3D Blaster Banshee Readme =========================== This readme file contains the following sections: A. For Windows 95/98 users B. GlideSwitcher Utility C. BIOS Upgrade ____________________________________________________________ A. For Windows 95/98 users =========================== Please read through all the sections before you proceed with the installation. 1. Installation 2. Release Notes 3. Games Compatibility Issue 4. Known Problems 5. General Notes 1. Installation After running the self-extracting file, run the setup.exe program. This will install the Windows 95/98 display driver, BlasterControl and the GlideSwitcher utility. If you do not use the setup.exe from the self-extracting file, you can use the 3dbb9x.inf file to install the Windows display driver and BlasterControl manually. If you experience problems caused by system incompatibility, follow the instructions in the section, "BIOS Upgrade" in this readme file to install the BIOS. 2. Release Notes a) DirectX6 support This release supports hardware acceleration to the following DX6 Direct3D new features: i. W-buffering. ii. Multi-texturing. iii. Flexible Vertex Formats. Due to the above, the BlasterControl 'Advanced Properties' added 2 new controls. One is to disable DX6 hardware acceleration for games with problem. The other is to specify the texture stage number for multi-texturing. 3. GAMES COMPATIBILITY ISSUE a) Quake, Quake 2 and Hexen 2 Currently, the OGL driver is for full screen only. Invoking the OGL games in non-full screen may cause unexpected results. Refer to the readme file in the Banshee Installation CD's OpenGL directory for important information. b) Need for Speed III If you could not run the game, please download the latest patch from the game developer's Web site. 4. KNOWN PROBLEMS a) Mouse pointer trails do not work The Pointer Trails option in the Mouse Properties dialog box does not work with the current driver. Currently, there is no workaround solution except to disable this option. b) Windows 98 Multi-monitor mode with multiple Banshee boards When you have more than one Banshee board installed in your system, only the primary board will be enabled. This problem will be solved in future driver releases. c) Unable to load display driver A machine with the retail version of Windows 95 displays the error message, "Unable to Load Display Driver." Windows 95 attaches a generic PCI VGA display adapter driver to any card it does not immediately recognize. When the Banshee driver is loaded into the system, Windows 95 fails to detach the generic driver. This problem is fixed with the OSR2 release of Windows 95. To fix this problem in the retail version of Windows 95: i. Click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel. ii. In the Control Panel window, double-click the System icon. iii. In the System Properties dialog box, click the Device Manager tab. iv. Double-click the Other Devices entry. v. Select the device, PCI VGA-Compatible Display Adapter, and then click the Remove button. vi. Click the OK button and restart the system. After the system has restarted, it will prompt you to install the Banshee driver. vii. Install the Banshee driver. viii.Restart the system. After the system has restarted, it will recognize the Banshee card. d) Only 'Advanced Properties' Tab appears Windows 95 (retail version) users may see only the 'Advanced Properties' of BlasterControl after first installation. If this happen, reinstall the display driver to get the full BlasterControl control applet. 5. GENERAL NOTES: a) Direct3D in 16-bit color only Hardware acceleration for Direct3D is only available in 16-bit color mode. b) Virtual desktop and hardware overlay When Banshee is in Virtual Desktop mode, the hardware overlay will be disabled for video playback, and software overlay will be used. If video is already playing back in hardware overlay, the system will not allow you to switch from normal desktop mode to virtual desktop mode. c) OGL driver Currently, the OGL driver is for full screen only. Invoking the OGL games in non-full screen may cause unexpected results. Refer to the readme file in the Banshee installation CD's OGL directory for information. ____________________________________________________________ B. GlideSwitcher Utility GlideSwitcher is a utility that allows you to support Glide applications on different products that use 3Dfx chipsets (Glide devices). In normal situations, Glide applications reference a driver called either GLIDE2X.DLL or GLIDE3X.DLL. Incidentally, both the 3Dfx Voodoo2 chipset (used in Creative's 3D Blaster Voodoo2) and the 3Dfx Voodoo Banshee chipset (used in Creative's 3D Blaster Banshee) use drivers with the same file names. So, if a user configures a system that contains both cards, only one card will be capable of running Glide applications. To overcome this limitation, Creative Labs has developed the GlideSwitcher utility. This utility consists of: (a) an Archive module, which checks your system for changes in 3Dfx driver installations and maintains the Glide drivers for both cards, and (b) a Control Panel, which allows you to select the card that your Glide Application will run on. If you are removing one of the cards that has a 3Dfx chipset from the system, it is essential to select the correct Glide driver first. Use GlideSwitcher to switch to the Glide driver for the other card before you remove the unwanted card. Otherwise, you will not be able to switch to the correct Glide driver after you remove the unwanted card. This is because the GlideSwitcher can only be run when there is more than one physical Glide device detected. ____________________________________________________________ C. BIOS Upgrade Please ignore this section if the BIOS in your card has a newer version number. BIOS version : 1.01.2 The 3D Blaster Banshee BIOS Upgrade utility consists of the following file: * BNF1012C.EXE - BIOS upgrade program Note: You only need to flash this BIOS if your card has system incompatibility issues. BNF1012C.EXE can be run from the MS-DOS prompt using the following syntax: usage: BNF1012C.EXE ============ PROCEDURE ============ 1. Determine if your video BIOS has the latest update by looking at the version number displayed during system bootup. If your version is newer, you do not need to upgrade your BIOS. Otherwise, proceed with the following steps. 2. Boot to native DOS, and run the BIOS upgrade program BNF1012C.EXE. Notes: . Due to the nature of Windows environment, this program has to be run in native DOS mode. If you do not know how to boot up your system in native DOS mode, refer to the section below on "BOOT TO NATIVE DOS MODE". . The programming process takes about 10 seconds (including verification time) to complete. WARNING: Do NOT interrupt this process. Interrupting this process may result in unexpected (and undesirable) consequences. When the VGA BIOS on your 3D Blaster Banshee is upgraded, the program displays a message to inform you that the BIOS is successfully flashed. 3. After the new BIOS is successfully flashed, reboot your system. The system should now boot up with the updated 3D Blaster Banshee BIOS (verified by the new version number displayed during bootup). ================= TROUBLESHOOTING ================= Symptom A: BIOS upgrade program displays error message: "This program cannot be executed in Windows-DOS box" Solution: You need to boot up to native DOS mode before running the program. If you do not know how to boot up your system in native DOS mode, refer to the section below on "BOOT TO NATIVE DOS MODE". Symptom B: BIOS upgrade program displays error message: "3D Blaster Banshee card not present" Solution: You are trying to use this program on a video card that is not Creative 3D Blaster Banshee. If you are certain that you have a Banshee card, your BIOS is probably being flashed with a non-Creative Banshee image. Contact Creative technical support for further assistance. Symptom C: If you do not see any display upon rebooting. Solution: You can try to re-program the BIOS with the use of another PCI VGA card: 1) Bootup with non-Creative Banshee VGA as primary display card. Insert a second (not Banshee) PCI VGA card into the 1st PCI slot and the 3D Blaster Banshee into the 2nd PCI slot. Connect the non-Creative Banshee VGA card output to a monitor, boot up and check if the monitor displays anything. If it doesn't, swap the slot positions of the VGA card and 3D Blaster Banshee until you can bootup with the non-Creative Banshee VGA as primary display card. 2) Re-program Banshee. When the system boots up successfully with the VGA card, you can then program the 3D Blaster Banshee BIOS as described above, beginning from Procedure (C). After the program is executed, you can remove the non-Creative Banshee card and bootup with your 3D Blaster Banshee card. If you still do not see any display, contact Creative technical support for further assistance. ========================= BOOT TO NATIVE DOS MODE ========================= The following are two methods of booting to the native DOS mode. Method 1 - Boot diskette i. Insert an unused floppy diskette into your disk drive A. ii. Type "format a: /s" at the DOS prompt to create a bootable diskette. iii. Leave the diskette in the drive and reboot your system. Your system will boot to the native DOS mode. Method 2 - The key i. Reboot your system, paying attention to the onscreen initializing messages. ii. When you see the text "Starting Windows 95..." or "Starting Windows 98...", press within 5 seconds to display a menu. iii. From the menu, select option 6 (Command prompt only) to boot the system to native DOS mode. ====End of Readme File====