Date:	Tue, 25 May 93 10:32:46 CST
From:	(csaba AT vuse DOT vanderbilt DOT edu) <csaba AT vuse DOT vanderbilt DOT edu>
To:	js AT iras1 DOT TN DOT CORNELL DOT EDU
Cc:	djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject:	Re:

On Mon, 24 May 93 17:51:52 EDT,
  Justin Schoenwald writes:

>Is there a driver(s) available for the ATI Ultra and 
>(localbus) Ultra Pro cards that work with libgr?
>
>atiultra.grn supplied w/ libgrx doesn't work, 
>but that may be due to the Gateway 2000 66V (2DX, 66MHz),
>since I have another problem, also.


ATIULTRA.GRN was written for the original ATI ULTRA. That card had a VESA 
BIOS, but it controlled only the SVGA part of the card. There was no 
(documented) way to set up accelerated modes using the BIOS. For this 
reason the ATIULTRA.GRN driver writes directly to the accelerator part's
(IBM 8514/A compatible) registers to set up the accelerated modes. On later 
revisions of the card this may not work. 

Since I haven't used anything from ATI newer than the original Ultra, I 
cannot tell you how to write a driver for your card. My suggestion is to 
check your manual and run the VESAINFO program coming with GRX to check 
whether the newer ATI BIOS-es support the accelerated modes directly. If 
so, you can use the stealth driver's sources as a starting point, because 
for an accelerated card fully supported by its VESA BIOS that is the 
closest existing driver. You may have to change some BIOS mode numbers, and 
the chip type reported by the driver, but hopefully that's all.

Finally, if you come up with something useful, you can always contribute 
your driver sources [8-)].

Csaba Biegl
csaba AT vuse DOT vanderbilt DOT edu

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