Last updated on June 23rd, 2003.
Because it is very hardware dependent, some chipsets aren't as well supported as others, so results will vary greatly. Confirm with me first. However, you should get at least the usual 80x25 text mode working.
For those of you who forgot, this software is not free. You are obliged by conscience to, if you find VGATV is worth it, send me a nice colour postcard of your home town, or country, written in your language, to me. The address is on the acknowledgments page. It's surely less work than what I spend developing :-)
- 24Khz monitor option added.
- ATI support improved.
Lots of internal code changes. Legacy code reviewed and eliminated. So, if anything doesn't work properly anymore, drop me a line.
- The website has changed location. It has moved from GeoCities to my new ISP's web service. No more ads!!
- ATI RagePro XL and SiS630 support added.
- Ludovico Cavedon sent in the result of his efforts in creating an alternate AD724 circuit, complete with schematics and PCB files for Eagle PCB. Go to the hardware page and follow the link.
- Thanks for Thierry Brun for pointing out to me that the GIF for this circuit was incomplete. I've managed to find a good copy and replaced the bad one. He also volunteered to translate the article to English, so you non-French speaking lot can follow it as well.
- Due to many reasons, this project has been permanently cancelled. I won't be doing any more development. This includes bug fixing and new features. I will be available for everything else, though. It would be nice if someone else could take over, but is not up to me.
- Added a new question that some folks might ask from time to time. Also fixed the pages in the process as there was no background...
- As promised to some folks, I've just added SiS support tonight on the Windows driver. There is no DOS version for these chipsets at the moment. I'll wait until all issues are resolved with this chipset. A bunch of chipsets should already run ok (SiS has a wonderful compatibility rate) but since I don't have any card to work with, you'll be the beta-testers. A bit more on the download section.
- Seems the Windows compatibility list uploaded yesterday was not the one I had edited but the previous one. Absolute weirdness... Just reentered the data and uploaded the correct file.
- New drivers, both DOS and Windows versions uploaded.
- DOS and Windows compatibility lists updated.
I will work next on adding SiS support to the driver.
- New driver, Windows compatibility list updated.
- Mode definitions page almost complete. All that is left is some application examples as promised and I need to test the 16:9 mode to see how it looks.
- WinVGATV is now fixed. So you can download it again. There was a certain number of bugs that I found also appeared on an older version, so it wasn't anything "new". I just tested it for the first time on cards that I haven't used for a long time under Windows. The S3 cards seemed to perform well, so I didn't notice it. I still need to test quite a number of other chipsets, but for now all works as well as in DOS. You should check the Windows compatibility chart for the test results. Also the Windows software page for some notes.
- VGATV for DOS also got updated in the meantime. Got a bug fixed, something I found when testing under Windows. UMC cards only.
- WinVGASetup also needed a small fix, due to the haste I released it the other day. Nothing bad, just the Sequencer registers wouldn't appear in binary just decimal. Though it was released today, the fix is from last Thursday.
- WinVGASetup was too, but I've taken care of that and you can already download it on the development page. But the most important, WinVGATV, isn't working that well too. I seem to have fixed it, but until I post a fixed version I'm pleased with, please don't download or use WinVGATV. The current performance is not acceptable.
- A couple more mode definitions: PAL and NTSC definitions for 132 column text modes and 320 pixel modes as set when no 7Mhz clock is available (looks skinny).
- Quite a few new mode resolutions are now documented on the mode definitions page. Also NTSC is now covered.
- The new page I promised is now online. It's quite unfinished, but should already give you an idea of how it will end up. Hope it's readable enough, and useful enough!
19:06 GMT
- Site update complete. Think it's pretty solid. Only one table missing, but I'll work on that.
13:08 GMT
- I've just uploaded new versions of VGATV for DOS and for Windows. The Windows version isn't fully tested yet, so I'll be updating the compatibility list for the following days.
- I'm in the process of a major restructuring, namely of the software pages (formerly 'Download' pages) but also the hardware page, so you could hit a broken link while I'm updating stuff today. Sorry about that...
Finally GeoCities is up and running again...
- Last night I uploaded the latest version of VGATV which now includes Tseng Labs' ET4000 chip. 256 colors at least, since the card I was given only has a standard DAC. Maybe it works with more colors, maybe not. Also, ET6000 support is unknown.
Compatibility chart updated.
- Well, the code is now finally working again for the Trident cards. It seems that at some point after it was working, it got broken...
- I updated the Development page to include my unvaluable debugging tool, VGASetup, the DOS version. There's a version for each of the 7 chipsets I made it for. Should you have problems with a video mode or application on supposedly supported chipset, you'll have to use this tool to produce a file and send it to me. This is particularly useful since I don't have cards with all available chipsets out there...
I remind you that using certain applications like games, emulators, demos or other software, that reprogram the VGA chipset will not work properly with VGATV or any other VGATV-like utility. Even though sometimes the culprit might be VGATV, as it has happened in the past, I find it very hard to blame it nowadays. If something doesn't work, and it's neither the hardware nor firmware (BIOS) fault, then it's quite possibly the application itself that is reprogramming the chipset and colliding with what VGATV just did. If you can, when using problematic applications try using VESA or standard VGA modes. Today, most BIOSes support VESA 3 which supports a wide array of video modes and colours so there is no need for tweaked video modes anymore.
- The compatibility page has been somewhat reduced in size as I have removed many unusual resolutions from it, leaving only the standard more current resolutions. So, this means, as I always said, that VGATV might support (usually does) other resolutions besides the standard ones.
- Yep, after a couple of weeks without new releases, here comes a pack. 3 new chipsets are now directly supported, some bug fixes, the DOC got updated (amazing, huh?) and the compatibility list has also been updated.
-Trident cards will be dealt next. But I was told the Blade3D chipset already works quite well. I'm hoping to improve its status, though, because I haven't yet looked into its programming DOC I got some weeks ago... :-)
- Yahoo seems to also have bought eGroups. These guys are trying to buy Internet it seems. Fortunately, they cleaned up their mess, into which they turned this web site by removing the logo Yahoo off every frame (and there's a lot of them here...).
- Thanks to the people who have been sending me postcards from their places. So far, and by age, Islas Canarias, Badalona and Barcelona (Spain), Budapest (Hungary), Atlanta and Marietta (Georgia, USA). And others are coming in, I'm told. Most people have been sending more than one card, which is way cool too! But don't feel obliged to do it, though. One is enough, if you can't afford more. Thanks again!
- ...since this site was born. Great it's still going, and I think, going well. Thanks to all who have supported me and helped kept me and the project going.
- In order to keep the momentum, I've also made a small update on the driver for which you can see the details on the usual place.
- Just added today (well, yesterday, its 01:00 in the morning...) driver support for the Cirrus GD54xx line of cards. You know where to get it.
- As you can see, GeoCities/Yahoo pretty much screwed up the site aesthetics. There's "Yahoo" written all over the place...Nice going.
- Compatibility page upgraded to a full HTML page.