Wednesday 14/03/2001 3DLABS WINDOWS 98/ME DRIVER =========================== Display Driver Build 4.12.01.2107-0829R OpenGL ICD Build 4.10.01.2105-2.15.0500 © Copyright 3Dlabs Inc. Ltd. 2000. All rights reserved worldwide. The material in this document is the intellectual property of 3Dlabs Inc. Ltd. While every care has been taken in the preparation of this document, 3Dlabs accepts no liability for any consequences of its use. Our products are under continual improvement and we reserve the right to change their specification without notice. 3Dlabs is the worldwide trading name of 3Dlabs Inc. Ltd. 3Dlabs and GLINT are registered trademarks of 3Dlabs. Oxygen is a trademark of 3Dlabs. OpenGL is a trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc. Windows 98, Windows ME, Direct X and DirectDraw are trademarks of Microsoft Corp. All other trademarks are acknowledged. Introduction ============ This Readme describes the above driver for the 3Dlabs Oxygen VX1-1600SW board. Once the driver has been installed the display driver release number can be determined by starting the Display Applet Control Panel in Control Panels directory. Select the "Display" tab, then the "Advanced" button, then the "3Dlabs" tab followed by the "Advanced" button. The Display Driver and OpenGL version numbers can be found in the "Infomation" tab. The last four digits following the "-" uniquely identify your driver build. Prerequisites ============= • Windows 98 or Windows ME • Intel Pentium II processor or later Driver Download Instructions ============================ 1. Goto the 3Dlabs web site (at www.3dlabs.com) and locate the driver download page. 2. Download the appropriate driver zip file for your board into a suitable scratch directory (e.g. C:\3Dlabs). 3. If you have WinZip or a similar program to extract zip files, then extract them into the scratch directory (making sure you preserve the directory structure inside the zip file. If you are using the command line program pkunzip, then open a dos prompt window and change directory to your scratch directory: > c: > cd \3Dlabs then unzip the files: > pkUnzip -d xxxxxxxx.ZIP 4. Install the new driver by following the install instructions below. 5. You can now delete the download scratch directory and its contents. English Install =============== DO NOT USE THESE INSTRUCTIONS IF YOU ARE RUNNING A NON-ENGLISH VERSION OF WINDOWS 98 - SEE THE SECTION BELOW, OTHERWISE PLEASE FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY; 1. If you do not have a 3Dlabs CD or floppy disk set, then please follow the download instructions in the previous section to get a Windows 98 driver for your board before plugging it into your machine. 2. Plug in your graphics card and boot the system. When you first boot the system after plugging in the graphics card, Windows will automatically detect the new hardware and it will start up the 'Add New Hardware Wizard'. Select 'CANCEL' since 3Dlabs provide an automated install. 3. If you have a 3Dlabs CD, then insert it into the CD drive - the installer menu will normally launch automatically. If you do not have autorun enabled on your CD then double click on the CD icon on your desktop to launch the 3Dlabs installer menu. If you downloaded the driver, then navigate to the folder that contains the unzipped driver and run setup.exe. 4. Follow the instructions on the screen. Note you must install the DirectX7 runtime when this option is offered if you have not already installed DirectX7 or later on your computer. If you do not then DirectX applications will not run. 5. Choose to reboot the computer when asked at the end of the process. 6. Upon reboot you should be running with full acceleration. Non-English Install =================== If you have a non-English language version of Windows 98 then follow these instructions. 1. If you do not have a 3Dlabs CD or floppy disk set, then please follow the download instructions above to get a Windows 98 driver for your board before plugging it into your machine. 2. Plug in your graphics card and boot the system. When you first boot the system after plugging in the graphics card, Windows will automatically detect the new hardware and it will start up the 'Add New Hardware Wizard'. 3. If you do not have a driver available to install at this point, select 'Cancel' and upon the next reboot of Windows the Wizard will automatically start again. 4. Select Next. Ensure 'Search for best driver for your device' is selected. Select Next again. 5. If you have a 3Dlabs CD, then ensure the 'Specify a location' check box is checked and type in 'X:\Win98' where X is the letter of your CD drive. If you downloaded the driver, then ensure the 'Specify a location' check box is checked and type in the location of the scratch directory where you unzipped the files. If you have a set of floppy disks with the drivers on, ensure the 'Floppy disk drives' check box is checked. 6. Select Next. 7. The wizard should now find the driver for the board. Select Next twice more and the Wizard will copy the files. Then select finish and restart your computer as prompted. 8. Upon reboot you should be running with full acceleration. Changing display drivers for non-English versions of Windows 98/ME ================================================================== If you have previously installed a display driver, or you have installed a Standard VGA driver as the driver for the board, then follow these instructions to change the driver to the latest driver. If you selected cancel from the 'Add New Hardware Wizard' above when booting the system, then you should just reboot your system rather than following these instructions. 1. Start up the Display Control Panel. Select the Settings tab, then the Advanced button and then the Adapter tab. 2. Select Change. You are now in the 'Update device driver Wizard' which is very similar to the 'Add New Hardware Wizard', and you can proceed from step 4 of the installation instructions above. IMPORTANT : AUTOMATED INSTALL FAILURE ===================================== Under some rare circumstances (E.g a previous corrupted graphics driver installation or where this driver is replacing a newer one) the automated install may fail to install the driver correctly. If this happens you will probably see one or more dialog windows belonging to the Windows Display control panel or the Hardware Wizard REMAINING on the screen AFTER you have clicked on the button that appears on the installer "Driver Information" Dialog Window which states "DRIVER SETUP IS COMPLETE". Under normal conditions, the next step is to install the DirectX 7.0 drivers. However, in this case, you will need to manually complete the 3Dlabs Graphics driver installation beforehand, by downloading the non-English version of the driver install and following the instructions under "Non-English Install" above. Note that non-English refers to the installation procedure - the driver itself is identical to that installed by the "English Install". Uninstall ========= The Control panel extension and the application support tool can be uninstalled by following this procedure: 1. Open the Add/Remove Programs icon in the Control Panel. 2. Highlight the "3Dlabs display driver" in the list and click "Add/Remove". 3. Follow the instructions to complete the removal of the control panel and application support tool. Resolutions and Refresh Rates ============================= The resolutions supported (and maximum refresh rate) for the Windows Desktop are dependent on your graphics card. For the VX1/1600SW when driving the SGI flat panel, only 1600x1024 resolution is supported and only the following color depths are supported: High Color (16 bits per pixel) True Color (32 bits per pixel) 256 color modes and additional resolutions are supported on analog monitors, when using the standard VGA connector. Many refresh rates are supported for all of these modes. The refresh rate available is typically limited by your monitor type. The monitor type will be auto detected by Windows if your monitor supports DDC. If windows does not recognise the monitor, you will be prompted to install the monitor information disk from your monitor manufacturer. If your monitor does not support DDC, then you will have to select a monitor type manually from the display control panel. A combination of the DDC information and the monitor type is used by Windows to determine which modes are available at which refresh rates. NOTE: If you have an unknown monitor type, the driver will set the refresh rate for all modes to 60Hz - which may flicker noticably on your monitor. 3Dlabs Display Control Panel Tab ================================ The 3Dlabs tab in the Display Control Panel allows control over the configuration of the 3Dlabs drivers. The control panel is split into a number of pages. The pages are selected by clicking on the "Advanced" button on the main page to bring up the "3Dlabs Display Settings" Panel, and then selecting one of the tabs on the the top right of the window. The control panel supports lists of driver settings. The "Direct3D support" and "OpenGL support" tabs enable you to create your own named settings which you can add to the list to appear each time the control panel or taskbar tool (see below) is accessed. To obtain help on the various options supported by the control panel tabs first click on the "?" in the title bar and then click on the item you want more information on. A help note will appear near the cursor. Click again to close the window. Task Bar Utility (only available under Windows 98/ME) ================================================== This driver release includes a task bar utility which provides quick access to some of the facilities on the control panel. To access the application right click on the 3Dlabs icon in the taskbar. This tool provides ;- * Quick and convenient display resolution changing * Access to the 3Dlabs web site * Shortcut access to the display control panel * Instant selection from a list of application settings * Quick display of the driver settings * Help on the driver settings Full documentation is provided through the "Help" item on the tool's pop-up menu. Supported Languages =================== The Control Panel Tab and the Application Support tool currently support the following languages:- Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Dutch English French German Italian Japanese Korean Spanish (modern) General DirectX advice ====================== This driver requires DirectX7 to be installed, otherwise DirectX applications will not run. Some games ( e.g. Unreal ) give you the option to install DirectX binaries during the game installation. The game may attempt to force-install older versions of DX binaries over your current DX binaries. This will almost certainly lead to the game failing to start up. You can determine your DirectX version by running the display control panel and clicking on the 3Dlabs tab and then the Advanced tab. The DX version is in the DirectX Information pane in the form: DirectX Release: 4.XX.YY.ZZZZ where XX is the number you require. For example you may see DirectX Release: 4.07.00.0700 and so you have DirectX 7 installed. Now, when a game installer runs you can decline the offer to install the old DX binaries. 3D Studio Max 2.x/3.x ===================== This driver should be used with OpenGL acceleration under 3D Studio Max 2.x. Start 3D Studio Max and go to the Preferences dialog box. This is located under "File\Preferences" in 3D Studio MAX 2.x and under "Customize\Preferences" in 3D Studio MAX 3.x. Click the "Viewports" tab and the select "Choose Driver". Ensure that the "OpenGL" option is selected. Shutdown 3DStudio Max. Before restarting, delete the 3DStudio Max OpenGL configuration file that stores information about your OpenGL driver. Doing this will cause 3DStudio Max to reset some of its options to get best performance from these drivers. The file is called oglgfx.ini and is located in your /3dsmax/ directory (or wherever you installed 3D Studio Max). If the file does not exist then simply restart 3D Studio Max. When running through OpenGL, 3D Studio Max defaults to not backface culling wireframe objects. This may result in less than optimal performance when manipulating wireframe objects. This behaviour can be changed from within the application. Go to the "File/Preferences" dialog box. Click on the "Viewports" tab and then select "Configure Driver". Enable the option "Display Wireframe Objects Using Triangle Strips". This causes wireframe objects to be backfaced culled and can significantly improve performance. The setting also causes shared edges within polygons to be drawn which may not appear as desired. TrueSpace 4.x ============= This driver should be used with D3D rendering acceleration for TrueSpace, as the performance is better than with the OpenGL renderer. Incorrect colors in certain games ================================= Some games show incorrect colors at 16bpp when run under the initial driver installation settings. To run the following games you should first select "Games Default" from the list on the DirectX Support tab of the 3Dlabs control panel, or using the task bar application if you have this enabled. Everquest Nascar3 Shogun Total War NFS Porche 2000 Alien vs Predator Final Fantasy VII Unreal ====== 3Dlabs recommend that you use Direct3D to play Unreal. Patches of the game more recent than version2.22 have introduced rendering problems on 3Dlabs hardware. To access the Advanced options menu use the game's safe mode. Descent3 and OpenGL =================== 3Dlabs recommend that you use Direct3D to play Descent3. Using OpenGL the game only renders correctly at 640x480 resolution. Half-Life ========= You will need to download the patch for at least version 1.0.0.8 from www.sierra.com to use hardware accelerated OpenGL. Without this patch some elements are rendered without textures. There is currently a problem when switching to the main Half-Life menu. If you are running in OpenGL you will not be able to re-enter the game loop unless you exit the game completely and start it again. Heretic II ========== Palette textures must be disabled in these games when using hardware accelerated OpenGL. Driver Release History ====================== 2107-0829 • Fixed problems on machines based around Intel 815 chipset 2107-0828 • Fixed pointer schemes • Fixed Chief Architect text opaquing rectangles bug Known Anomalies =============== • The walls in the game Sin are drawn black. • Applications which use Quicktime 2 will not run properly unless you change a line in the QTW.ini file in your Windows directory from OPTIMIZE=DRIVER to OPTIMIZE=BMP. See the Quicktime 2 release notes for more information about this. Customer Support ================ You can contact 3Dlab's technical support via the World Wide Web at www.3dlabs.com, or via email to support@3dlabs.com.