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VIDEO HELP
For problems with your video
monitor
You can run New Deal 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.
Changing your video setup
Once you are running your New Deal software,
you can change your video selection in Preferences. Or you can
change it directly from DOS by typing setup at the DOS prompt
in the directory where you installed New Deal. 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. New Deal does not
support this video adapter in color. Your only options
are to run the software in CGA monochrome or purchase an EGA 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, New Deal 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 New Deal 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 driver. 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.
Owners of older versions of the software can download a Test VESA driver
that supports resolutions up to 1024x768 at 256 colors from our
ftp site.
The test driver requires a fully compatible VESA video adapter
and may not work at all resolutions with all brands of video
adapters. On some computers, you can expand compatibility by
loading the VESA utility that came with your video adapter.
Additional video drivers that support even higher resolutions
are available in the newest versions of New Deal software.
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.
The solution is to load the DOS drivers for the video card, even if you
use Window 95.
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 New Deal. The driver is included on
the disks that come with the video board.
Screen blankers
New Deal 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 New Deal.
We have included our own screen savers with this program. To select
a screen saver, run Preferences and click on the Lights Out button.
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 New Deal
logo and nothing else, you're probably having video trouble.
New Deal 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. If there is no [screen 0]
section in your GEOS.INI, add the appropriate one to the end of
your GEOS.INI file from this list.
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 New Deal software is up and running, you
can launch Preferences and use the video module to change your
video display type.
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