OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical > Hardware
SNAP Driver Source
Roderick Klein:
--- Quote from: Eugene Gorbunoff on August 14, 2025, 09:26:24 am ---To Andi B.
What is the current status of widescreen activation? => custom videomodes
* it's necessary use ati amd radeon ?
* nvidia allows use custom modes?
* Intel video cards - custom modes?
--- End quote ---
In a lot of cases the wide screen activators on modern systems no longer work (UEFI).
Panorama has the code for ATI and Intel build in.
On UEFI systems you already get with laptops a lot of high screen resolutions where its a question if you still need the wide screen enabler.
Remember UEFI GOP is ONLY a memory address to write no other screen features etc.
Roderick Klein
Doug Clark:
The big benefit of SNAP for me is that currently SNAP is the only way (that I know of) of getting Win-OS/2 to reliably work on a screen size larger than 1920x1080. Which in my case is SNAP with a dual monitor setup running 3840x1080 (I don't have two monitors that will display larger than 1920x1080. I do have a single 4k monitor).
Because of AndiB's post on 4k screen sizes awhile back, I purchased a Sapphire pulse RX 550 video card (from England - the shipping was more than the card) to see if I could get it to work on my Ryzen. What I found (on the Ryzen with RX550 video card and virtual address limit = 2048) was:
1) you have to boot as CSM in order to set colors to something less than 16M. 64K colors seems to work well. 16M colors not so good.
(first screen shot - the card name shows up as LEXA for some reason). Win-OS/2 will not work
2) If you boot as UEFI you can only use 16M colors - there is no other color option and I did not get custom resolutions to work. I did not try messing with virtual address limit
3) with UEFI boot (and 16M colors) you can get Win-OS/2 to work - but not very well.
On the second screen shot you can see the screen not getting updated correctly - noticeable for example below the "Initializing" text in the grey window at the lower left of the
Visual Builder screen.
4) There are some Win-OS/2 apps, like Paint Brush, that won't work correctly at 16M colors, even with SNAP.
5) The type of video "connection" used makes a difference. Even though the RX550 video card supports both HDMI and DisplayPort, and my monitor supports both connections, 4k will only work on with a DisplayPort connection. I also tried hooking up a 4K TV via HDMI and it will not display 4K for Panorama even though the TV and video card say they support HDMI at 60 HZ. This was also true when testing with an Intel i5 8600 with integrated UHD graphics 630, which also supports HDMI, DisplayPort and VGA.
6) for the Intel (virtual address limit = 1536) I had the same issue of needing to boot CSM in order to set the colors at something other the 16M, and the resolution at something other than 640x480.
When booting CSM WIn-OS/2 will not work in seamless mode, but will work in full screen. OS/2 seemed to work correctly - although I didn't do extensive testing.
(screen shot 3)
When booting the Intel in UEFI - at 16M colors and 640x480 (the only color and resolution choice) - Win-OS/2 would work in seamless mode and full screen.
There are some points to remember:
The older Radeon video cards that will work with SNAP are probably not going to be GOP enabled - meaning they won't work unless CSM is on, and the AOS installer will not work with them. They will work fine once AOS is installed and with CSM support turned on.
Intel has removed CSM support from most of its processors by now. AMD is removing CSM support from its graphics video cards starting at the Radeon 9000, but appears to be keeping CSM for its processors, at least at this point.
I was thinking of doing this a presentation at Warpstock Little Rock if you guys think anyone would be interested.
Roderick Klein:
--- Quote from: Doug Clark on August 15, 2025, 09:23:09 pm ---The big benefit of SNAP for me is that currently SNAP is the only way (that I know of) of getting Win-OS/2 to reliably work on a screen size larger than 1920x1080. Which in my case is SNAP with a dual monitor setup running 3840x1080 (I don't have two monitors that will display larger than 1920x1080. I do have a single 4k monitor).
Because of AndiB's post on 4k screen sizes awhile back, I purchased a Sapphire pulse RX 550 video card (from England - the shipping was more than the card) to see if I could get it to work on my Ryzen. What I found (on the Ryzen with RX550 video card and virtual address limit = 2048) was:
1) you have to boot as CSM in order to set colors to something less than 16M. 64K colors seems to work well. 16M colors not so good.
(first screen shot - the card name shows up as LEXA for some reason). Win-OS/2 will not work
2) If you boot as UEFI you can only use 16M colors - there is no other color option and I did not get custom resolutions to work. I did not try messing with virtual address limit
3) with UEFI boot (and 16M colors) you can get Win-OS/2 to work - but not very well.
On the second screen shot you can see the screen not getting updated correctly - noticeable for example below the "Initializing" text in the grey window at the lower left of the
Visual Builder screen.
4) There are some Win-OS/2 apps, like Paint Brush, that won't work correctly at 16M colors, even with SNAP.
5) The type of video "connection" used makes a difference. Even though the RX550 video card supports both HDMI and DisplayPort, and my monitor supports both connections, 4k will only work on with a DisplayPort connection. I also tried hooking up a 4K TV via HDMI and it will not display 4K for Panorama even though the TV and video card say they support HDMI at 60 HZ. This was also true when testing with an Intel i5 8600 with integrated UHD graphics 630, which also supports HDMI, DisplayPort and VGA.
6) for the Intel (virtual address limit = 1536) I had the same issue of needing to boot CSM in order to set the colors at something other the 16M, and the resolution at something other than 640x480.
When booting CSM WIn-OS/2 will not work in seamless mode, but will work in full screen. OS/2 seemed to work correctly - although I didn't do extensive testing.
(screen shot 3)
When booting the Intel in UEFI - at 16M colors and 640x480 (the only color and resolution choice) - Win-OS/2 would work in seamless mode and full screen.
There are some points to remember:
The older Radeon video cards that will work with SNAP are probably not going to be GOP enabled - meaning they won't work unless CSM is on, and the AOS installer will not work with them. They will work fine once AOS is installed and with CSM support turned on.
Intel has removed CSM support from most of its processors by now. AMD is removing CSM support from its graphics video cards starting at the Radeon 9000, but appears to be keeping CSM for its processors, at least at this point.
I was thinking of doing this a presentation at Warpstock Little Rock if you guys think anyone would be interested.
--- End quote ---
CSM has not been removed from the CPU its the BIOS that provides this support in conjunction with the video card.
I am not certain that SNAP goes ALL the way to 3840 x ???? resolution. With waht I know about the GRADD architecture WIN/OS2 depends on the GRADD component and not the accelrated SNAP portion of the code. But I could be wrong. Can you post a screenshot of your WIN/OS2 screen as I think the resolution support of WIN/OS2 can be increased that high.
Roderick
Doug Clark:
Rodrick,
I am attaching a screen shot of a seamless win-os/2 application at 3840x1080, and a pic of a full-screen win-os/2 session running at 3840x1080, both using SNAP.
As for GRADD and how SNAP and Win-OS/2 works - and for that fact BIOS/CSM - I am no expert. I'm just Ken (and I am not even blond.)
The limitation for SNAP seems to be in the vertical direction rather than the horizontal direction. I am guessing this is due to the fact that support for new chipsets ended before DisplayPort became common and so we are bound by the display resolution limitations of DVI.
The graphical performance of seamless, and full-screen Win-os/2 sessions, seems to be fine. The card I am using (Radeon X600) is a first generation PCIe but it seems to have more than enough performance for OS/2. I am not counting frame rates or running games - I am judging by how fast text scrolls, how responsive window dragging is, and how many movies I am play on VLC at the same time (it is at least 4 - the limitations appear to be VLC related rather than graphics performance)
As for CSM/BIOS/CPU - once again I'm just Ken. There are lots of links about Intel and CSM - including this one
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/content-details/630266/removal-of-legacy-boot-support-for-intel-platforms-technical-advisory.html
A couple of weeks ago I was wondering the same question as you asked - is it the CPU or the BIOS/motherboard that determines CSM support - so I looked at some new Intel based motherboards from MSI, Gigibyte and ASUS to see if the new boards have CSM support. I could not find any mention of CSM in the manuals for the motherboards, or listed on their web sites. This of course is not conclusive, either for the BIOS verses CPU question or for whether CSM is now gone from Intel based motherboards.
But if CSM is now discontinued for Intel based systems it might drive some OS/2 users to AMD based systems - especially those who need DOS/Windows support and/or are using older hardware that really requires BIOS support - such as some graphics tablets, etc. Right now it appears that we need CSM for Panorama to access the full range of color depth and/or resolutions that are available on modern monitors/video cards.
Roderick Klein:
--- Quote from: Doug Clark on August 18, 2025, 07:06:11 pm ---Rodrick,
I am attaching a screen shot of a seamless win-os/2 application at 3840x1080, and a pic of a full-screen win-os/2 session running at 3840x1080, both using SNAP.
As for GRADD and how SNAP and Win-OS/2 works - and for that fact BIOS/CSM - I am no expert. I'm just Ken (and I am not even blond.)
The limitation for SNAP seems to be in the vertical direction rather than the horizontal direction. I am guessing this is due to the fact that support for new chipsets ended before DisplayPort became common and so we are bound by the display resolution limitations of DVI.
The graphical performance of seamless, and full-screen Win-os/2 sessions, seems to be fine. The card I am using (Radeon X600) is a first generation PCIe but it seems to have more than enough performance for OS/2. I am not counting frame rates or running games - I am judging by how fast text scrolls, how responsive window dragging is, and how many movies I am play on VLC at the same time (it is at least 4 - the limitations appear to be VLC related rather than graphics performance)
As for CSM/BIOS/CPU - once again I'm just Ken. There are lots of links about Intel and CSM - including this one
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/content-details/630266/removal-of-legacy-boot-support-for-intel-platforms-technical-advisory.html
A couple of weeks ago I was wondering the same question as you asked - is it the CPU or the BIOS/motherboard that determines CSM support - so I looked at some new Intel based motherboards from MSI, Gigibyte and ASUS to see if the new boards have CSM support. I could not find any mention of CSM in the manuals for the motherboards, or listed on their web sites. This of course is not conclusive, either for the BIOS verses CPU question or for whether CSM is now gone from Intel based motherboards.
But if CSM is now discontinued for Intel based systems it might drive some OS/2 users to AMD based systems - especially those who need DOS/Windows support and/or are using older hardware that really requires BIOS support - such as some graphics tablets, etc. Right now it appears that we need CSM for Panorama to access the full range of color depth and/or resolutions that are available on modern monitors/video cards.
--- End quote ---
Interesting thank you for this screenshot never seen WIN/OS2 on two screens spread out.
Since circa 2022 No mainboards or PC are made with a CSM. Except for legacy PC's or industrial mainboards.
Roderick Klein
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