Viper PCI/Viper VLB Win95 Preliminary Drivers
Release Notes - 3 May, 1995
Updates:
5 Apr 95 - Initial pre-release
6 Apr 95 - Fixed palette bugaboo w/ dos boxes in Viper.VxD
11 Apr 95 - Fixed problem w/ 'Shutdown to MSDOS mode'
12 Apr 95 - Fixed a DIB problem (improved AVI performance)
13 Apr 95 - Found the b440 DOS window problem in the VXD.
19 Apr 95 - Fixed problem w/ Visual Basic forms in all color depths
also removed 2 invalid modes from viper.inf
21 Apr 95 - Fixed Shutdown/DOS hang problems (?)
25 Apr 95 - Fixed minor palette init problem that caused color shifts
with "Desert" and like schemes when changing resolutions.
3 May 95 - Fixed Viper.INF to prevent spurious filenotfound err
Expand Viper.zip into a empty scratch directory (like C:\VIPER\WIN95)
DO NOT expand these either into your Windows System directory or into a
directory containing the Win3.1 drivers!
Before installation, reset Win95 to the 'standard VGA driver',
reboot, then install using Win95 Display Properties / Settings / Change Driver
/Have Disk...
You still need a VIPER.INI file (created by VPRMODE) stored in c:\viper or
another path pointed to by SET VIPERPATH=
Note: You may need to edit WIN.INI, and remove the [DrawDib] section to
allow Video for Windows to retest the new driver and optimize itself.
This hopefully will be done automatically in a later version...
This is only needed for a upgrade from a version before 11 April
to a more current one!
(See 'Known Problems' at end...)
These drivers support 256 colors, 32768 colors, and 16777216 colors.
These drivers support 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1152x900, and 1280x1024
256 32k 16M
====================
640x480 1MB 1MB 2MB
800x600 1MB 1MB 2MB
1024x768 1MB 2MB -na-
1152x900 2MB -na- -na-
1280x1024 2MB -na- -na-
This is a very unofficial release! These drivers have not yet receieved
thorough application testing. They _have_ been 'smoke tested' w/ the DCT.
Test Matrix: (these tests were all done w/ the 5Apr version, later versions
are just being tested on PCI versions, unless another VLB
specific problem crops up)...
board/mem/version Bios tested 256 32k 16M
===========================================================
Viper PCI 2MB A7 3.10 x x x
Viper PCI 2MB B2 3.09 x x x
Viper VLB 2MB E4 3.13 x x x
Viper VLB 2MB D3 2.04 x x x
Viper VLB 2MB A7 1.12 x x x
Known Problems:
* At 16bpp (32k colors) or 32bpp (16M colors), stretched .AVI files are
rather slow (many frames dropped). Also, at 32k and 16M colors,
AVI files in "MS Video One" format perform poorly.
* Color/Animated cursors are NOT supported. Sorry!
* These drivers have not undergone much application
compatibility testing yet.
* Bitblt performance is only optimized for 256 color modes.
* DO NOT TRY TO RUN THE OLD DIAMOND VIPER CONTROL PANEL! IT WILL GPF!
it will be automatically removed by the installation once I figure
out how to get the .INF file to do this...
* Do not try to use the DPMI Diamond power management application
either, it won't work right.
* 32k color color mode has some drawing problems (noteably,
the copying files status display has a magenta background...)
* 'BitEdit' (a unsupported tool from the MSDN Library) causes stack
faults at 16 and 32bpp pasting large bitmaps. This seems to be a
problem in BitEdit, it is calling the driver with no stack space
left. It appears that BitEdit causes USER to recursively call
itself numerous times, consuming nearly all the available stack,
until a DeviceBitmapBit driver call crashes in the prolog.
* I'm hearing that some systems are not shutting down correctly.
Ditto, some system have problems w/ DOS jobs... I'm still
trying to determine whats going on here.
This may be fixed in the 21 April version. Then again, it may not.
2 out of 3 systems are working fine. I can't seem to get my hands on
a system that exhibits these problems!
Contacting DIAMOND
------------------
Diamond can be reached through a number of ways:
Postal Service : Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc.
2880 Junction Avenue
San Jose, CA 95134
Voice (Main) : (408) 325-7000
Voice (TechSppt): (408) 325-7100 [M-F 6-7; Sat 8-4 Pacific]
[plus 24hr automated help]
FAX (Main) : (408) 325-7070
FAX (Support) : (408) 325-7171
BBS (to 2400) : (408) 325-7080
BBS (9600+) : (408) 325-7175
CompuServe : GO DMNDONLINE
America Online : GO DIAMOND
All product names listed are trademarks or copyrights of their
respective owners.
=====================================================================
Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. (c) 1993-95
(408) 325-7000 All Rights Reserved
=====================================================================
$Id: readme.tx@ 05/03/95 16:45:00 MDEXTER Exp $
====================================================================
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.