3Dfx Windows Display Support, Version v7.70. 3Dfx Windows Display Support README File Contents --------------------------------------------------- 1. 3Dfx Windows Display Support 2. Supported Display Controllers, Modes, and Monitors 3. Installation and Configuration Using 3fxSETUP.EXE and 3fxSETUP.CPL 4. Recovering from an Invalid Display Driver Configuration 5. Updating Existing Drivers 6. Network Installation 7. High-Address Driver Issues 8. 3Dfx.INI File Settings 9. How to Obtain Customer Support 10. Packing List 1. 3Dfx Windows Display Support --------------------------------- This 3Dfx Windows Display Support release provides display drivers to support 3Dfx display controller hardware features when used with Microsoft Windows 3.1 or higher. The Windows for Workgroups and Windows for Pen Computing variants of Windows 3.1 or higher are also supported. To install the drivers, run 3fxSETUP.EXE as a Windows application from within Windows. See sections 3 and 4 of this file for more information on installation and configuration. 3fxSETUP detects the 3Dfx hardware currently installed in your system and allows you to select the features you wish to install. Features supported by the files in this release are: 3Dfx Windows Display Drivers The Display Drivers provide enhanced support for 3Dfx display controllers. 2. Supported Display Controllers, Modes, and Monitors ----------------------------------------------------- The 3Dfx display controllers supported by the display drivers in this 3Dfx Windows Display Support release are: 3Dfx Velocity 100/200 NOTE: The 3fxMODE.INI contains the display mode information used by the 3Dfx Windows display drivers. This file should not be modified by the user. Modification of this file could result in the corruption of your display driver configuration. Should this occur, you will have to reinstall 3fxMODE.INI with 3fxSETUP.EXE to correct the problem. NOTE: The 3Dfx Windows display drivers require a 386 or higher processor. NOTE: A wide variety of third party monitors are supported by the display drivers in this release. One of these monitors can be selected when installing or configuring with 3fxSETUP. It may be necessary to manually size and center the image when using a third party monitor. NOTE: The 3fxMON.INI contains the monitor information used by the 3Dfx Windows display drivers. This file should not be modified by the user. Modification of this file could result in the corruption of your display driver configuration. Should this occur, you will have to reinstall 3fxMON.INI with 3fxSETUP.EXE to correct the problem. 3. Installation and Configuration Using 3fxSETUP.EXE and 3fxSETUP.CPL --------------------------------------------------------------------- The 3fxSETUP.EXE 3Dfx Windows display driver installation program must be run as a Windows application from within Windows to install the 3Dfx Windows display drivers. If your system has Microsoft Windows preinstalled: To run 3fxSETUP.EXE, pull down the 'File' menu from within the Program Manager or File Manager. Select 'Run...' from the 'File' menu. At the 'Command Line' prompt, type the following: C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\3fxSETUP and press ENTER. If you are using 3Dfx Windows Display Support on diskettes: To run 3fxSETUP.EXE, insert the 3Dfx Windows Display Support diskette 1 into drive A:. Pull down the 'File' menu from within the Program Manager or File Manager. Select 'Run...' from the 'File' menu. At the 'Command Line' prompt, type the following: A:\3fxSETUP and press ENTER. Context-sensitive help is available within 3fxSETUP.EXE by clicking on the 'Help' button. 3fxSETUP detects the 3Dfx Graphics Adapter currently installed in your system. It allows you to select the features you wish to install or configure from the Setup Options dialog. Features supported are: 3Dfx Windows Display Drivers 3fxSETUP.EXE installs the display drivers and their necessary support files, including 3fxSETUP.CPL, the 3Dfx Windows Display Driver Configuration Utility. After the 3Dfx Windows display drivers have been installed, the configuration (resolution, number of colors, etc.) may be changed by running the Configuration Utility. This is done from the Windows Control Panel by double-clicking on the icon titled 'Display', or by pressing the ENTER key while this icon is highlighted. Context-sensitive help is available within the Configuration Utility by clicking on the 'Help' button. 4. Recovering from an Invalid Display Driver Configuration ---------------------------------------------------------- Because 3fxSETUP.EXE and 3fxSETUP.CPL are Windows applications that run under Windows, you could have difficulty reconfiguring or reinstalling the 3Dfx Windows display drivers if the current display driver configuration is invalid. When the display driver configuration is invalid, Windows is unable to run, and thus you are unable to run 3fxSETUP.EXE and 3fxSETUP.CPL under Windows. There are many things that can cause an invalid display driver configuration. One of the most common causes is switching to a monitor that does not support the currently configured resolution or vertical refresh rate without first running 3fxSETUP.CPL to select the new monitor. The key to recovering from an invalid display driver configuration is to temporarily reconfigure Windows to use the standard VGA display driver. You can then run Windows and run 3fxSETUP.CPL from the Windows Control Panel. You can then specify a valid configuration and select to restart Windows. Even though 3fxSETUP.EXE is a Windows application, it supports a command line option when it is run from the DOS command prompt to reset the Windows display driver configuration to use the standard VGA display driver. If your system has Microsoft Windows preinstalled: Type the following from the DOS command prompt: C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\3fxSETUP /VGA and press ENTER. If you are using 3Dfx Windows Display Support on diskettes: To run 3fxSETUP.EXE, insert the 3Dfx Windows Display Support diskette 1 into drive A:. Type the following from the DOS command prompt: A:\3fxSETUP /VGA and press ENTER. Alternatively, you may run Windows Setup (SETUP.EXE) from the DOS command prompt and select 'VGA' for the 'Display' setting. 5. Updating Existing Drivers ---------------------------- Existing 3Dfx Windows driver installations can be updated to the drivers contained in this 3Dfx Windows Display Support release by running 3fxSETUP.EXE (from diskette 1, if you are installing from diskettes) and installing the new drivers on top of the old drivers. The actual installation can be performed by 3fxSETUP.EXE. 3fxSETUP.EXE will detect if you are updating existing drivers. You will be prompted to specify if you wish to delete the obsolete drivers and OEM*.INF files. It is recommended that you select to delete these files. The obsolete driver and OEM*.INF files you should delete from your Windows SYSTEM directory are: 3fxVDD.386 3fxVGA.GR2 3fxVGA.GR3 OEM*.INF NOTE: If you do not delete the obsolete OEM*.INF files, you will see duplicate and extraneous lines in the Windows Setup display driver list box and you might select an invalid display driver configuration. You may also delete the following settings from the [Display] section in the 3Dfx.INI file in your Windows installation directory, as they are no longer used by the drivers in this 3Dfx Windows Display Support release: DACMode Refresh Resolution Resource NOTE: No problems are caused by not deleting these settings from the [Display] section of the 3Dfx.INI file. 6. Network Installation ----------------------- 3fxSETUP.EXE directly supports installing the 3Dfx Windows display drivers on a network installation of Windows. A network install requires two steps: 1. The network administrator must run 3fxSETUP.EXE as a Windows application from within Windows with the '/N' command line option: 3fxSETUP /N 3fxSETUP.EXE will verify the network Windows installation and copy over all of the driver support files. 2. The user must run 3fxSETUP.EXE (without the '/N' command line option) on his network node system. The installation process proceeds as described in section 3 above, with the following exception. If there are driver files missing from the network Windows directory, then an error box is displayed explaining the steps that need to be performed by the network administrator before the installation can be completed (it is necessary to run 3fxSETUP.EXE again in this situation). 7. High-Address Driver Issues ------------------------------ The 3Dfx QVision optimized 256-color, true color, and high color, Windows display drivers, 3fxHV308.EXE, 3fxHV316.EXE, 3fxHV332.EXE, are high-address drivers (high color currently not supported). These drivers provide the high-performance 256-color mode support and 32K, 64K, and 16.8M color mode support. A high-address driver accesses the display controller frame buffer using a single contiguous range of addresses residing above the 1 MB address boundary. This is more efficient than low-address access, because there is no driver bank-switching overhead incurred in order to access the entire frame buffer. 8. 3Dfx.INI File Settings ---------------------------- The 3Dfx.INI file in the Windows directory contains settings that control the configuration of the 3Dfx Windows display drivers and autoloader. The 3Dfx.INI file is created by 3fxSETUP.EXE during installation and modified by 3fxSETUP.CPL during configuration. Normally, the values of the settings written to 3Dfx.INI by 3fxSETUP.EXE and 3fxSETUP.CPL should not be modified by the user. Incorrect modification of these settings could result in an invalid display driver configuration. There are some additional settings that may appear in the 3Dfx.INI file that are not written or modified by 3fxSETUP.EXE or 3fxSETUP.CPL. These settings control various low-level aspects of the display driver and autoloader operation. The list of these settings, their allowable and default values, and the sections they belong in follows: [Display] Common 3Dfx Windows Display Driver Section ------------------------------------------------------ Print=[ON/OFF | YES/NO | TRUE/FALSE] The drivers display a version and configuration information screen after being loaded by Windows and prior to initializing the display controller when the value of this keyword is one of the positive values. Default = OFF. NOTE: Pressing Ctrl+C while the configuration information screen "Press any key" prompt is displayed will cause the driver to abort the loading process and Windows to return to the DOS prompt. 9. How to Obtain Customer Support ---------------------------------- 10. Packing List ---------------- The files included in this 3Dfx Windows Display Support release are listed below. If you have Windows preinstalled these files are located in C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS. DISKETTE 1 ---------- Name Ext Description -------- --- ----------- 3fxWIN Windows Display Support Diskette 1 ID file WIN CNF Windows COM file README COM Readme file viewer 3fxGR2 CO_ Standard mode grabber LZEXPAND 3fx File expansion DLL VER 3fx Version checking DLL 3fxSETUP CP_ Display driver configuration program DCIMAN DL_ DCI manager dynamic link library UDH DL_ DCI enabled Universal Draw Handler 3fxDCI DR_ QVision high-address driver DCI provider extension SUPERVGA DR_ AVGA/IVGS 4 bits per pixel low-address driver VGAP DR_ AVGA/IVGS 4 bits per pixel low-address driver 3fxSETUP EXE Display driver installation program 3fxAUTO EX_ 3Dfx Windows Display Driver Autoloader 3fxFIXUP EX_ File copy fixup program 3fxFLAT EX_ Virtual Flat Frame Buffer Device Driver 3fxGR3 EX_ Enhanced mode grabber 3fxHQV08 EX_ QVision 8 bits per pixel high-address driver 3fxHQV16 EX_ QVision 16 bits per pixel high-address driver 3fxHQV32 EX_ QVision 32 bits per pixel high-address driver 3fxLQV08 EX_ QVision 8 bits per pixel low-address driver 3fxVDD EX_ Virtual Display Driver 3fxSETUP HLP 3fxSETUP help file 3Dfx INI Default 3Dfx.INI file 3fxMODE INI Mode INI file 3fxMON INI Monitor INI file VGALOGO LG_ Default VGA Logo code VGALOGO RL_ Default VGA Logo image README WIN Readme file explaining disk contents DISKETTE 2 ---------- Name Ext Description -------- --- ----------- 3fxFONTS Windows Display Support Diskette 2 ID file 8514FIX FO_ Large fixed font 8514OEM FO_ Large OEM font 8514SYS FO_ Large system font ARIALB FO_ EGA Arial font CGA40850 FO_ CGA 40 column non-U.S. font CGA40WOA FO_ CGA 40 column U.S. font CGA80850 FO_ CGA 80 column non-U.S. font CGA80WOA FO_ CGA 80 column U.S. font COURB FO_ EGA Courier font COURE FO_ Small Courier font COURF FO_ Large Courier font EGA40850 FO_ EGA 40 column non-U.S. font EGA40WOA FO_ EGA 40 column U.S. font EGA80850 FO_ EGA 80 column non-U.S. font EGA80WOA FO_ EGA 80 column U.S. font EGAFIX FO_ EGA fixed font EGAOEM FO_ EGA OEM font EGASYS FO_ EGA system font MODERN FO_ Modern plotter font SCRIPT FO_ Script plotter font SERIFB FO_ EGA Serif font SERIFE FO_ Small Serif font SERIFF FO_ Large Serif font SMALLB FO_ Small font (EGA) SMALLE FO_ Small font (VGA) SMALLF FO_ Small font (8514/A) SSERIFB FO_ EGA Sans Serif font SSERIFE FO_ Small Sans Serif font SSERIFF FO_ Large Sans Serif font SYMBOLB FO_ EGA Symbol font SYMBOLE FO_ Small Symbol font SYMBOLF FO_ Large Symbol font TIMESB FO_ EGA Times Roman font VGA850 FO_ OEM font for codepage 850 VGA860 FO_ OEM font for codepage 860 VGA861 FO_ OEM font for codepage 861 VGA863 FO_ OEM font for codepage 863 VGA865 FO_ OEM font for codepage 865 VGAFIX FO_ Small fixed font VGAOEM FO_ Small OEM font for codepage 437 VGASYS FO_ Small system font