DOS driver
This is a fully featured driver for DJGPP and allegro. It supports
many VGA modes, VESA 1.0--3.0, VBE/AF, S3 and some other cards.
The following problems may occur:
- Some DPMI servers may cause problems
- Some DPMI servers like the one from Novell/Dr/Open DOS are
buggy. Use clean DOS instead and XaoS will automatically start
cwsdpmi. Under Open Dr DOS use dpmi off
at command line to disable it.
- Higher resolutions don't work
- If your videocard has enough memory for the selected
resolution, you most probably have an unsupported videocard. Please
use a VESA BIOS extension on this videocard. (See the note about
VESA at the end of this section.)
- XaoS needs a coprocessor
- I don't distribute a coprocessor library linked into XaoS
because it is too slow for a real-time zoomer. Coprocessor
emulation will not help, because xaos works in protected mode.
- XaoS needs mouse driver to be usable
- XaoS works slowly in higher resolution
- This could also be caused by Allegro's slow driver or your
videocard's VESA BIOS. You could try some other VESA BIOS extension
instead. Look at the
http://www.talula.demon.co.uk for
the FreeBE project or Scitech Display Doctor package. (See the note
about VESA at the end of this section.)
VESA
VESA is a standard for using higher resolutions in DOS. Many
videocards have VESA support in the BIOS so you don't need any
additional software, while others need support from a special
program. Also some VESA BIOS implementations are buggy or
suboptimal; there are 3 different versions, version 1.0 is many
times slower than 2.0, which has support for protected mode and
linear framebuffers. So if you have problems with higher
resolutions, or some graphics modes are not available (like 320x200
truecolor), you might try some software package which emulates
VESA.
The most famous VESA emulating program is Scitech Display
Doctor. It has support for many videocards and is quite reliable.
It's disadvantage is that it is shareware and works for only 30
days. You might also look on ftp.simtel.net, where
there are many VESA emulation packages such as s3vbe
or the new FreeBe project at
http://www.talula.demon.co.uk
DOS driver was written by Jan Hubicka, 1997.