Author Topic: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver  (Read 10871 times)

Dave Yeo

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #15 on: May 17, 2025, 07:32:29 pm »
Testing on real hardware, it did seem more snappy. Didn't fix my issue of full screen WinOS2 sessions hanging when closed.

David McKenna

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #16 on: June 21, 2025, 02:52:19 pm »
 I just installed these drivers on a bare metal EFI system and they don't seem to work (session doesn't start). Anyone else gotten them to work on EFI?

Regards,

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #17 on: June 21, 2025, 03:19:52 pm »
Hello

Just in case the author released an updated yesterday, v0.7.2 (2025-06-20).
- https://github.com/PluMGMK/vbesvga.drv/releases

In my ArcaOS 5.1.1. VM (as VirtualBox Guest) it keeps working fine at 1920x1080.

I have pending to try it on EFI and BIOS hardware.

Regards
« Last Edit: June 21, 2025, 06:00:33 pm by Martin Iturbide »
Martin Iturbide
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Martin Iturbide

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #18 on: June 21, 2025, 03:49:39 pm »
Hello

I just tested it today in my T14s (UEFI). 
Win-OS2 runs fine with the default ifgdi2vm.drv, but the mouse clicking is choppy. I have to click two or three times to get it. I can notice the difference with Win-OS2 windowed mode.


The moment that I change:
 driver.drv=ifgdi2vm.drv
for
 driver.drv=vbesvga.drv
It hangs the desktop when I run Win-OS2 Full screen. I got to use TOP to kill the session. (I guess this is exactly what David reports)

In my case is not working with UEFI.

Regards
« Last Edit: June 21, 2025, 03:54:12 pm by Martin Iturbide »
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David McKenna

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #19 on: June 21, 2025, 09:26:09 pm »
 Thanks Martin. I don't get a hang, it just doesn't even seem to do anything.

 One thing I noticed I hadn't before - there are new WinOS2 settings for VEFI. Looks like they are probably mostly DOS oriented, but not clear...

Regards,

Roderick Klein

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #20 on: June 21, 2025, 11:04:26 pm »
Thanks Martin. I don't get a hang, it just doesn't even seem to do anything.

 One thing I noticed I hadn't before - there are new WinOS2 settings for VEFI. Looks like they are probably mostly DOS oriented, but not clear...

Regards,

These settings do not influence WIN/OS2.

Roderick

David McKenna

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #21 on: June 22, 2025, 12:05:14 am »
Hi Roderick,

  Would you have any insight into why this driver doesn't work with EFI? I would report to the developer, but don't want to just say 'It doesn't work'...

Regards,

Dave Yeo

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #22 on: June 22, 2025, 12:35:33 am »
One thing I discovered was that the X VESA driver failed on a UEFI install, to quote myself.
Code: [Select]
So out of curiosity, I tried opening a VESA xsession on a UEFI install. It failed, this seems to be the problem,
...
(EE) VESA(0): V_BIOS address 0x98000 out of range
...
On a BIOS install, it succeeds with,
...
(II) VESA(0): Primary V_BIOS segment is: 0xc000

Developer answered,

Code: [Select]
   BIOS at C000 can only be emulated in VDM. XFree86 definitely uses a
mini-VDM that lacks any functionality. "VGA BIOS" at 9xxx is an emulation
for system boot time and for panorama/gengradd.

So possibly the fact that the VGA BIOS is at a non-standard location on a UEFI install.

I also discovered that the changes that were made to SNAP broke the X VESA driver subtly, namely system hung when returning to the PM from X.
Another interesting discovery when reviewing the X source code was that X actually uses the SNAP code for its mini-VDM.

Roderick Klein

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #23 on: June 22, 2025, 01:04:37 am »
Hi Roderick,

  Would you have any insight into why this driver doesn't work with EFI? I would report to the developer, but don't want to just say 'It doesn't work'...

Regards,

I do not know. While I can understand people want to try other Windows 3.1 drivers. My first response is to no try the this VESA based Windows 3.1 driver with UEFI support.
The UEFI support indeed has a very very minimal VESA BIOS. Most of the support for this lives in VEFI.SYS.
I think you can get high resolutions with the Windows 3.1 driver from IBM.  This driver best I understand simply does not lean on the VESA BIOS.

Roderick

Roderick Klein

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #24 on: June 22, 2025, 01:07:25 am »
Oh, it works here, too!

Edit: Here is DBCS, Korean.

Are you running a UEFI boot of ArcaOS or in BIOS mode ? When WIN/OS2 did not work, what did not work ?

Thanks.

Roderick

walking_x

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #25 on: June 23, 2025, 11:39:23 am »
(EE) VESA(0): V_BIOS address 0x98000 out of range
If you can somehow patch this driver to bypass this error, you can still try.
But note that boot time VESA support cannot change the mode, so you will have to use the PM resolution.

It`s designed to run Panorama or GenGradd and only contains a small subset of VESA functions, since you can`t even clear the screen in mini-VDM.

Full VESA support is only implemented in VEFI.SYS, for regular VDMs, but WinOS/2 has a lot of its own special support, so who knows how and why it will react to a "regular" VESA driver.