Author Topic: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver  (Read 2230 times)

Martin Iturbide

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Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« on: February 07, 2025, 03:48:15 am »
Hello

Currently my Win-OS2 full screen session (1920x1080) has a "slow-choppy" mouse and you can not move the mouse pointer down from the middle of the screen. (ArcaOS 5.1 BIOS running on a VirtualBox host. )

On the "OS/2, EComStation & ArcaOS Discussion group" facebook page, it was posted something about this new video driver for Windows 3.1:
- https://github.com/PluMGMK/vbesvga.drv?tab=readme-ov-file

It has some instructions on how to install it, but if I follow the procedure and it gives me an error when I load Windows 3.1.
Quote
Unsuitable settings for current driver / hardware
Press any key to about booting Windows...

If I only remove from the modified system.ini all the [VBESVGA.DRV] part...
Quote
[VBESVGA.DRV]
PMIDcheck=sanity
Width=1920
Height=1080
Depth=16
DoubleBufRefreshRate=75
...Win-OS2 full screen runs with the newer vbesvga.drv and vddvbe.386. But the screen resolution is smaller (1024 × 768), mouse now works fine and I can go to the bottom part of the screen with the pointer.

Do you think this drivers can be useful for our Win-OS2? Can we benefit in some way from this driver? Any other suggestion on how to make this drivers work at 1920x1080?

Regards
« Last Edit: February 07, 2025, 03:54:35 am by Martin Iturbide »
Martin Iturbide
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Lars

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #1 on: February 07, 2025, 01:15:56 pm »
I would set PMIDCheck = disable and DoubleBufRefreshRate = 0.
In particular for PMIDCheck I doubt that the direct protected mode interface would be properly supported in Virtualbox.
If you disable it, the driver will use real mode int x calls which I would expect to work ok.
For the double buffering, start without and later you could try a sensible refresh rate where for a Virtual machine you might get by with a lower rate.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2025, 02:56:27 pm »
Thanks for the feedback Lars.

I tried:
Quote
[VBESVGA.DRV]
PMIDcheck=disable
Width=1920
Height=1080
Depth=16
DoubleBufRefreshRate=0

and I get the same error while loading Win-OS2 Full Screen.
I played with DoubleBufRefreshRate=20 and other and got the same results.

If I set it.
Quote
[VBESVGA.DRV]
PMIDcheck=sanity
Width=800
Height=600
Depth=16
DoubleBufRefreshRate=75

It loads in 800x600, 1024 also works.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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Lars

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2025, 06:26:34 pm »
It might be a virtualbox BIOS emulation issue in that it does not report your desired screen size as being available.
I remember that there was a Virtualbox manager command to add a custom screen size but I forgot what it was.

Lars

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« Last Edit: February 07, 2025, 06:32:39 pm by Lars »

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2025, 11:06:52 pm »
Hi

This VM already has "1920x1080" resolution with the vboxmanage command line. The ArcaOS desktop is already on that resolution.

- VBoxManage.exe setextradata "ArcaOS 5.1" "CustomVideoMode1" "1920x1080x32"

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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Roderick Klein

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #6 on: February 08, 2025, 09:47:27 pm »
Hello

Currently my Win-OS2 full screen session (1920x1080) has a "slow-choppy" mouse and you can not move the mouse pointer down from the middle of the screen. (ArcaOS 5.1 BIOS running on a VirtualBox host. )

On the "OS/2, EComStation & ArcaOS Discussion group" facebook page, it was posted something about this new video driver for Windows 3.1:
- https://github.com/PluMGMK/vbesvga.drv?tab=readme-ov-file

It has some instructions on how to install it, but if I follow the procedure and it gives me an error when I load Windows 3.1.
Quote
Unsuitable settings for current driver / hardware
Press any key to about booting Windows...

If I only remove from the modified system.ini all the [VBESVGA.DRV] part...
Quote
[VBESVGA.DRV]
PMIDcheck=sanity
Width=1920
Height=1080
Depth=16
DoubleBufRefreshRate=75
...Win-OS2 full screen runs with the newer vbesvga.drv and vddvbe.386. But the screen resolution is smaller (1024 × 768), mouse now works fine and I can go to the bottom part of the screen with the pointer.

Do you think this drivers can be useful for our Win-OS2? Can we benefit in some way from this driver? Any other suggestion on how to make this drivers work at 1920x1080?

Regards

I am not certain but I think what is being overlooked is that the WIN/OS2 driver uses I think a special GRADD driver that deals with the WIN/OS2 screen resolution. I think this bypasses the normal DOS video support. This alternative Windows 3.1 video driver looks nice. However you might be out of luck with this driver as I think (based on the file name) this is a VESA driver. And this alternative Windows 3.1 driver then depends on the VESA bios in the DOS session.

But I could be wrng.

Roderick

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« Reply #7 on: February 10, 2025, 03:44:12 pm »
Hello.

Running this driver at "1024 × 768" in Win-OS/2, I found an extra random problem, when I drag some windows like the Control Panel. Some lines render in the screen and it shows an error.

I contacted the author, just to let him know that there is some kind of interest for Win-OS/2 and let him know that.
- https://github.com/PluMGMK/vbesvga.drv/issues/34

Remember that I just testing this to see if it can be of some use to us. It is just an experiment.

Regards

Martin Iturbide
OS2World NewsMaster
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