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- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- The "Quick Picture Viewer"
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Q P V / 3 8 6 F A Q
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Frequently Asked Questions about QPV/386
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Table of Contents
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- 0. What happened with the name of this software?
- 1. I can't get QPV/386 to work with my graphics card. What can I do?
- 2. QPV/386 displays images greyscaled only. How do I get color?
- 3. I'm using the VESA configuration. 16 and 256 color modes work, but I
- can't get hicolor or truecolor. What's wrong?
- 4. Is it possible to switch off that annoying beep?
- 5. When zooming or panning across large images, the bottom part is
- distorted. Why?
- 6. When I try to zoom or pan, the screen turns black. What happened?
- 7. Will there be a Windows version?
- 8. Why is the menu screen only black and white?
- 9. Why do I get only greyscaled images in 16 color modes?
- 10. Color dithering in 256 color modes looks bad. Why?
- 11. It takes so long to read a directory from a CD-ROM. What can I do?
- 12. Which configuration file should I use?
- 13. VESA - what's that?
- 14. Zooming ('+' and '-' keys) doesn't work. What's wrong?
- 15. Will QPV/386 support the TIFF format in the near future?
-
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Question 0:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~
- > What happened with the name of this software?
-
- It has changed. It is now called "Quick Picture Viewer" (QPV), because it
- does much more than just viewing JPEG files.
-
- The new name does not affect features, support, registrations or other
- things related to the software. It's just a new name.
-
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Question 1:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~
- > I can't get QPV/386 to work with my graphics card. What can I do?
-
- First of all, perhaps QPV/386 can work with your graphics card, but you are
- not using the right configuration file. For more information about choosing
- the right configuration file please refer to the answer of question 12.
-
- Sometimes none of the existing configuration files works with a certain
- graphics card. In this case there are several ways:
- 1. Use the VESA configuration if possible. Please refer to question 13 and
- its answer for more information about VESA.
- 2. Use the standard VGA configuration (STDVGA.CFG). However, this provides
- only a very small number of video modes.
- 3. If you are an experienced programmer, you can create a video driver
- yourself. Of course you must have some information about your
- graphics hardware. Read the file DRV.DOC for more information about
- how to create a QPV/386 video driver.
-
- ------------------
-
- Question 2:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~
- > QPV/386 displays images greyscaled only. How do I get color?
-
- By default, QPV/386 uses the video mode 640x480x16 which only offers
- greyscaled display.
- To change the mode, use the '+' and '-' keys while in the directory screen
- (not while viewing an image!). Watch the status line in the upper window:
- it tells you the currently selected resolution and number of colors.
- Hit the '+' key until it says at least '256 colors'. Be sure not to be in
- greyscaled mode (if the status line says '<grey>', use the '$' key).
- Now QPV/386 will display images in color.
- You can change the default video mode by editing the initialization file
- QPV.INI. For that purpose you can use any standard ASCII text editor
- (e.g. EDIT which is supplied with MS-DOS 5/6). Please read the comments
- in QPV.INI, and you will be able to change QPV/386's defaults.
- (If you run QPV/386 from a non-writeable media, e.g. froma CD-ROM, then
- copy QPV.INI to the directory C:\QPV/386 first, otherwise you won't be
- able to modify it.)
-
- ------------------
-
- Question 3:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~
- > I'm using the VESA configuration. 16 and 256 color modes work, but I
- can't get hicolor or truecolor. What's wrong?
-
- In order to be able to use hicolor and truecolor modes with the VESA driver,
- your VESA BIOS (or VESA VBE/TSR) must be at least version 1.2.
- Versions prior 1.2 of the VESA standard did not define hicolor and truecolor
- modes.
- (Use the VESATEST program to get the version of your VESA VBE/TSR).
- Try to get UNIVBE or UNIVESA. These are TSRs (i.e. programs that stay
- resident in memory) which make your BIOS VESA 1.2 compatible. They are
- available from most major PD/Shareware sources.
-
- ------------------
-
- Question 4:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~
- > Is it possible to switch off that annoying beep?
-
- Yes, you can do that by editing the initialization file QPV.INI.
- For that purpose you can use any standard ASCII text editor (e.g. EDIT
- which is supplied with MS-DOS 5/6). Please read the comments in QPV.INI,
- and you will be able to change QPV/386's defaults.
- (If you run QPV/386 from a non-writeable media, e.g. froma CD-ROM, then
- copy QPV.INI to the directory C:\QPV/386 first, otherwise you won't be
- able to modify it.)
-
- ------------------
-
- Questions 5 and 6:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- > When zooming or panning across large images, the bottom part is distorted.
- Why?
-
- > When I try to zoom or pan, the screen turns black. What happened?
-
- Two questions, one answer: there's not enough XMS/EMS memory.
- QPV/386 stores the decoded image in XMS/EMS memory (if such memory is present
- at all). When zooming or panning, QPV/386 copies the visible part of the
- image back from XMS/EMS to video memory.
- If you don't have any XMS/EMS memory at all, the screen will turn black.
- If you have XMS/EMS memory, but it's not enough for the image, the bottom
- part will look distorted. Remember that in truecolor modes each pixel
- takes three bytes (so a 640x480 image needs 900 Kb), in hicolor modes
- each pixel takes two bytes, in 256 and 16 color modes each pixel takes
- one byte.
- How to solve the problem? Well, there are several ways:
- - Don't use panning/zooming.
- - Use a video mode with less colors. For example, in 256 color modes
- an image takes half the memory as compared to hicolor modes.
- - Free some XMS/EMS memory. For example, if you have installed a RAM disk
- or disk cache program, removing it may give you some more memory.
- - Buy more memory.
-
- ------------------
-
- Question 7:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~
- > Will there be a Windows version?
-
- The current version of QPV/386 runs in fullscreen mode under Windows 3.1 and
- OS/2 2.1. Under certain circumstances the display doesn't work correctly
- under Windows (that's probably the fault of Windows). There's usually less
- XMS/EMS memory available when started under Windows or OS/2, so you may not
- be able to pan across larger images.
-
- By the way, there are plans to develop an OS/2 PM version.
-
- ------------------
-
- Question 8:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~
- > Why is the directory screen only black and white?
-
- I'm using the 640x480 video mode with 16 colors for the directory/menu
- screen, because it's a standard VGA mode common to all VGA cards.
- See the next question.
- However, it is possible to use a 256 color mode for the directory sceen
- by changing an entry in the QPV.INI file, but you must be absolutely sure
- that the mode 640x480 with 256 colors works fine with your graphics card.
- (The entry to be changed is "Interface_256_Colors".)
-
- ------------------
-
- Question 9:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~
- > Why do I get only greyscaled images in 16 color modes?
-
- 16 colors are way too few to display truecolor images. That's why QPV/386
- displays images greyscaled when in a 16 color mode.
-
- ------------------
-
- Question 10:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~
- > Color dithering in 256 color modes looks bad. Why?
-
- QPV/386 was written for speed. A 2-pass color quantization would yield
- better quality in 256 color modes, but at the cost of speed.
- To have both high speed and high image quality, use hicolor or truecolor
- modes. If you don't have a graphics card capable of hicolor/truecolor,
- buy one. They're not that expensive anymore.
- (To be honest, at first I didn't even plan to support 256 color modes
- at all, but later it became obvious that there are still many 256 color
- people...)
-
- ------------------
-
- Question 11:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~
- > It takes so long to read a directory from a CD-ROM. What can I do?
-
- Switch 'File info' off using the '*' key before changing to the CD-ROM's
- directory. Now QPV/386 won't examine each file anymore to get its width and
- height. If you view images from CD-ROMs very frequently, you should change
- QPV/386's default setting for 'File info' to off, just edit the respective
- line in the QPV.INI file.
-
- ------------------
-
- Question 12:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~
- > Which configuration file should I use?
-
- Most "experts" know which chipset is used by their graphics card, and
- therefore they know which configuration file (*.CFG) to use (or which
- configuration to select if you use the SETUP utility).
- If you don't know that, there are several ways to find it out, one of them
- is usually successful:
- 1. Have a look at the manual of your graphics card, it should mention the
- name of the chipset being used by the card. Often the name of the card
- ist identical to the name of the chipset, or the chipset's name is part
- of the card's name.
- 2. When the computer is startet (after power up or reset, before the DOS
- operating system is loaded) the chipset's name should be displayed on
- the screen.
- 3. Some graphics related programs and hardware test utilities are able to
- detect and display the name of the graphics card's chipset.
- 4. At the DOS prompt, enter "DEBUG". Then (at the DEBUG prompt "-") enter
- "dc000:0" to display the beginning of the video BIOS memory area. It
- usually contains the name of the graphics chipset. You can type "d"
- to view more of the video BIOS.
- (Some graphics cards which are fixed part of the main board use a
- different location for the BIOS, in this case try "de000:0" instead.)
-
- As soon as you know the name of the chipset, select the appropriate entry
- from the list of the SETUP utility.
-
- Alternatively, you can configure QPV/386 manually: delete the old
- configuration file (QPV.CFG) and copy the new one to QPV.CFG;
- then you're finished. If you can't find a suitable configuration file,
- please read question 1 and its answer.
-
- ------------------
-
- Question 13:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~
- > VESA - what's that?
-
- First of all, the VESA we are talking about has nothing to do with the
- VESA local bus (VLB). You don't need a VLB equipped machine to be able
- to use QPV/386's VESA configurations.
- VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) is a standardized method to
- put graphics on the screen. The advantage is that it's independent from
- the VGA graphics card and its chipset, i.e. QPV/386's VESA driver works with
- all VGA cards which are 100% VESA compatible.
-
- You may be asking if your graphics card is VESA compatible. Unfortunately
- not all of them are, otherwise QPV/386 wouldn't need all those drivers and
- configuration files, and the users wouldn't need to worry about configuring
- QPV/386.
-
- Have a look at your graphics card's manual, it should mention if your card
- is VESA compatible. Many modern cards have VESA compatibility built into
- their BIOS ROM, such cards work with one of QPV/386's VESA configurations.
- You can use the VESATEST program (distributed with QPV/386) to check if there
- is any VESA support.
-
- Most cards which don't have built in VESA are shipped with a driver disk,
- containing a so-called VESA TSR (often referred to as VBE, i.e. VESA BIOS
- Extension). Simply run that program before starting QPV/386 to make your
- graphics card VESA compatible. Again, use the VESATEST utility to check
- for correct VESA support.
-
- If you don't have such a VESA TSR either, you can try to get one. For
- example, there are UNIVBE and UNIVESA. They're freeware or shareware
- programs, available at most major PD/Shareware sources. They're on many
- graphics related CD ROMs, too.
-
- There's one small problem: There are two VESA standards, an old one (1.0
- and 1.1) and a new one (1.2). The old one supports only graphics modes
- using 16 and 256 colors, the new one additionally supports hicolor (32000
- and 65000 colors) and truecolor (16 million colors). So if you have a
- graphics card capable of hicolor and/or truecolor and you wish to use
- that capabilities, you need to have VESA version 1.2. (The VESATEST utility
- displays the VESA version.)
-
- Many users think that the VESA configuration is a makeshift, and that it's
- slow and has other disadvantages. That is not true. It supports everything
- that the other configurations support, and it's not noticeable slower.
- I'm using VESATRUE.CFG myself, although my ET4000/W32 card has a dedicated
- configuration (ET400032.CFG), because my VESA BIOS offers more video modes.
-
- ------------------
-
- Question 14:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~
- > Zooming ('+' and '-' keys) doesn't work. What's wrong?
-
- First, be aware that those two keys just increase and decrease (respectively)
- the graphic resolution. For example, in 800x600 mode, pressing the '-' key
- changes to the next smaller resolution (usually 640x480), effectively zooming
- into the image (because the image appears bigger because of the lower
- resolution).
-
- Note that the number of colors does not change, i.e. QPV/386 won't switch
- from hicolor to a 256 color mode this way, for example. (This can be done
- from the directory screen only.)
-
- This leads to the following problem: Many commonly used graphics cards only
- support one truecolor resolution, namely 640x480. Thus, if an image is
- displayed in that mode, the '+' and '-' keys don't have any effect, because
- there are no truecolor modes with lower or higher resolution.
-
- The problem can be solved by not using the truecolor mode, but using hicolor
- modes instead. Then there are more resolutions available (usually 320x200,
- 640x480 and 800x600), therefore you can use the '+' and '-' keys.
- Don't worry about the image quality: You will hardly notice any difference
- because of QPV/386's advanced dithering algorithm which is applied in hicolor
- modes -- resulting in truecolor-like quality.
-
- ------------------
-
- Question 15:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~
- > Will QPV/386 support the TIFF format in the near future?
-
- No. I do have a TIFF libary, but including that in QPV/386 would enlarge
- the EXE file by about 55 Kb, which is not worth it. It even doesn't support
- all different types of TIFF files (although most of them).
-
- I recommend to avoid the TIFF format at all. It is just too complex and
- complicated, and I have yet to see a software which supports the complete
- TIFF standard. For example, the new PNG format ("ping") is much simpler
- while it covers all needs as well as TIFF does. That's my personal opinion,
- of course.
-
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-