Seeking a vid adapter mode
(Resending this as it seems not to have gone out to the Fractint list.) I'm running Fractint on a borrowed computer for a few months, and all I can get is 480x640 pixels of screen. Anyone out there have the video adapter mode for an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 card, resolution 768x1024 or higher, to insert into Fractint.cfg? Thanks, Anthony Hanmer
Tony,
I'm running Fractint on a borrowed computer for a few months, and all I can get is 480x640 pixels of screen. Anyone out there have the video adapter mode for an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 card, resolution 768x1024 or higher, to insert into Fractint.cfg?
Try running the makefcfg.exe file that comes with the version 20.0 release of Fractint. Jonathan
Jonathan, I'd never tried makecfg.exe before, so I ran it now and got the new fractint.cfg file, thanks. Even so, having updated my sstools.iniaccordingly and then tried to manually select another screen size using Delete from Fractint, no go above 480x640 pixels. I also made my Windows screen size larger, all the way to 1024x1280, but that also didn't help, even after a restart. Tony On 3/22/06, Jonathan Osuch <osuchj@avalon.net> wrote:
Tony,
I'm running Fractint on a borrowed computer for a few months, and all I can get is 480x640 pixels of screen. Anyone out there have the video adapter mode for an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 card, resolution 768x1024 or higher, to insert into Fractint.cfg?
Try running the makefcfg.exe file that comes with the version 20.0 release of Fractint.
Jonathan
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Tony,
I'd never tried makecfg.exe before, so I ran it now and got the new fractint.cfg file, thanks. Even so, having updated my sstools.ini accordingly and then tried to manually select another screen size using Delete from Fractint, no go above 480x640 pixels. I also made my Windows screen size larger, all the way to 1024x1280, but that also didn't help, even after a restart.
Which version of Windows are you using? The NT/2000/XP variations are, for the most part, reluctant to relenquish control of the video card at the level that Fractint needs. That said, I have an ATI card that runs Fractint fine at 1024x768 under XP (except after hibernating). And, I have two Intel video cards that won't run Fractint above 320x200, also under XP. Jonathan
I have tried to run makecfg.exe and it does two things depending on where and how I open the file. If I open it at the DOS prompt I get "Bad Command or File Name". If I open it in the DOS shell I get " Load Error: No DPMI - Get csdmpi*b.zip. This has been for as long as I can recall, but at least from Fractint v14.x to date. What the heck does it mean? And where can I get csdpmi*b.zip? I have been using an old DOS editor to go in and add or change a line, and then saving. Seems to work ok. Thx, David M Fisher ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jonathan Osuch" <osuchj@avalon.net> To: "Fractint and General Fractals Discussion" <fractint@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: 22 March, 2006 21:08 Subject: Re: [Fractint] Seeking a vid adapter mode
Tony,
I'd never tried makecfg.exe before, so I ran it now and got the new fractint.cfg file, thanks. Even so, having updated my sstools.ini accordingly and then tried to manually select another screen size using Delete from Fractint, no go above 480x640 pixels. I also made my Windows screen size larger, all the way to 1024x1280, but that also didn't help, even after a restart.
Which version of Windows are you using? The NT/2000/XP variations are, for the most part, reluctant to relenquish control of the video card at the level that Fractint needs. That said, I have an ATI card that runs Fractint fine at 1024x768 under XP (except after hibernating). And, I have two Intel video cards that won't run Fractint above 320x200, also under XP.
Jonathan
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David Fisher wrote:
If I open it at the DOS prompt I get "Bad Command or File Name". If I open it in the DOS shell I get "Load Error: No DPMI - Get csdmpi*b.zip" .
If you use MS-DOS outside of Windows, you may encounter the following error message: No DPMI - Get csdpmi*b.zip "DPMI" stands for DOS Protected Mode Interface; it's basically a means of running DOS in Protected Mode (as opposed to Real Mode), which allows programs to share resources in extended memory without conflicting with one another. Running HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE is not enough. The "CSDPMI*B.ZIP" refers to files written by Charles Sandmann to provide DPMI services for 32-bit computers (i.e., 386SX, 386DX, 486SX, etc.). Download the binary file (the source code is also available): binaries http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/dl/ofc/simtel/v2misc/csdpmi5b.zip ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2misc/csdpmi5b.zip source http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/dl/ofc/simtel/v2misc/csdpmi5s.zip ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2misc/csdpmi5s.zip and extract CWSDPMI.EXE, CWSDPR0.EXE and CWSPARAM.EXE from the ZIP file. Put all 3 CWS*.EXE files in the same directory and you're all set. If you're running Windows and you normally use a DOS session (i.e., you get to a DOS prompt with a resizable window or you press Alt-Enter to switch to full-screen mode), you don't need the CWS*.EXE files at all, since Windows uses DPMI already. Sincerely, P.N.L. ------------------------------------------------- http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/PNL_Fractals.html http://www.Nahee.com/Fractals/
One approach would be to set up a freedos boot floppy and then make a bootable CD that boots to freedos and has fractint on it- see www.ultimatebootcd.com. Of course you'd still need a local FAT32 partition to save your work. Newer PCs can boot usb flash drives. Imagine a 1 gb usb flash drive that boots to freedos and has fractint. Then you could save the fractals to the flash drive. Investigating these sorts of things could be done by any technically savvy person, doesn't require any Fractint programming skills. I'm sure the bootcd approach is possible. The flash drive idea is more bleeding edge. I know some computers can boot Linux from a thumb drive, not sure about DOS. All of the above solutions would require freedos to be legal, but it probably wouldn't be too hard to publish a kit that someone with DOS could use to make threir own CD. The old fashioned approach would be to make a DOS floppy with the appropriate extended/expanded memory drivers, and make a FAT32 partition with fractint. See www.bootdisk.com. Tim
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jonathan Osuch" <osuchj@avalon.net> To: "Fractint and General Fractals Discussion" <fractint@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: 22 March, 2006 22:08 Subject: Re: [Fractint] Seeking a vid adapter mode
Tony,
I'd never tried makecfg.exe before, so I ran it now and got the new fractint.cfg file, thanks. Even so, having updated my sstools.ini accordingly and then tried to manually select another screen size using Delete from Fractint, no go above 480x640 pixels. I also made my Windows screen size larger, all the way to 1024x1280, but that also didn't help, even after a restart.
Which version of Windows are you using? The NT/2000/XP variations are, for the most part, reluctant to relenquish control of the video card at the level that Fractint needs. That said, I have an ATI card that runs Fractint fine at 1024x768 under XP (except after hibernating). And, I have two Intel video cards that won't run Fractint above 320x200, also under XP.
Jonathan
******************************************* Jonathan, Been doing some reasearch, and asking questions to anyone who will listen, and the following is very interesting. http://www.vmware.com/products/server. I think some of this stuff might be the answer to the problems with fractint in windows. The virtual machines( I am told) fully supports DOS under windows and reacts with the hardware installed, which should solve the video resolution problems. Hope this helps
David M Fisher
sunfish@intercom.net_______________________________________________ Fractint mailing list Fractint@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fractint
David,
Been doing some reasearch, and asking questions to anyone who will listen, and the following is very interesting. http://www.vmware.com/products/server. I think some of this stuff might be the answer to the problems with fractint in windows. The virtual machines( I am told) fully supports DOS under windows and reacts with the hardware installed, which should solve the video resolution problems. Hope this helps
I downloaded an evaluation copy of vmware about a week ago. It's a very nice looking package. If I were starting from scratch, I would have no trouble justifying the expense. However, I am now using a dual boot system that vmware doesn't play with. It probably has to do with the Linux partitions (and hence the grub (boot loader) information) using the reiser file system. This is a problem with trying to make vmware use a physical partition instead of a virtual partition. The virtual machine is simulating a video adapter, not directly allowing you to use the one in your machine. So, this could potentially cause problems also. Jonathan
Tony wrote:
Even so, having updated my sstools.ini accordingly and then tried to manually select another screen size using Delete from Fractint, no go above 480x640 pixels. I also made my Windows screen size larger, all the way to 1024x1280, but that also didn't help, even after a restart.
It would be informative to know if you can access higher video modes if you booted from DOS. I realize it might take some effort to make that happen :-) Tim
I'm using XP on this machine; will have to try booting from DOS and see what's available. Thanks all. Anthony It would be informative to know if you can access higher video modes if you booted from DOS. I realize it might take some effort to make that happen :-) Tim _______________________________________________ Fractint mailing list Fractint@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fractint
It won't work if you use either the FAT-32 or NTFS file systems. DOS can't see them at all. T H A N K Y O U James R. McKenzie jimmckenzie@earthlink.net ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony Hanmer To: Fractint and General Fractals Discussion Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 10:07 AM Subject: Re: [Fractint] Seeking a vid adapter mode I'm using XP on this machine; will have to try booting from DOS and see what's available. Thanks all. Anthony It would be informative to know if you can access higher video modes if you booted from DOS. I realize it might take some effort to make that happen :-) Tim _______________________________________________ Fractint mailing list Fractint@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fractint ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Fractint mailing list Fractint@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fractint
Thanks all, I guess I'll just live with what I've got - not at a critical stage of Fractint work at the moment - and wait until I get back home to my own system in the Republic of Georgia. Anthony
jimmckenzie wrote:
It won't work if you use either the FAT-32 or NTFS file systems. DOS can't see them at all.
There should be no problems with FAT32. I boot to DOS with this all the time. But the NTFS is another matter. Sincerely, P.N.L. ------------------------------------------------- http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/PNL_Fractals.html http://www.Nahee.com/Fractals/
You can use this to read NTFS from DOS: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/NtfsDos.html This seems to mention something that you can use to read FAT32 from DOS: http://www.freedos.org/freedos/news/technote/146.html I think I still have a set of DR-DOS 7.03 disks around here, I wonder if they can read FAT32? Of course, every Linux distro around can read FAT32, and most can read NTFS, and some can read and write NTFS. It's only the usual MS FUD trying to make people think you need to use Windows to read FAT32 or NTFS. If you have an old Windows98 boot floppy around, you can boot from that and use it to read FAT32 drives. After all, Windows98 was just DOS with a fancier GUI pasted on top of it ... jimmckenzie wrote:
It won't work if you use either the FAT-32 or NTFS file systems. DOS can't see them at all.
T H A N K Y O U
James R. McKenzie
----- Original Message ----- *From:* Tony Hanmer <mailto:a.hanmer@gmail.com>
I'm using XP on this machine; will have to try booting from DOS and see what's available.
Thanks all.
Anthony
It would be informative to know if you can access higher video modes if you booted from DOS. I realize it might take some effort to make that happen :-)
Tim
-- David gnome@hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community
david wrote:
If you have an old Windows98 boot floppy around, you can boot from that and use it to read FAT32 drives.
Such as this: http://www.Nahee.com/Software/Win98-SE_Boot.zip P.N.L. ------------------------------------------------- http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/PNL_Fractals.html http://www.Nahee.com/Fractals/
A long while ago, in the ancient days, my employer thoughtfully provided us all with IBM PS/2 machines and the then-standard Windows 3.1. The best Windows could do on that particular PS/2 model was 640x480x256 colors. One day, I put Fractint on it and booted it to DOS - where Fractint happily ran a 1600x1200x256 color display for me. While it's convenient to have OSes offer drivers for hardware, it can also be limiting sometimes ... Tony Hanmer wrote:
I'm using XP on this machine; will have to try booting from DOS and see what's available.
-- David gnome@hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community
Tony Hanmer wrote:
(Resending this as it seems not to have gone out to the Fractint list.)
I'm running Fractint on a borrowed computer for a few months, and all I can get is 480x640 pixels of screen. Anyone out there have the video adapter mode for an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 card, resolution 768x1024 or higher, to insert into Fractint.cfg?
IIRC, there's a little DOS utility program running around, either as part of the Fractint download or available at the Fractint website, that can probe and return the list of VESA modes that a display adapter supports ... I think you then have to put it into your Fractint.cfg file. -- David gnome@hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community
david wrote:
IIRC, there's a little DOS utility program running around, either as part of the Fractint download or available at the Fractint website, that can probe and return the list of VESA modes that a display adapter supports ...
Try here if you can not find it elsewhere: http://www.nahee.com/Software/vesa2cfg.zip Sincerely, P.N.L. ------------------------------------------------- http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/PNL_Fractals.html http://www.Nahee.com/Fractals/
I've been reading this thread with considerable interest, since I haven't been able to run Fractint at more than 640X480 resolution for a few years, since upgrading to higher end video cards, and not being able to find appropriate VESA drivers for them. I've resorted to using Ultra Fractal to get decent images, but really prefer Fractint. I'm currently running Windows XP, NTFS hard drive formatting, and an ATI Radeon 9200SE-DT video card. After seeing mention of the makecfg. program, I found it in my download of Fractint (actually fradev 20.4, I think) , unzipped it in XP, and, while trying to figure out how to bring up a DOS window to run it, I clicked (still in XP) on the makecfg.exe file. A DOS window flashed on the screen for about 300 milliseconds and disappeared. Since something appeared to have happened, I tried running Fractint, and magically, I could select any of the VESA modes up to 1280X1024! Hi-res Fractint was back! So, in my case at least, Win XP and NTFS were apparently not a problem. I'm going to try the fix on a couple other computers I have access to, hopefully it will work as well on them. Thanks to all discussing this subject for providing info that let me get my Fractint back! :-) Bruce Sanborn ----- Original Message ----- From: "david" <gnome@hawaii.rr.com> To: "Fractint and General Fractals Discussion" <fractint@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 4:10 AM Subject: Re: [Fractint] Seeking a vid adapter mode
Tony Hanmer wrote:
(Resending this as it seems not to have gone out to the Fractint list.) I'm running Fractint on a borrowed computer for a few months, and all I can get is 480x640 pixels of screen. Anyone out there have the video adapter mode for an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 card, resolution 768x1024 or higher, to insert into Fractint.cfg?
IIRC, there's a little DOS utility program running around, either as part of the Fractint download or available at the Fractint website, that can probe and return the list of VESA modes that a display adapter supports ... I think you then have to put it into your Fractint.cfg file.
-- David gnome@hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community
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When you run a DOS program under Windows, the disk's file system doesn't matter at all. Windows gives the DOS app a DOS-friendly equivalent for path and filenames. Although you may run into DOS's limitation on the number of directory levels it can handle. Glad you have Fractint back at full power! Bruce Sanborn wrote:
So, in my case at least, Win XP and NTFS were apparently not a problem. I'm going to try the fix on a couple other computers I have access to, hopefully it will work as well on them.
-- David gnome@hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community
participants (8)
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Bruce Sanborn -
david -
David Fisher -
jimmckenzie -
Jonathan Osuch -
Paul N. Lee -
Tim Wegner -
Tony Hanmer