Choose Large, Small, or Custom fonts from this drop down list box.  (Custom Fonts will be available if you have rescaled the fonts using the Custom button.)


Lists the color palettes that your MGA display adapter and monitor support.


This entry indicates the presence of any optional add-on modules.  This information may be helpful should you ever require technical support.


This is advanced information. This entry indicates the version number of the VGA BIOS on your MGA board. This information may be helpful should you ever require technical support.


Click on this button to access advanced PowerDesk features to set up custom hotkeys, to control board performance, and to obtain technical information about your MGA hardware and software.


Click on this button to access the font scaling dialog box.  There, a drop-down list box allows you to select one of the pre-defined font scaling percentages, to enlarge or reduce the size of the current system font. As well, a ruler permits you to interactively choose a font scaling percentage (from 18% to 1,050% of the current font size), to enlarge or reduce the size of the current system font.  Take care when scaling the system font at low resolutions (640 x 480, for example): if the font is too large, you may not be able to access some dialog box buttons.


Deletes a named custom display configuration that appears in the drop down list box.


This button, which appears only under special circumstances, accesses reserved, undocumented, advanced functions.


Creates or alters a named custom display configuration in the drop down list box.  Use the Save As, Delete, or Rename buttons (which change, depending on the context) to make changes to the list of display schemes. If you create new schemes here while Quick Access is running, Quick Access won’t recognize them until you close and re-start the toolbar.


This indicates the memory map location of your MGA board. The on-screen display can be located in one of several memory ranges. The default location is often acceptable, but a conflict with another system device may require that the board be re-mapped.  This information may be helpful should you ever require technical support.


This entry indicates the type of MGA board presently in use.


This is the unique serial number identifying your MGA board.


The 3D acceleration feature is currently active!


This checkbox controls whether the MGA PowerDesk utilities will ask for confirmation when you change resolutions dynamically.  This checkbox is checked by default.  By clearing this checkbox,you instruct PowerDesk to skip the confirmation dialog box (and the failsafe mechanism).


This list box contains named custom display configurations. Use the Save As, Delete, or Rename buttons to add to or make changes to the list of display schemes.  Each display scheme is a named display configuration which includes a Display area, Desktop area, Color Palette, and Font Size. The schemes can be selected both here and in the Quick Access toolbar.


Indicates the Matrox internal product name of the drawing engine chip on your MGA board.  This information may be helpful should you ever require technical support.


When this check box is enabled, hardware acceleration is used to cache some bitmapped object in the video memory.If some bitmaps are not drawn properly within a particular application, de-select this checkbox.


When this check box is enabled, hardware acceleration is used for drawing bordered rectangle objects.  If rectangles are not drawn properly within a particular application (likely a drawing or design package), de-select this check box.


When this check box is enabled, hardware acceleration is used for drawing complex polygon objects.  If complex polygon objects are not drawn properly within a particular application (likely a drawing or design package), de-select this check box.


When this check box is enabled, hardware acceleration is used for drawing circles and ellipses.  If circle and ellipses are not drawn properly within a particular application (likely a drawing or design package), de-select this check box.


When this check box is enabled, 3D hardware accelerations and double-buffering are enabled under the following modes:
2Mb WRAM:
         640x480, 16bpp (High color)

4Mb WRAM:
         640x480, 16bpp (High color)
         800x600, 16bpp (High color)
         640x480, 32bpp (True color)

8Mb WRAM:
         up to 1280x1024, 16bpp (High color)
         up to 1024x768,  32bpp (True color)


This feature causes any popup error message or warning dialog boxes to be centered in the visible display to ensure that you are properly informed of any application or system problems. It becomes very useful when you have enabled a Desktop, or when you are zoomed. Center popup works only with popup windows; this means that other types of windows (such as application windows, floating toolbars, etc.) will not be affected.


When enabled, locks the Display area and Desktop area slider controls together.  This effectively eliminates the Desktop feature.


DCI (Display Control Interface) is a driver-level software interface that uses the MGA's hardware to accelerate normal Windows 95 performance for certain games and video player applications (Media Player, for example).  DCI accelerates the playback of QuickTime (MOV), Video for Windows (AVI), and MPEG files, if the video player applications support DCI.


This slider control sets the total viewable Desktop area, which is a screen area that can be larger than the actual on-screen Display.  For example, you can set up a Windows 95 Desktop environment that occupies an area of up to 1600 x 1200 pixels, but view it in a Display area of 1024 x 768 pixels.  In this case, the Desktop is a "view" of only part of the total usable screen area.  When you want to see a part of the screen that's hidden from view (but still active in the Desktop area), just touch one of the screen edges with the mouse cursor to pan there.


This slider control sets the resolution of your display.  The available screen resolutions are displayed to the right of the slider control as you move it.  When selecting low resolutions (under 800 x 600), take care to also choose Small Fonts, otherwise, you may not be able to access some dialog box buttons (they may be off-screen).


This is advanced information. This entry indicates the version of the MGA software driver that is currently in use. This information may be helpful should you ever require technical support.


PanLOCK enables or disables panning and scrolling, and is most useful when you are zoomed in, or when you have enabled a Desktop and you don't want to accidentally pan or scroll.  You can toggle PanLOCK off and on by enabling and using its hotkey here, or by clicking on the PanLOCK button in the Quick Access toolbar.


This centers your display area on the currently-active window.  You must enable this feature by using the hotkey you defined for this function.

Suppose you have four applications open on your Desktop, and they're not all visible at once.  When you want to center the display around one of them, switch to that application and use the  CenterWINDOW hotkey combination to move the visible area of your Desktop to the active application. The mouse pointer is positioned in the center of the window.  This feature works when your display is zoomed in on another area or when you have enabled a Desktop. CenterWINDOW is not available on the Quick Access toolbar.


This feature offers hardware-accelerated panning and zooming. Press the user-definable hotkey to toggle through the three zoom factors in a circular order through the three zoom factors ( x1, x2, x4, x1,...). The zoom is centered over the current mouse cursor position.  (You can also zoom in by clicking on one of the zoom buttons in the Quick Access toolbar.)

Note that the x4 zoom is unavailable at resolutions of 800 x 600 or lower.  When you zoom into an image, other areas of the image are outside your viewing area.  To see the hidden parts when you're at zoom factors greater than x1, move the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen and the screen will pan in that direction (PanLOCK must be set to OFF).


This entry indicates the amount of display memory (RAM) installed on your MGA board.  MGA Millennium boards currently support configurations of 2 MB, 4MB, or 8MB of on-board memory.  (The more memory that a board contains, the greater its flexibility, in terms of available resolutions and color palettes.) This information may be helpful should you ever require technical support.


The Desktop preview provides you with an interactive means to visualize what will take place when you select various Display and Desktop combinations.

Provided that the lock is off:
- The picture of the monitor screen changes size when Display is changed (this is an indication of the portion of the desktop area that you will see on your screen).
- The desktop image changes size when Desktop is changed (this is an indication of the total desktop area available for use, but not necessarily visible at all times).

Using these two controls, you should be able to exploit the flexibility of this feature to find a display configuration that is ideal for your needs.


This is advanced information. This entry indicates the speed, in Mhz, of the RAMDAC (Random Access Memory Digital to Analog Converter) component on your MGA board.  The RAMDAC signals communicate directly with your monitor.  This information may be helpful should you ever require technical support.


This is advanced information. The VDD (Virtual Device Driver) version information entry identifies the specific version of the current low-level MGA system software being used by Windows 95. This information may be helpful should you ever require technical support.


This is advanced information.  The DirectDraw Driver version information entry identifies the specific version of the current low-level MGA DirectDraw system software being used by Microsoft DirectDraw (if installed).  This information may be helpful should you ever require technical support.


This is advanced information.  This entry indicates wether Microsoft DirectDraw is actually present in the system.