RE:Re: please explain to me why video/bios shadowing must be disabled to use graphics...

[matt@snip.net]

I already did run it as root.. I tried lots of stuff before ultimately 
giving up. However, I do plan on playing around with dosemu again in the 
future. btw,  i'm already subscribed to the list so you really don't have 
to forward a copy to matt@snip.net but if that's how your email client 
works then *ok* heh...

At 11:59 AM 9/21/02 +0100, you wrote:
>Try running as root...
>
>Cheers, Dean McEwan. Currently hacking KGI, which I don't understand, oh 
>and ask me about OpenModemTalk...
>
>On      Sat, 21 Sep 2002 04:42:05 -0400         matt@snip.net wrote:
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>Date:   Sat, 21 Sep 2002 04:42:05 -0400
>To:     linux-msdos@vger.kernel.org
>From:   matt@snip.net
>Subject: Re: please explain to me why video/bios shadowing must be
>   disabled to use graphics...
>In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0209201954350.30609-100000@feather.sunbird.s
>  ys>
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>
>>I'd want to know specifically if
>>video hardware on hp is significantly different in some way from any
>>other pc-compatibles.  Bet it isn't.
>
>I'm sure it isn't...
>
>>It makes no sense there is no hardware switch  to turn off shadowing, so
>>now I'm curious what method hp uses.
>
>Well i'm not much of a hardware person so I never really looked to see if 
>there was a hardware switch in the first place. I've heard from other HP 
>users about bad experiences trying to take the case on the HP off. It 
>sounds as if it's a general pain in the a$$. Regardless of whether or not 
>there's a hardware switch in the system, it's still very annoying that HP 
>never decided to put in a setting in the bios setup program to disable 
>video/bios shadowing.
>
>>Surely this info would be available to a hardware
>>owner.  And if there are no hp-specific publications, perhaps a phone
>>call to one of their engineers that works on video addressing would
>>yield something.  Somebody had to decide how things would be done at
>>some point in your machine's history.  A direct call might just be the
>>fastest way to get an answer and maybe even a reference or two, or a
>>private privileged (you paid your moneys) online link for users.
>
>heh most systems that you buy in the store don't give you detailed manuals 
>and are you suggesting I call tech support because I hate the very idea of 
>that. I never ever had to call tech support for any of my past and present 
>systems. I choose not to because it's a royal pain the a$$ and most of the 
>time they can't help you anyway. You end up wasting money, especially if 
>you were to ring up microsoft's god awful tech support line from HELL (i'm 
>glad I never called them. all the horror stories *gasp*). I seem to get 
>the impression that hp's tech support is crap too, especially from when I 
>use to browse there now semi defunct tech forums.
>
>> > I've tried getting graphics to work in dosemu before in the
>> > past but everytime i tried to run a game such as wolf3d the thing went
>> > black which forced me to switch terminal screens and log back in to
>> > kill the dosemu process.
>>
>>Forced how?  Did it hang, no response?  Going all black might mean just
>>no memory, no pointer to memory, the memory it needs.
>
>Yeah the process locked up. The system didn't lock up (if it was winblows 
>it probably would've).
>
>
>>Wolf3d does have source code available for free.  Have you compiled it
>>to work on your system?  Somewhere in that code would be the video
>>addressing routines.  Compile, run with lots of stderr, study the error
>>messages, find the trouble spot.  See how it would be solved in the
>>non-proprietary system.  Forgive, all theoretical, you're probably in a
>>hurry to play the darn game.
>
>Yeah I know the source code is available but I don't have the right tools 
>to compile it right now and I don't even think it will compile on linux 
>without having to tweak it some bit. I'm not much of an expert at 
>programming (although i'm learning).
>
>> > .. needed to disable video/bios shadowing. This is what most people
>> > seem to suggest when someone  asks the question "how do i get graphics
>> > to work"
>>
>>Need a more specific question to get a better answer.  There are refs
>>that cover these things, search for "svga programming shadow methods".
>>I tried it, found this to start:
>>
>>http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/9784/tut.html
>>2D  Basics, VGA Mode 13h
>>     SVGA - vesa, vbe 2
>>
>>By the way, what kind of video do you have?  VESA?  Lots of docs on that
>>standard.  Find out all the details you can on your video interface,
>>what the range and limits of your monitor/video firmware.
>
>Well the system isn't that old. It's only 3 years old. I bought it back in 
>99. My video card is an ATI Rage Pro btw.
>
>> > ... but the  fonts were screwy since it was using the default terminal
>> > font and I never did figure out how to fix that.
>>
>>But therein lies some secrets.  Text on video is done much the same way.
>>Maybe slug through that, find out how it does switch to non-hardware
>>fonts.  Map the known.
>
>I get the impression after reading your entire post that you think i'm 
>some sort of programmer <g>? I know some programming (assembly, qbasic, c, 
>c++, etc...) but i'm not that good at it. Like I said, I'm still learning 
>heh <g>. I seem to recall someone once saying on some usenet group that 
>you might need to switch the default console font to a font that supports 
>ibm ascii characters. I don't think any distro I played with came with 
>such fonts. However, I did play around with the console fonts included 
>with the distros. I think I almost got the characters looking right too 
>(ZZT wasn't as messed up but there was some things that were still 
>screwy). So I think what I need is a console font that uses ibm ascii 
>characters. I also think I read somewhere that running the X windows 
>version of dosemu might fix this problem too, that the problem is only 
>with the console.
>
>> > Oh, I also got QBasic to work too but it
>> > appears to be really slow so i'm afraid even games like wolf3d would
>> > be coming to a halt on this 450 mhz system.
>>
>>It would of course be slow, not comparable to compiled C or assembly
>>code, processed in RAM.  Imagine running X with 8 megs free RAM.  It
>>would swap on the hardware.  Be click and wait. ;)
>
>heh yeah I know that. QBasic wasn't that bad under the console. It loaded 
>up quickly just that the screen being drawn was much slower than it was in 
>native dos (I expected it to be a little slower, but not that slow). I 
>suspect that a game such as wolf3d would be even slower to the point where 
>it might be unplayable. I'm thinking it could've been something else that 
>was making it slower then usual. Perhaps it was because I was running the 
>linux distro, that I was playing with at the time, on top of a dos 
>partition? I haven't yet tested dosemu on a linux distro that runs on it's 
>own partition so i'm hoping it'll be faster when I do.
>
>
>> > I was really hoping there was another solution to getting graphics to
>> > work in  dosemu without having to really disable video/bios shadowing
>> > in the first place.
>>
>>Not without getting down and dirty, I expect. HP somehow uses its own
>>shadowing algorithms/switches/memory moves.  Where and how it does it is
>>documented somewhere or no one could write code for it.  Are those
>>routines built into ROM by any chance?
>
>heh there you go again, asking me as if I should know. Seriously, this HP 
>system is probably like many other pcs out there. I'm sure it does 
>shadowing in a similar fashion. What do you mean no one could write code 
>for it? This system is like any other pc clone/compatable out there. It 
>has an x86 processor (Pentium III) and it's not a sparc or an alpha, 
>etc... Anything written for other pcs or operating systems (windows, 
>linux, etc...) should work on it as long as they don't have any specific 
>hardware requirements (like a graphics accelerator, a particular sound 
>card, more ram, etc...) or operating system requirements. Just so you 
>know, this system came with windows 98 (and a upgrade CD to 98se). If you 
>want more information on it then just browse on over to:
>
>http://www.hp.com/cposupport/personal_computing/support_doc/bph05044.html
>
>That link takes you to a page with the specs for the system. Keep in mind 
>this system is atleast 3 years old. My bios is a Phoenix bios btw 
>(modified for this system obviously so any other Phoenix bios update that 
>didn't come from HP would probably hose the bios and the system).
>
>>Apologies if I'm way off base here.  Am new.  Will shut up and listen
>>now.
>>
>>Cheers, Pat
>
>
>heh np =P
>
>
>
>
>>-
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