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, VX1-16, GVX1, GVX210 and Permedia3 boards. 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. Install for VX1, VX1-16 and Permedia 3 Create! ============================================== 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/Me 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. It should find a PCI VGA-Compatible Display Adapter. 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 again and the Wizard will copy the files. Then select finish. 8. Upon reboot you should be running with full acceleration. Install for GVX1 and GVX210 =========================== 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/Me 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. It should find a PCI Co-processor CPU (the geometry processor on your card) 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 again and the Wizard will copy the files. Then select finish. 8. The wizard should now find the graphics chip on the board and report that it has found a GVX1 or GVX210 device as appropriate. Select Next. Ensure 'Search for best driver for your device' is selected. Select Next again. 9. Repeat steps 5. and 6. above. 10. Ensure that "The Updated driver (Recommended)" button is checked. Select Next. 11. The wizard should again find the driver for the board. Select Next again and the Wizard will copy the files. Then select finish. 12. Upon reboot you should be running with full acceleration. Install Troubleshooting ======================= Occasionally the Windows 98/Me plug-n-play system may become confused when you first install you GVX1 or GVX210 driver. If you encounter problems after following the above steps then reboot into Safe Mode. Safe Mode is a special boot mode of your Operating System which is designed to allow device driver trouble shooting. To access it hit the F8 function key just before the Windows 98/Me logo first appears during the boot cycle, and select "Safe Mode" from the list of options that appears. Once booted to the desktop, right click on the "My Computer" desktop icon and select Properties. Click on the Device Manager tab. Look for an entry in "Other Devices" called "? PCI Co-processor CPU". If you have such an entry then hit the Remove button to remove it. Now click on the + symbol by the "Display Adapter" entry and Remove all the entries under Display Adapter. Now reboot normally (not back into Safe Mode). The plug-n-play wizard should redetect the adapter and reinstall the driver automatically without any intervention on your part. You should now be running with full acceleration. Changing display drivers ======================== 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. 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 Desktop Tools" 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. The color depths supported are: 256 colors (Paletized) High Color (16 bits per pixel) True Color (32 bits per pixel) 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. VIA based motherboards ====================== You should upgrade to the latest drivers from http://www.viatech.com/drivers/. The AGP drivers should be installed in Normal mode - do not install in Turbo mode. 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 GVX210 is only supported in single head mode. You will be able to select the second monitor in the display control panel, but enabling it will have no effect. • 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.