SciTech Display Doctor for OS/2
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Installation and setup
----------------------
Until we get a full installer program completed, installation and setup will
be a bit of a pain and must be done with a bit of manual work. Follow the
directions below to perform the installation:
1. Unzip all the files into the c:sdd directory (make sure you use the
-d option if you are using PKZIP!).
2. Install the SciTech Display Doctor OS/2 device divers. To do this,
run the setup.cmd command file in the installation directory (should
be in the same directory as this file).
3. Edit the C:CONFIG.SYS file to make SDD the active display driver. The
following lines need to be added:
DEVICE=C:OS2SDDHELP.SYS
4. Reboot your system
Once you get to this stage, you will have the SciTech Display Doctor
device drivers installed on your system, and you can test them out with
the GATest program to ensure that they are working correctly. GATest must
be run as a fullscreen OS/2 program, and it requires the above SDDHELP.SYS
helper device driver to be loaded.
To run GATest, go into the c:sdd directory and run the installed GATest
program. This program should automatically detect your hardware and
bring up a text menu allowing you to test your graphics adapter. Select
the Interactive Test, select the color depth you will be running and
select the resolution you will be running. If you see an image on the
screen, there is a good chance this version of SDD for OS/2 will run on your
hardware ;-).
Once you have verified that SciTech Display Doctor supports your hardware,
you can go ahead and install the SciTech Display Doctor GRADD drivers. To
do this follow the directions below:
1. Restore the system to VGA mode operation if your are not running VGA
(Alt-F1 when the OS/2 message appears in top left corner of screen, F3 to
restore VGA under OS/2 Warp 4).
2. Install the SciTech Display Doctor GRADD device divers. To do this,
run the sddgradd.cmd command file in the installation directory (should
be in the same directory as this file). This will go through the
process of installing the IBM GENGRADD driver, and then copy the necessary
SciTech Display Doctor GRADD drivers over the top of the GENGRADD
installation. When it is finished the SciTech Display Doctor system
files will have been installed and GENGRADD will be the active display
driver.
3. DO NOT REBOOT YET!!!
4. Edit the C:CONFIG.SYS file to make SDD the active display driver.
You should see the something similar to the following two lines in
the file towards the end (added by the GENGRADD setup code above):
SET GRADD_CHAINS=C1
SET C1=GENGRADD,SBFILTER
change these lines to read:
SET GRADD_CHAINS=C1
SET C1=SDDGRADD
5. Reboot the system and it should boot to 640x480x256 on the SciTech
Display Doctor drivers.
6. Once the system is up and running if you go the 'System Properties'
dialog box you should be able to select all the available resolutions
and color depths (you have to shutdown for the changes to take effect).
You should also be able to go to the second page of the 'Screen'
properties tab and the listed monitor should be 'SciTech Display Doctor'
which will allow you to use all the resolutions and color depths that
our drivers support.
NOTE: Due to inherent problems in the standard OS/2 'System Properties'
display properties page, we can only allow resolutions up to
1600x1200 to be available. We are in the process of re-writing our own
version of this properties page to eliminate this problem, which
will allow for resolutions up to 2024x1536 as well as HDTV 16:9
aspect ratio display modes.
GAReport hardware report program
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This is a simple program which will load the SciTech Nucleus display driver
for your hardware, and report the graphics hardware configuration.
GATest compatibility test program
---------------------------------
This program allows you to perform compatibility testing on the Nucleus
device drivers, including testing the graphics modes, stereo modes (which
won't work under OS/2 yet unless you have hardware stereo), DPMS Power
Management and DDC communications.
One of the other useful things that this program can do is allow you to
adjust the centering and refresh rate control for all available display
modes (including text modes for OS/2 command prompts!). Use the 'Centering
and Refresh' menu item to change the refresh rate and centering values
for individual display modes, or the 'Global Refresh Rate' menu item to set
all display modes to a preferred refresh rate.
Of course the centering and refresh control will eventually be controlled
by our SciTech Display Doctor GUI control center, but that component is
still under development and not ready for testing.
NOTE: Changing the global refresh rate *also* changes the refresh rate
for VGA text modes to your preferred value. You may want to reset
the text modes back to 70Hz manually if the refresh rate controlled
text modes cause problems.
GAPerf performance profiler
---------------------------
This program allows you to run some performance profiling on the Nucleus
device drivers, which will allow you to see what sort of raw hardware
performance your graphics card posseses. Try it out, you may find the
results rather interesting...
GAMon monitor selection program
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This is a simple program to allow you to select a monitor that is attached
to your graphics card. Selecting a monitor will filter the available
display modes and refresh rates depending on the capabilities of your
attached monitor.
To select a monitor you must know the manufacturer and model name for your
monitor. To list all available manufacturers, use the following command:
gamon mfr
This will produce a rather long list, so you can narrow the list by entering
the start of the manufacturer name like and list all monitors that
manufacturer makes:
gamon model nec
which will list all 'NEC Technologies' monitors. Once you have found your
monitor, you can select it by entering the partial manufacturer name and
a partial model name like so:
gamon select nec XP21
which will select the 'NEC Technologies' 'NEC XP21' monitor.
Of course this selection program is a bit archaic at the moment, and our
SciTech Display Doctor GUI control center will allow you to select a
monitor (and adjust the properties) much more conveniently in the final
release.
Registering the the product
---------------------------
To register the software, run the included 'REGISTER.EXE' program from
an OS/2 command prompt. When prompted, enter the exact user name EXACTLY
AS SHOWN, INLCUDING CASE! Hit enter and enter the registration code,
and the product should then be registered.
Good Luck!