Problem with SNAP resulution

[Martin Vieregg]

I have installed ArcaOS 5.0.6 on a old Computer from 2009 where an ecs 2.0 silver release has been installed before. An ATI X300 graphics card is installed where a 1920x1200 16M resultion works fine.

I cannot switch in the "Screen" object to 1920x1200 resultion. I can click to it, but after rebooting, I always get a 1600x1200 resolution.

I have compared the settings with the old SNAP version from 2006 with eCS 2.0. The monitor is recognized, in both cases DPMS is on, GTF is off. In the old SNAP, there are checkboxes "Wide Resolution" on and "4 x 3" res on which are no more existant in the newer SNAP.

Any ideas?

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

Hi Martin,

In the \os2\drivers\snap\config\graphics directory there is a file 'graphics.log', that will have a log of SNAP initializing and figuring out what modes are available.

I'd start with that, if you want grab it and post it here we can work through it's contents. Take a look at what's included in mine (attached to this post).

Beyond this, whenever I've seen this type of a situation it almost always has been caused by a monitor EDID that SNAP interpreted as something that did not support a particular resolution you selected. The weird thing is that you actually do see that resolution shown but upon re-boot it does not become the active resolution. I would hope the graphics.log file will tell us a bit more about that.

One thing you could try is to turn OFF the DDC detection logic, you can do so by including the following in your CONFIG.SYS:

SET VCFG_NO_DDC=TRUE

That is supposed to force SNAP to using the resolution and settings you specified as opposed to checking the monitor capabilities at boot time.

[Martin Vieregg]

SET VCFG_NO_DDC is already set to true.

Here is my graphics.log file.

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

SET VCFG_NO_DDC is already set to true.

Hmm...but yet you still show the following in the LOG:

Disable DDC detection.... Off

Code: [Select]

Global options for all devices:
  Force VBE Fallback ...... Off
  Force VGA Fallback ...... Off
  Allow non-certified ..... On
  Disable write combining . Off
  Use BIOS for LCD panel... Auto
  Shared AGP memory size... 4096 KB
  Use system memory driver. Off
  Disable DDC detection.... Off
  Virtual Display.......... Off

So I'm thinking this is NOT actually getting shut OFF?

Are you running in a single screen, or dual screen configuration?

Any chance you are limitting the amount of video memory available to the drivers? I limit mine to 24M to minimize the impact on remaining hardware. I did not see anything in your LOG file to indicate this though.

[Pete]

Hi Martin

I guess there have been some changes in the SNAP code as the version/build of SNAP supplied with ArcaOS v5.0.0 has the checkboxes "Wide Resolution" and "4 x 3".

I suggest you file a ticket.


Regards

Pete

[Martin Vieregg]

The ATI X300 graphics card has its own 128 MB memory.

Does ist make sense to switch to an older SNAP version? Can I simply replace the \os2\drivers\snap directory? (running another installation, of course)

I have added my comment to an existing ticket, it has been reported some days ago:
https://mantis.arcanoae.com/view.php?id=3020

[Martin Vieregg]

I have replaced the c:\snap and the c:\os2\drivers\snap directories by the content of the eCS 2.0 installation. No effect. Even the "Wide Screen" checkbox is still not available.

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

Hi Martin,

On the 'Screen' tab of the 'Screen' object, what happens when you press the 'Advanced' button?

It should work and should open up the txt version of the SNAP config controls. If it works, select '8 - VESA DDC Display Channel...' setting and pull up the EDID for your screen.

When you do this two things should happen:
1) a HEX dump of the EDID date is shown first
2) a SNAP interpretation of the EDID record shows next, this amongst many things should show you the max resolution supported by the display

Also, back in the menu menu of the text control selecting '0 - Interactive Tests' will allow you to select the display resolution you want to test...I'm curious if 1920x1200 shows up there?

[Doug Bissett]

I have replaced the c:\snap and the c:\os2\drivers\snap directories by the content of the eCS 2.0 installation. No effect. Even the "Wide Screen" checkbox is still not available.

This is no surprise. From what I have heard, AN bought the driver, but they have done absolutely NOTHING with it, other than change the branding to Arca Noae, and verify that they can build it. Eventually, they will find the time to back port some of the Panorama stuff into it, but it is unlikely that they will do much else with it.

In other words, if it worked in eCS, it should still work the same way with ArcaOS.

There is the GAMON program (I think that is the one), that will add new resolutions. READ the docs, but it sounds like you already did that.

You may also find this page to be useful: https://www.arcanoae.com/wiki/snap/

[Andreas Schnellbacher]

AN bought the driver, but they have done absolutely NOTHING with it, other than change the branding to Arca Noae

That seems to be almost true:

Code: [Select]

From README2.TXT:

Summary of changes 5.0.5
- Updated SNAP
- (Updater) Fixed error copying SNAP text file

Summary of changes 5.0.3
- Rebuilt and refreshed SNAP to pickup any recent changes


[Dariusz Piatkowski]

...This is no surprise. From what I have heard, AN bought the driver, but they have done absolutely NOTHING with it, other than change the branding to Arca Noae, and verify that they can build it...

Well, the claim is that AOS did close out some of the SMP bugs in SNAP drivers, I for one will tell you that running the latest AOS drivers vs the last official SNAP release finally allows me to get past the occasional WPS blue-screen halt.

Having said that, there are various perhformance degradations that occur with the AOS release, but at least for me here the benefit of a guaranteed WPS boot outweights any other sacrifices.

I will say the following though: I wish that AOS would at the very least release the matching SDK for their SNAP drivers. There is so much more than could actually be done with the SNAP APIs that it floor me we haven't gone down that route.

Case in point, my XT850 XT PE hardware is limitted to the general driver speed limitations of both core and memory speed of 400 MHz, meanwhile, the XT PE config (which was the top-of-the-line setup of the XT850 release) is a 540/500 MHz rated hardware.

I had actualy originally modified the last SNAP SDK sample program to enable that adjustment, sadly having moved to the AOS releases now prevents the old changes from working due to driver release level incompatibilities.

[Doug Clark]

AN bought the driver, but they have done absolutely NOTHING with it, other than change the branding to Arca Noae

As Dariusz points out AN did "something" to it because the AOS version of SNAP runs on a multicore machine with all CPUs enabled without hangs where the SciTech version does not.  For me it was not only the startup of the WPS but I would also experience hangs during operation, sometimes an hour or two after booting up.  AOS version does not have those problems.

Martin - it seems strange that you are missing the check boxes for wide screen and 4x3 resolution.  I am running AOS and SNAP and those check boxes appear on the second of the SNAP pages in the Screen object on my system.   That would seem to indicate there is something messed up with the install.

Dariusz also pointed out he limits his memory usage for SNAP to 24 MB "for other hardware."  While I don't think this is affecting your screen resolution issue, once you get that working you probably should limit the memory SNAP uses.  Apparently SNAP allocates main memory based on how much is on your card, and that eats up virtual memory that might otherwise be available for vBox and other applications that are very memory hungry.  So you probably want to limit the amount of memory SNAP uses. There is a discussion about this on another thread - try searching for memory and SNAP

[Pete]

Hi All

If the \os2\sdd*.dll files are SNAP related, which I think they are, then there has been some code changes between the builds released with ArcaOS 5.0.4 and 5.0.5 which may account for the missing "Wide Resolution" and "4 x 3" checkboxes in 5.0.5 and 5.0.6

I have 5.0.4 (which has the above checkboxes) installed on H:

[H:\OS2\DLL]dir sddvc*.dll

 3-06-18 12:57p        68,143      0 a---  sddvcfg.dll
 3-06-18 12:57p        40,991      0 a---  sddvcmri.dll


5.0.5 (above checkboxes missing) is installed on L:

[L:\os2\dll]dir sddvc*.dll

14-09-19  7:46p        67,727      0 a---  sddvcfg.dll
14-09-19  7:46p        40,799      0 a---  sddvcmri.dll


Thought I'd have a look at the url provided in Marttins post https://mantis.arcanoae.com/view.php?id=3020 but that just gives me an almost blank page with the text "Access Denied" and a link [Proceed] which takes me to the bug tracker home page. Searching for issue 3020 results in the previous "Access Denied" page loading. Guess that bug has gone private?


Regards

Pete

[Pete]

Hi All

I can confirm that the missing checkboxes are the result of the coding changes between the 2 sets of dll files mentioned in previous post - I simply copied the 2 dll files from my 5.0.4 installation to my 5.0.5 installation while booted into 5.0.4 and then rebooted into 5.0.5.

The "missing checkboxes" are back!


Regards

Pete

[Dave Yeo]

Issue #3020 is not really relevant to this discussion, someone was trying to use SNAP in a virtual environment.