A: The M3307 is a Video decoder and the Audio decoding is handled by the
system CPU. Thus, the quality of MPEG I audio playback depends on the
host CPU performance. In addition, the quality of the system sound card
also affects MPEG I audio playback quality.
Lower the MPEG I audio playback sampling rate improves the smoothness of
audio playback.
Note: The higher the sampling rate is used, the higher the CPU computing
power is needed.
44K > 22K > 11K
Stereo > Mono > Left/Right
Best > Normal
* If your Sound Card only has a 8-bit DMA capability (such as OPTI 930),
You should select 22K/Stereo in the configuration box.
* If your CPU is 486, you should select 22K/Stereo in the configuration
box. If the audio playback at 22K/Stereo is not acceptable in your
machine, please lower the sampling rate to 11K/Stereo or 11K/Mono.
* If your audio selection is out of order, please click on the "Default"
button which restores the default audio setting of your system.
Q: Why can't I playback the CD-I CDROM under Windows 95?
A: Windows 95 does not support CD-I data stream, therefore the M3307 can't
playback CD-I titles. However, the Windows 3.x plays back CD-I titles
without any problems.
Q: When I use the Media Player, only "ALi MPEG Driver" appears in the Device
menu. Why is the "ALi VCD/CDI Driver" not visible in the Device menu
under Windows 95?
A: This problem occurs when there is no VCD title in the system CDROM drive
and the Media Player was invoked. This is a limitation of Windows 95
Media Player. This does not happen under Windows 3.x.
Q: How to uninstall ALiMPEG driver under Windows 95?
A: Execute the Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel and select the
"ALi M3307 Accelerator for Windows 95" from the dialog box. Double
click on it to remove the ALiMPEG driver.
Q: How to recover the uninstalled ALiMPEG driver under Windows 95?
A: You can refer to "Upgrade the driver under Windows 95" in this readme
file.
Q: Why is there a "!" mark on my Acer Labs' M3307 MPEG Accelerator in
"System Properties" dialog box?
A: There are three reasons may cause the "!" mark on Acer Labs M3307 MPEG
Accelerator in the system property dialog box.
1. Installation procedure is illegal.
2. The ALiMPEG driver is uninstalled.
3. The resource allocation to ALi M3307 is conflicted with others.
Please contact with your local retailer to help you to solve this
problem.
Q: Why is there no Acer Labs. M3307 MPEG Accelerator in the system property
dialog box?
A: Please check out your "Sound, video and game controllers" item in the
system property dialog box to find out the "Acer Labs. M3307 MPEG
Accelerator".
If you didn't install the ALiMPEG driver for the M3307, there's
one "?" mark indicating unknown device in system property dialog box.
The unknown device mark "?" should disappear after M3307 driver has been
properly installed.
Q: Why is my Acer Labs' M3307 MPEG Accelerator stop working although it
works fine before?
A: Execute the diagnostic program in the ALi MPEG Driver program group.
The diagnostic result should indicate the cause of M3307 failure.
Please contact with your retailer for service.
Q: Why is sometimes there is no video display when I use the M3307 MPEG
Accelerator with ATI 264VT controller under Windows 3.x?
A: M3307 only works with ATI Win 3.x driver V2.22 or later.
Please examine the ATIDCI.INI file under the WINDOWS directory and add
"doublebuffer=0" under the [CONTROLS] section if it is not there.
Download 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.