235 - Video Support

NewDeal Technical Support Document 235

VIDEO SUPPORT

All about using your video board and monitor with NewDeal software

You can run NewDeal software on a system with Hercules, CGA, EGA, MCGA, VGA, or selected Super VGA graphics capabilities. The Setup utility will ordinarily select the highest mode it thinks your hardware can handle, unless you have Super VGA. If you have Super VGA, Setup will select regular VGA mode and you will have to manually select the appropriate Super VGA mode. When you first install NewDeal, we recommend accepting the default standard VGA mode, and then trying the higher resolutions later from Preferences, Video after NewDeal is up and running.

Changing your video setup

Once you are running your NewDeal software, you can change your video selection in Preferences, Video. Or you can change it directly from DOS by typing SETUP at the DOS prompt in the directory where you installed NewDeal. This will take you through the entire setup procedure. Press F10 to get to the list of available video drivers.

Original IBM EGA video cards

Some of the very first EGA cards that came with the IBM PC had only 64K of video memory. NewDeal does not support this video adapter in color. Your only options are to run the software in CGA monochrome or purchase a video card with at least 256K of video memory.

Color Monitors that only show black and white

If you're using a CGA or MCGA-type video adapter, NewDeal will appear only in black and white. Both CGA and MCGA offer monochrome resolution of 640x200 lines and 640x480 respectively, but in color their resolutions both drop to 320x200 lines, too low for NewDeal color graphics.

Super VGA Monitors that only work in normal VGA

VESA super VGA is the closest thing to a super VGA standard. If you're not sure what kind of super VGA adapter you have, try the VESA-compatible super VGA drivers. If none of the VESA drivers seem to work, the video board itself may not be prepared to utilize super VGA mode. You may be able to fix this by running the setup program that came with your video board. If even then super VGA mode doesn't work, you may need to use standard VGA at 640x480.

Matrox Mystique

In VESA compatible mode, the Matrox Mystique card uses a random frequency setting (50 Hz or below). Although it creates a nice visual effect, it is counter-productive. One solution is to load the DOS drivers for the video card, even if you use Windows 95 or 98. Select the monitor to function under DOS mode then add these lines to your NEWDEAL.BAT file, before the line that runs LOADER.

SET MGA=c:\tools\mga\setup\ c:\tools\mga\setup\vbetsr c:\tools\mga\setup\vbsetup

Orchid Pro IIs

If you're having problems using the Orchid Pro IIs, locate the ORCHDVSA.COM driver, copy it to your hard drive, and run it before you launch NewDeal. The driver is included on the disks that come with the video board.

Screen blankers

NewDeal is not compatible with most screen blankers. Once they blank the screen, you'll probably have to restart your computer before you can use it again. Disable all screen blanking software before you run NewDeal. We have included our own screen savers with this program. To select a screen saver, run Preferences and click on the Lights Out button.

Vertical Line Next To Each Character

If you notice a colored vertical line to the right of each character, and a trail of vertical lines that follow the mouse, it may be the symptom of a broken video board. Until you replace the video board, you may be able to run NewDeal using the monochrome VGA driver or the CGA driver.

Video problems or "Error in script line 244"

If you see the message "Error in script Line 244," or if your video display is distorted, or if you see the NewDeal logo and nothing else, you're probably having video trouble.

NewDeal software provides several LOADER.EXE files - one for each supported video device:

LOADERHG.EXE for Hercules
LOADERMC.EXE for mcga
LOADERCG.EXE for cga
LOADEREG.EXE for ega
LOADERVG.EXE for vga

During installation, the installer program renames the correct file for your video type to LOADER.EXE. For example, if you have a VGA monitor, LOADERVG.EXE would be renamed to LOADER.EXE.

On rare occasion, the installer program cannot rename the file and there is an error message such as "Error in script line 244 - error renaming file." If this happens, follow these steps:

Use the Installation Tools option of the install program to install the correct loaderxx.exe file for your video card per the above list.

Rename the file to LOADER.EXE by going to the DOS prompt in the NEWDEAL directory and entering:
REN LOADERVG.EXE LOADER.EXE
Substitute the correct LOADERxx.EXE in the place of LOADERVG.EXE if you are using a different video mode.

Check to make sure the GEOS.INI file has the correct driver lines in the [screen 0] section.
The driver lines for VGA will look like this:
[screen 0] device = VGA 640x480 16 color driver = Standard VGA Driver
For a Hercules-compatible adapter, use:
[screen 0] device = Hercules HGC Compatible: 720 x 348 Mono driver = Hercules Monochrome Driver
For an EGA-compatible adapter, use:
[screen 0] device = EGA: 640x350 16color driver = EGA Driver
For a CGA-compatible adapter, use:
[screen 0] device = CGA: Compatible: 640x200 Mono driver = CGA Driver
For an IBM-MCGA adapter, use:
[screen 0] device = IBM MCGA: 640x480 Mono driver = MCGA Driver

Once your NewDeal software is up and running, you can launch Preferences and use the video module to change your video display type.

Windows 95 or 98 and NewDeal video

On some computers, if you run NewDeal from Windows, you may experience video-related issues ranging from the inability to use certain video modes in NewDeal, to screen artifacts or corruption when taskswitching between NewDeal and Windows or when exiting NewDeal and returning to Windows, to crashes or memory errors in NewDeal.

These kinds of problems are rare, but when they happen, they are most often due to proprietary Windows video drivers which do not provide standard support at the DOS level. Here are a couple approaches which have resolved these issues for some of our customers.

If you experience difficulties running NewDeal from Windows, especially when taskswitching between NewDeal and Windows, try the standard VGA 640x480 16-color driver in NewDeal. This video mode is the most compatible with all Windows drivers and all video boards.
In Windows, My Computer, Control Panel, System, Performance tab, Graphics button, try moving the slider to None for Hardware Acceleration. If this solves the problem, try moving it back toward Full, one step at a time (you must reboot between each move). If the problem returns, move it back down one level and leave it there.
Check with the manufacturer of your video board to see if a newer Windows driver is available. Most video board manufacturers have web sites where you can download the latest drivers. Most often the newest driver will work better than the older ones.

Back to Index

Last Modified 16 Feb 1999