Category : Display Utilities
Archive   : UNIVBE43.ZIP
Filename : CHANGES

Log of changes for the Universal VESA VBE
-----------------------------------------

Version 4.3 (20 March 1994)

- Added support for 8 bit wide DAC's when certain RAMDAC's are
installed. Updated RAMDAC detection code.

- Added support for extended CRT offset register programming for
supported SuperVGA cards. This allows gigantic virtual displays to
be set up on cards with lots of memory, and also allows virtual
screens to be enabled for the HiColor and TrueColor modes which
usually overflow the standard VGA CRT offset register. Support was
added for the following cards (unsupported cards will have to live
with the standard VGA offset register values for the time being):

ET4000
NCR
S3
Cirrus Logic
Compaq QVision

- Added new online registration process so registered users can convert
shareware versions to registered versions once they have the correct
id code.

- Fixes for following chipsets:

- ET4000/W32i
- Cirrus Logic 5426/28
- NCR 77C22E, 77C32BLT
- S3 801/805/928
- Paradise
- Avance Logic
- Oak OTI-067, OTI-077, OTI-087
- ATI 28800-5
- Chips & Tech 45x, 655x0
- MXIC 860x0
- RealTek RTG310x
- Trident 8900/9000

- New support added for the following chipsets:

- ATI 68800 (Mach32)
- Compaq QVision 1024 and 1280
- Weitek 5086/5186/5286 (support chips for P9000 boards)
- UMC 85c408
- Hualon HM86304
- Trident 8900CL/GUI9420

- Better support for 24 bit modes. The UniVBE will now re-program the
CRT offset register to set the bytes per line value for 24 bit modes
to be evenly divide the 64k frame buffer (2048 bytes in 640x480
mode). This greatly simplifies the programming required to program
these modes, and is required for the MGL to operated correctly in
24 bit modes.

Version 4.2 (22 Oct 1993)

- First shareware release.

- Fixed a number of bugs relating to register not being correctly
preserved, which could solve some of the problems with certain
programs.

- Improved method to force SuperVGA id from the command line.

- Added option to swap the RED and BLUE bytes in 24 bit modes for
compatability with some video cards.

- Improved the RAM DAC detection code, so it works correctly for
more DAC's (like the ATT 20c49x series).

- Fixed bug in Trident detection code and finally!! fixed the page
flipping for Trident cards in the SuperVGA 256 color video modes
for cards with > 512k of video memory.

- Fixed wierd bug relating to running Windows 3.1 on top of the
Universal VESA VBE. I hope this is now fixed.

Version 4.1 (24 Sep 1993)

- Added support for > 1Mb of RAM for Cirrus 5426/28 chipsets. Also
fixed page flipping problem in 640x480x16 color mode.

- Fixed buffer size problems for S3's

- Removed all cli/sti instructions in bank switching routines. These
seem to have been a cause of a number of problems and are not
required anyway.

- Fixed problems with DAC detection not resetting the DAC correctly
for Diamond SS24 DAC's. Also added code to reset the DAC if not
done correctly by the BIOS.

- Fixed support for Page flipping on AL2101 and read/write bank
support.

- Fixed page flipping on some cards like the ET3000 in the 256 color
modes (I hope).

Version 4.0 (18 Sep 1993)

- Added support for the ET4000/W32 and OAK OTI-087 SuperVGA's.

- Fixes for the following video cards:

- Paradise
- Cirrus Logic
- S3

- Added special protected mode support interface. You can now copy
relocatable versions of the bank switching and page flipping code
into your own programs to run at high speed. This will work in
both 16 and 32 bit protected mode (note that the interface is
_not_ the same as the interface to the actual VBE routines, but
much simpler and lower level for simplicity and speed).

- Major changes and restructuring of the code in the Universal VESA
VBE. This makes it take less memory when installed, a lot simpler
to modify and add support for new video cards. The Universal VESA
VBE is now completely autonomous from the MGL package.

- The Universal VESA VBE now only requires 3k of memory when resident,
through re-engineering the internals. It nows takes the same amount
of memory not matter how many video cards are supported. All but
the code required for the installed SuperVGA is removed from
memory when the TSR goes resident.

- The Universal VESA VBE no longer has any 386 dependant code in it,
so will work even on old 8086 machines.

- Added 64k color mode support for the RealTek

Versions 3.3 and below

Previous versions of this software were named the Universal VESA TSR,
but the name was changed at the request of VESA to the Universal VESA
VBE, which describes more accurately what the program does.