Author Topic: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver  (Read 19558 times)

Doug Clark

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #30 on: August 16, 2025, 05:29:26 am »
Martin,

I tried the vbesvga.drv driver on a bare metal machine booting CSM (BIOS).  It works in Win-OS/2 full screen and DOS full screen; the mouse pointer seems slightly less jumpy than when running "normal" Win-OS/2 full screen session.  Neither the VBESVGA.DRV nor the "normal" driver will run seamless Win-OS/2 or seamless DOS sessions.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #31 on: August 16, 2025, 09:25:09 pm »
Hi Doug

It is good that you see at least the mouse improvement in Win-OS/2 full screen session. I don't know if this improves something on the DOS VDM, I don't think so, but I may be wrong.

By any chance did you tried the vio-1.0.wpi patch and try if it works for your windowed sessions?
- https://mantis.arcanoae.com/view.php?id=1193
Does this patch applies today with ArcaOS 5.1.1 ?

Just in case, I have some personal notes and links here:
- https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php?title=DOS_and/or_WIN-OS/2_Sessions_Problems_on_ArcaOS

There is also this from Arca Noae:
Quote
If you have a need for DOS and/or Win-OS/2 sessions you will need to install ArcaOS in UEFI mode so that the installer will install a compatible VESA emulator. You could disable the CSM (legacy support) in the BIOS settings, or just make sure the system boots the installer in UEFI mode.
Source: https://www.arcanoae.com/wiki/arcaos/known-issues/#doswin

Regards
« Last Edit: August 16, 2025, 09:33:07 pm by Martin Iturbide »
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Roderick Klein

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #32 on: August 16, 2025, 11:45:50 pm »
Hi Doug

It is good that you see at least the mouse improvement in Win-OS/2 full screen session. I don't know if this improves something on the DOS VDM, I don't think so, but I may be wrong.

By any chance did you tried the vio-1.0.wpi patch and try if it works for your windowed sessions?
- https://mantis.arcanoae.com/view.php?id=1193
Does this patch applies today with ArcaOS 5.1.1 ?

Just in case, I have some personal notes and links here:
- https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php?title=DOS_and/or_WIN-OS/2_Sessions_Problems_on_ArcaOS

There is also this from Arca Noae:
Quote
If you have a need for DOS and/or Win-OS/2 sessions you will need to install ArcaOS in UEFI mode so that the installer will install a compatible VESA emulator. You could disable the CSM (legacy support) in the BIOS settings, or just make sure the system boots the installer in UEFI mode.
Source: https://www.arcanoae.com/wiki/arcaos/known-issues/#doswin

Regards

That VIO patch is only for an extremely small subset of Thinkpad systems and in genereal should not be installed on any other systems.

Roderick

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #33 on: September 18, 2025, 12:12:23 am »
Hello

A new release of this driver was released 0.9.2:

- https://github.com/PluMGMK/vbesvga.drv/releases/download/v0.9.2/vbesvga-release.zip

I tested this on my ArcaOS 5.1.1 (BIOS) VM and Win-OS2 runs better. Mouse is less sloppy and I can access the bottom half of the screen, just like the older versions.

Here it is what is says:
Quote
This release finally allows the use of linear modes and double buffering in Standard Mode when using a memory manager such as EMM386! Not only that, loading this driver with a linear mode also fixes any other drivers you may load (e.g. the HD Audio driver) that suffered from the same limitation!

This release also fixes SeaBIOS detection being broken in release builds, which would have resulted in, e.g., text not being written correctly in windowed DOS prompts on Win98 under QEMU.


Regards
Martin Iturbide
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