Some weeks (months?) ago there was a thread about running under xp. I didn't pay much attention to it as I didn't have xp running on any of my machines. Now I do, and I've got fractint running on an xp installation. If it all got figured out, fine; if not, you can contact me privately and I'll be glad to tell you what I did. I looked for fractint archives, but failed to find them. Do they exist? jerome
Jerome,
Some weeks (months?) ago there was a thread about running under xp. I didn't pay much attention to it as I didn't have xp running on any of my machines. Now I do, and I've got fractint running on an xp installation.
If it all got figured out, fine; if not, you can contact me privately and I'll be glad to tell you what I did.
It wasn't figured out. I think there is enough interest for you to post the information here.
I looked for fractint archives, but failed to find them. Do they exist?
Look at: http://www.xmission.com/pub/lists/fractint/archive/ Jonathan
Jonathan Osuch wrote:
Jerome,
[...]
It wasn't figured out. I think there is enough interest for you to post the information here.
I looked for fractint archives, but failed to find them. Do they exist?
Look at: http://www.xmission.com/pub/lists/fractint/archive/
Jonathan
Dear List... Here's what I did. I realize it is kind of a kludge, but it does work, and so do several other old DOS programmes that I checked. 1. Get ahold of something that will let you resize the XP partition. I used PartitionMagic - PM7.0. Earlier versions won't work on an ntfs. 2. I reduced the xp partition by somewhat less than 1gb and created a fat 16 partition of about one gig. 3. I formatted the fat 16 partition with a windows 98 using a windows 98 startup disk and then used 'sys' to get the system files onto the partition. My hope was to boot this partition but I haven't been able to do that yet. 4. Once you have the fat partition running, you will notice that the XP file system can see the fat partition no problem, and can operate on it as if it was part of XP. So, XP is on the 'C' drive, and fat16 is the 'D' drive. 5. Put fractint on the 'D' drive and after bringing up XP, just double click on fractint.exe from 'my computer'. And away you go. I'm not a power user of fractint, but whatever I tried seemed to work ok. I sense that laying down a fat partition is cheating, but it does the job. You can also boot from a windows 98 startup disk, and run as well. Then though, your fat partition will be drive 'C' and you won't be able to see any of XP. Hope this helps and is not too trivial. jerome
Jerome wrote:
I'm not a power user of fractint, but whatever I tried seemed to work ok. I sense that laying down a fat partition is cheating, but it does the job. You can also boot from a windows 98 startup disk, and run as well. Then though, your fat partition will be drive 'C' and you won't be able to see any of XP.
Hope this helps and is not too trivial.
I would have thought the problem was with the video drivers. What kinds of video modes can you use? Jonathan
Jonathan Osuch wrote:
[...]
I would have thought the problem was with the video drivers. What kinds of video modes can you use?
Jonathan
You are correct. The following modes work for me: f2, f3, f4, f6, f7, f10, sf1, cf4, cf6, and all the IBM register compatable modes. The best of which is 400x600/256 colours. jerome
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: fractint-admin@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:fractint- admin@mailman.xmission.com] Namens Jonathan Osuch Verzonden: zaterdag 5 januari 2002 19:43 Aan: fractint@mailman.xmission.com Onderwerp: Re: [Fractint] fractint and xp
Jerome wrote:
I'm not a power user of fractint, but whatever I tried seemed to work ok. I sense that laying down a fat partition is cheating, but it does the job. You can also boot from a windows 98 startup disk, and run as well. Then though, your fat partition will be drive 'C' and you won't be able to see any of XP.
Hope this helps and is not too trivial.
I would have thought the problem was with the video drivers. What kinds of video modes can you use?
Jonathan
I recently installed XP. My video card is: ATI Rage 128 GL AGP. It worked fine for use with FRACTINT under Windows98 and WindowsME, 1024*786 256 color VEGA mode. In WindowsXP it is not possible for me to use Fractint anymore. The utility makefcfg returns no videomode, only when using option 16 a number of videomodes are entered, all with 1024*786 16 colors, but for all of them Fractint refuses to run. Also for all video modes in the old fractint.cfg made under W98 and WindowsME result in: "that video mode is not available with your adapter". I tried to install the original ATI driver but it is not accepted by XP because "it is not designed for XP". Has anybody suggestions to resolve this problem? Paul
On 5 Jan 02 at 21:29, Paul Kloeg wrote:
I recently installed XP. My video card is: ATI Rage 128 GL AGP. It worked fine for use with FRACTINT under Windows98 and WindowsME, 1024*786 256 color VEGA mode.
In WindowsXP it is not possible for me to use Fractint anymore. The utility makefcfg returns no videomode, only when using option 16 a number of videomodes are entered, all with 1024*786 16 colors, but for all of them Fractint refuses to run. Also for all video modes in the old fractint.cfg made under W98 and WindowsME result in: "that video mode is not available with your adapter". I tried to install the original ATI driver but it is not accepted by XP because "it is not designed for XP". Has anybody suggestions to resolve this problem?
Dump WindowsXP. WindowsXP, like its ancestors NT and Windows2000, doesn't allow applications direct access to hardware, such as the video card registers Fractint needs to enable video modes that MS decided in its infinite-pursuit-of-monopoly wisdom are not available. Does running Fractint full screen make a difference? David gnome@hawaii.rr.com
At 18:42 04/01/02 -0800, you wrote:
Some weeks (months?) ago there was a thread about running under xp. I didn't pay much attention to it as I didn't have xp running on any of my machines. Now I do, and I've got fractint running on an xp installation.
If it all got figured out, fine; if not, you can contact me privately and I'll be glad to tell you what I did.
I looked for fractint archives, but failed to find them. Do they exist?
jerome
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Hi Jerome, if you mean this: ** 1. email *************************************** At 16:39 28/10/01 -0500, you wrote:
Is it possible? I've been unsuccessful so far. I still have a win 98 partition I can boot with, but don't need it for anything else anymore.
Anyone?
but Fractint don't run very fast under Win XP, I must push [Enter] when generating a fractal, then it run fast for c. 10 lines and slow down until the next [Enter] get pushed... cheers, Guy
** 2. email **************************** At 10:12 30/10/01 -0600, you wrote:
David Jones wrote:
Guy Marson wrote:
...I must push [Enter] when generating a fractal...
Sounds like WXP is giving it some clock time, then reacting to Fractint which maybe appears to be idle because it's polling for keyboard input and not getting any.
In what manner are you running FractInt under XP?? 1. From the START | RUN selection.
yeah..
2. From an icon shortcut on the Desktop.
no..
3. From a PIF link to the program.
no..
Have you checked the Properties if running from a link or icon?? If it is like the Win-95 and 98, then you may have settings you can adjust, such as "Idle Sensitivity" (which should be at Low).
Thanks, I'll try this and tell you about the results..
Sincerely, P.N.L. -------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.fractalus.com/cgi-bin/theway?ring=fractals&id=43&go
cheers, Guy **************************** I was for about 6 weeks in Australia. In the meantime I had no time to resolve my Fractint problem not running properly on Windows XP, but the problem is still the same (see email #1). Cheers, Guy
Why would anyone want to migrate to XP in the first place? Geesh! Maybe by the time MS releases Service Pack 9 or 10 XP sometime around 2005, XP might actuaslly work properly! I agree we all get eventually pushed into the next level of "progress" whether we like it or not. Hey there's still always Linux! ;) BTW did any of you guys read all the recent trade reviews re: comparing Win2000 perfomance versus Win XP, and XP lost badly across the board! Even the MicroSoft Corporate Hacks had to grudgingly admit that Win2000 still rules! I noticed some old archive mail-list traffict about Fractint on WinNT. Has anybody gotten Fractint to run on Win2000. Now that's a worthwhile topic for discussion and examination! I have moved alot of my capability to a Win2000 Workstation and a Win2000. All my older Windows and Dos stuff still reside on my venerable Win98 Box. There is no way I would ever move to ME and I still see no legitimate reason to move to XP yet. The only upgrade that I'm considering is to change the motherboard on my Win98 box from an aging PII-450 to a P4-1.5/6Gighz with 1+ Gig of Ram and upgrade the ATX power supply to 400 Watts. I suspect that thusly upgraded there will be no present reason to move from Win98 to XP-Kludge..... All the best, TG
Tony: good question about getting fractint to run under Win2000. The best I can get in 256 color is SF1 480 x 360 which is unacceptable. The problem is fractint only supports video drivers for those old VESA boards. AGP and PCI boards are not supported. I'm going to try to set up a FAT16 partition on my D drive, as was suggested earlier. I don't think that will work either as WIN2000 will not allow access to hardware registers needed for Int10h, as David pointed out earlier. Oh well. I'll let you know if by some miracle it works. --Ken Tony Parker wrote:
Why would anyone want to migrate to XP in the first place? Geesh!
Maybe by the time MS releases Service Pack 9 or 10 XP sometime around 2005, XP might actuaslly work properly!
I agree we all get eventually pushed into the next level of "progress" whether we like it or not. Hey there's still always Linux! ;)
BTW did any of you guys read all the recent trade reviews re: comparing Win2000 perfomance versus Win XP, and XP lost badly across the board! Even the MicroSoft Corporate Hacks had to grudgingly admit that Win2000 still rules!
I noticed some old archive mail-list traffict about Fractint on WinNT. Has anybody gotten Fractint to run on Win2000. Now that's a worthwhile topic for discussion and examination!
I have moved alot of my capability to a Win2000 Workstation and a Win2000. All my older Windows and Dos stuff still reside on my venerable Win98 Box. There is no way I would ever move to ME and I still see no legitimate reason to move to XP yet.
The only upgrade that I'm considering is to change the motherboard on my Win98 box from an aging PII-450 to a P4-1.5/6Gighz with 1+ Gig of Ram and upgrade the ATX power supply to 400 Watts. I suspect that thusly upgraded there will be no present reason to move from Win98 to XP-Kludge.....
All the best,
TG
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Ken, - The problem is fractint only supports video drivers for those old VESA - boards. AGP and PCI boards are not supported. More specifically, FractInt either needs direct knowledge of hardware or it needs a VESA interface to the hardware so that it can select modes. For the oldest group of cards, FractInt generally just programmed the hardware itself to whatever mode was required. Slightly newer cards provided the VESA interface in the BIOS, so programs could select video modes without knowing the details of the hardware. This was how FractInt was able to work with large numbers of graphics cards. Unfortunately for FractInt, VESA support in the BIOS faded into disuse when DirectX became more popular. Game developers--the last major group of programmers still wanting direct access to hardware--could move to Windows and theoretically simplify their development efforts. It isn't so much that FractInt doesn't support AGP and PCI cards; it's more than those newer cards no longer provide the VESA interface that FractInt needs to talk to them. Many cards provided only basic VESA support but even that is disappearing from new video cards. With Windows NT/2000/XP it gets even worse. As part of the need to enforce security within the operating system, only privileged programs (drivers) are allowed to access the hardware directly; other programs are prohibited. If a program wants to directly access the hardware, the operating system has to emulate it--it has to fake out the program, so the program thinks it's accessing the hardware, but it's really talking to the OS. This is slow and it requires substantial development in the OS. Microsoft would happily let this portion of the OS go away, because they want people to move to modern apps which don't do uncouth (in their mind) things like bang on the hardware directly. Windows emulated some VESA modes but they didn't always work right. I've not messed with XP to see how much support is there but I wouldn't expect much. Damien M. Jones \\ dmj@fractalus.com \\ Fractalus Galleries & Info: \\ http://www.fractalus.com/ Please do not post my e-mail address on a web site or in a newsgroup. Thank you.
"Damien M. Jones" wrote: Unfortunately for FractInt, VESA support in the BIOS faded into disuse when DirectX became more popular. Game developers--the last major group of programmers still wanting direct access to hardware--could move to Windows and theoretically simplify their development efforts. It isn't so much that FractInt doesn't support AGP and PCI cards; it's more than those newer cards no longer provide the VESA interface that FractInt needs to talk to them. Many cards provided only basic VESA support but even that is disappearing from new video cards. Right! Your explanation is more accurate. BTW, I tried formatting a FAT16 partition under Win2000 (which can be done without Partition Magic, just go to control panel -administrative tools-computer management-disk management) and running fractint, but of course it didn't work any better, for the reasons you have just explained. I got 564 x 400 video mode (IBM Register Comnpatible) by tweaking up my monitor to 100 HZ, but then the flicker was so bad it hurt my eyes. Oh well, at least I found out how to partition my hard disks under Win2000. -- Ken
I think we ought to change the name of this thread to Frantint & Win2000! I installed my Visontek nVidia TNT2 32Meg Video Card, and ran Fractint a few times in a dos box, it worked fine with some of the Fractint low-res Vesa vanilla ibm settings, I knew that some of the Vesa registers were being accessed by Fractint. Then I ran makefcfg a few times. Here's the interesting point! Half the time makefcfg reported an error message that it couldn't see any vesa registers etc.... BUT the other half of the time it found them. So the problem getting the proper vesa register addresses is an intermittent one! Maybe the problem has something to do with the way makefcfg.exe runs in Win2000. I then hacked and tweaked and edited the fractint.cfg and fractcfg.cfg files to also include some dos video save mode parameters. Fractint runs fast and snappy in Win2000 and even complicated files run fast. The dos save mode is still a little slow side. I made a Dos box the same way I did in Win98. From explorer highlight and right click fractint.exe, then select thwe "make shortcut" option. Right click the shortcut and go into properties and modify memory, screen, program, & window settings to suit, just like in Win95/98. I like to hea some opinions on the most optimal memory management for a Fractint Dos Box in Win2000? All the best, TG ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken MacLean" <kmaclean@ic.net> To: <fractint@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 4:49 PM Subject: Re: [Fractint] fractint and xp
"Damien M. Jones" wrote:
Unfortunately for FractInt, VESA support in the BIOS faded into disuse when DirectX became more popular. Game developers--the last major group of programmers still wanting direct access to hardware--could move to Windows and theoretically simplify their development efforts. It isn't so much that FractInt doesn't support AGP and PCI cards; it's more than those newer cards no longer provide the VESA interface that FractInt needs to talk to them. Many cards provided only basic VESA support but even that is disappearing from new video cards.
Right! Your explanation is more accurate. BTW, I tried formatting a FAT16 partition under Win2000 (which can be done without Partition Magic, just go to control panel -administrative tools-computer management-disk management) and running fractint, but of course it didn't work any better, for the reasons you have just explained. I got 564 x 400 video mode (IBM Register Comnpatible) by tweaking up my monitor to 100 HZ, but then the flicker was so bad it hurt my eyes. Oh well, at least I found out how to partition my hard disks under Win2000. -- Ken
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On 6 Jan 02 at 13:22, Ken MacLean wrote:
Tony: good question about getting fractint to run under Win2000. The best I can get in 256 color is SF1 480 x 360 which is unacceptable. The problem is fractint only supports video drivers for those old VESA boards.
Has nothing to do with video drivers. Fractint is just reading and writing the video control registers directly, which is a no-no under the WindowsNT-based OSes, Linux/Unix, and most of what are sometimes called "real" operating systems. FWIW, Fractint works fun under OS/2, but OS/2 allows DOS programs to directly access the hardware.
AGP and PCI boards are not supported.
Not true. I have Fractint working fine at my usual 1024x768x256 resolutions on the Duron boxes' PCI Voodoo3 card.
I'm going to try to set up a FAT16 partition on my D drive, as was suggested earlier.
If you're going that far, shuffle your partitions around to put the DOS partition first, make it active, boot to it, format and install plain old DOS on it, and run Fractint under DOS. You'll see much faster rendering times, I'm sure!
I don't think that will work either as WIN2000 will not allow access to hardware registers needed for Int10h, as David pointed out earlier. Oh well. I'll let you know if by some miracle it works. --Ken
Tony Parker wrote:
Why would anyone want to migrate to XP in the first place? Geesh!
Maybe by the time MS releases Service Pack 9 or 10 XP sometime around 2005, XP might actuaslly work properly!
I agree we all get eventually pushed into the next level of "progress" whether we like it or not. Hey there's still always Linux! ;)
BTW did any of you guys read all the recent trade reviews re: comparing Win2000 perfomance versus Win XP, and XP lost badly across the board! Even the MicroSoft Corporate Hacks had to grudgingly admit that Win2000 still rules!
I noticed some old archive mail-list traffict about Fractint on WinNT. Has anybody gotten Fractint to run on Win2000. Now that's a worthwhile topic for discussion and examination!
I have moved alot of my capability to a Win2000 Workstation and a Win2000. All my older Windows and Dos stuff still reside on my venerable Win98 Box. There is no way I would ever move to ME and I still see no legitimate reason to move to XP yet.
The only upgrade that I'm considering is to change the motherboard on my Win98 box from an aging PII-450 to a P4-1.5/6Gighz with 1+ Gig of Ram and upgrade the ATX power supply to 400 Watts. I suspect that thusly upgraded there will be no present reason to move from Win98 to XP-Kludge.....
David Jones wrote:
AGP and PCI boards are not supported.
Not true. I have Fractint working fine at my usual 1024x768x256 resolutions on the Duron boxes' PCI Voodoo3 card.
How did you do it?? I have a Voodoo3 PCI card, running on an ASUS P5A motherboard, but no such luck!
I'm going to try to set up a FAT16 partition on my D drive, as was suggested earlier.
If you're going that far, shuffle your partitions around to put the DOS partition first, make it active, boot to it, format and install plain old DOS on it, and run Fractint under DOS. You'll see much faster rendering times, I'm sure!
Right, I'll try that. Thanks! --Ken
I am running a Voodoo 3 card on a home brew pentium III box running Win98. I have no trouble with 1280x1024x256 in a DOS windo for Fractint. I didn't do anthing special that I know of. Ron Barnett -----Original Message----- From: fractint-admin@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:fractint-admin@mailman.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Ken MacLean Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 4:54 PM To: fractint@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [Fractint] fractint and xp David Jones wrote:
AGP and PCI boards are not supported.
Not true. I have Fractint working fine at my usual 1024x768x256 resolutions on the Duron boxes' PCI Voodoo3 card.
How did you do it?? I have a Voodoo3 PCI card, running on an ASUS P5A motherboard, but no such luck!
I'm going to try to set up a FAT16 partition on my D drive, as was suggested earlier.
If you're going that far, shuffle your partitions around to put the DOS partition first, make it active, boot to it, format and install plain old DOS on it, and run Fractint under DOS. You'll see much faster rendering times, I'm sure!
Right, I'll try that. Thanks! --Ken _______________________________________________ Fractint mailing list Fractint@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fractint
On 7 Jan 02 at 16:53, Ken MacLean wrote:
David Jones wrote:
AGP and PCI boards are not supported.
Not true. I have Fractint working fine at my usual 1024x768x256 resolutions on the Duron boxes' PCI Voodoo3 card.
How did you do it??
Hmmm, before we go further - I run Fractint under OS/2. Fractint and W95 don't get along for me on the Tower (Elsa GLoria Synergy PCI card) - Fractint and W95 fight over the display and freeze. The Duron box, my main Fractint system now, runs the Voodoo3 card, but it's running OS/2 also, since Windows won't install on it.
I have a Voodoo3 PCI card, running on an ASUS P5A motherboard, but no such luck!
In OS/2, just set up a program object, and make sure to run Fractint in full screen mode. Sorry, can't help getting it working under Windows with the Voodoo3-based card.
I'm going to try to set up a FAT16 partition on my D drive, as was suggested earlier.
If you're going that far, shuffle your partitions around to put the DOS partition first, make it active, boot to it, format and install plain old DOS on it, and run Fractint under DOS. You'll see much faster rendering times, I'm sure!
Right, I'll try that. Thanks!
Of course, your system will *only* be running DOS when you run Fractint, since you'll have to boot to DOS. Under OS/2, I can start a DOS session thatg boots a real DOS image, instead of the emulated DOS that OS/2 and its stepchildren Windows provide. David gnome@hawaii.rr.com
At 23:35 05/01/2002 -0500, Tony Parker wrote:
I noticed some old archive mail-list traffict about Fractint on WinNT. Has anybody gotten Fractint to run on Win2000. Now that's a worthwhile topic for discussion and examination!
Well, I've had no trouble running Fractint on Win2000 at at 1024x768 and above on every Win2000 box I've installed it on. About the only apparently relevant feature the machines had in common would be that they both had NVidia Geforce cards. Really no problem. unpacked the zip into the NTFS C: partition, and run the executable. I think I even got useful output from makefcfg, though that might have been an hallucination. Morgan L. Owens "Did they call it the Hardware Abstraction Layer on purpose to be one step ahead of IBM?"
I am glad to hear that someone out there is using Win2000 with Fractint! I really did not want to have to move to XP or ME. Following your example I just loaded Fractint onto my Win2000 Box.... Fractint loads and runs fine and FAST! on Win2000. Fractint ran fine on the lower res vanilla video settings... Neither makefcfg.exe nor vesa2cfg could not locate any vesa addresses on my ATI Radeon. I am also starting to think the problem is the card not the OS. My ATI Radeon Card doesn't work well with Fractitnt whether I'm in Win98 or Win2000. So I'm also beginning to agree that the problem could be how the individual card deals with VESA register settings...... Luckily I have an Nvideo TNT card that I was saving for a rainy day... I also have some "older" video cards that ran Fractint just fine on my old Pentium 100 and 486 on Win95, Win31x, and Dos years ago. Exactly which 32 Meg Nvideo G-Force card did you use on your Win2000 rig? The trick is to find the optimal AGP Video card that reads all the VESA registers, and also runs great with all the new bells and whistles, so I can run UF and my Windows based Hi-Res Photo/Image-Editing Software. I have UF and all my Large Format Printing Rip Software running on my Win2000 Box. If I can get Fractint to also run on it as well, I'll be a real happy camper.... I'll install the Nvideo TNT Card later on today and let you all know how it worked. All the best! TG ----- Original Message ----- From: "Morgan L. Owens" <packrat@nznet.gen.nz> To: <fractint@mailman.xmission.com>; <fractint@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 2:01 AM Subject: Re: [Fractint] fractint and xp
At 23:35 05/01/2002 -0500, Tony Parker wrote:
I noticed some old archive mail-list traffict about Fractint on WinNT. Has anybody gotten Fractint to run on Win2000. Now that's a worthwhile topic for discussion and examination!
Well, I've had no trouble running Fractint on Win2000 at at 1024x768 and above on every Win2000 box I've installed it on. About the only apparently relevant feature the machines had in common would be that they both had NVidia Geforce cards.
Really no problem. unpacked the zip into the NTFS C: partition, and run the executable. I think I even got useful output from makefcfg, though that might have been an hallucination.
Morgan L. Owens "Did they call it the Hardware Abstraction Layer on purpose to be one step ahead of IBM?"
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participants (10)
-
Damien M. Jones -
David Jones -
fractals＠hiddendimension.com -
Guy Marson -
jerome schatten -
Jonathan Osuch -
Ken MacLean -
Morgan L. Owens -
Paul Kloeg -
Tony Parker