Can we make a new parhelia win9x driver?

[Kuriton]

Hi everyone.

As you know, currently, there is no parhelia driver for windows9x series.
And Matrox said that there is no plan for windows9x driver.

Well, can we, general people make a new parhelia driver for win9x?
Maybe impossible?

I think if a win9x driver is made, many people are happy.

But I don't know how to make drivers, I only know C language a little.

Thanks.

[thop]

Simple answer is no. Is that your beta Parhelia in the picture?

[Peter Aragon]

hmm, windows 98..... oh yeah, I remember, it had blue screens, right?

[magician]

It had ability to directly access hardware also. => Faster, cheaper and more reasonable driver development. Although you can argue about last one.

[Kuriton]

@thop

Oh, I am sorry for the news.
Yes, the picture shows my remodeled parhelia.

@Peter Aragon

What's blue screen?
Some of software runs on winXP, but the other only still runs on win9x nowadays.
So there maybe many people want to use win9x.

@magician

Yeah. I think so.
But matrox have given up the plan for win9x supporting.
If the win9x driver is developed, Matrox gets more share in graphic card market.



The picture shows parhelia driver files.

There are many .dll, Dynamic Link Library files.
Do you know how to edit them?
And are there anybody knows how to make a driver?

I had better not ask Haig about this thing,do I?
If I ask him, he isn't going to feel good.

[Haig]

I had better not ask Haig about this thing,do I? If I ask him, he isn't going to feel good.

Don't worry about my feelings

I won't be able to comment on anything like this though.

[a_h]

I'm sorry to trash your hopes, but a driver is more than just hacking w2k/xp dlls.

w2k/xp are using a different device driver structure means they use a different way to talk to the hardware when compared to win9x.

Maybe it doesn't look like this, but win9x is the heritage of win95 (16bit os, partially 32bit, means dos+gui), whereas w2k/xp are derived vom win nt which was fully 32bit and is basically different (memory managment/device managment and more) from the win9x's (that explains why most games didn't work with nt).

So - in this case - if it was so simple, Matrox would have already done it.

What I don't understand is, why they didn't release the beta-win9x-driver they claimed they had?

[Kuriton]

Oh, Haig!

Did you read?
Please, do your best for supporting parhelia on winXP forever
In addition, put on your mind VertexShader2.0 ;D

@a_h

Yeah, although winXP is 32bit os, win9x is 16bit os with real mode DOS(except Me).
Perhaps, win9x series have used .vxd files as drivers?
Because supporting ability focus on winXP/2000, Matrox stop supporting on win9x?

When we make a driver for win9x, do we need Matrox's secret information of parhelia?
If it is yes, I'm in trouble.

I might have to read some books to know driver programming.

[Peter Aragon]

I wonder why you specifically need a Parhelia for Windows 98? You could get a G200/400/450/550 or some nvidia or ATI card that still support it?
Any reason?

btw: Windows 98 and even 95 are (for the most part) 32 bit, Windows 3.11 was 16 bit, and even Windows ME was real mode DOS

[a_h]

@Kuriton:

Sure you need secret hardware infos/specs. In some way gpu programming is like assembly programming: pushing values through the stack, doing various operations on them. These operations are done by hardware calls, means you hand the values over to the hardware and the hardware returns them modified.

Which functions exist in hardware and how to call them is usually a secret.

What do you exactly mean with "driver"? A driver offers various interfaces like directx, opengl and more. That's not a trivial task even if you have the specs.

If you badly want a w9x driver, ask for the beta driver. Or better, ask others to mail the devrels too.

I don't know how many people currently work on the xp-driver - not many I fear - so there are only very little ressources to spare, therefore I can understand that matrox thinks they're better off by concentrating on these oses, whereas only few people are left that hope for a w9x-driver.

[Kuriton]

Hi.

I found a interesting software.

http://www.xlsoft.com/en/products/development/windriver-e/windriver.html

It is the software to make drivers for win.
Fortunately, we, even general people can get the try edition of the "windriver".

What do you think about this product?

@Peter Aragon

Yes, I have a G550, but, I want to use parhelia if possible.

@a_h

Yes. To make drivers is very difficult for me.
I know that.

But I want to know the reason matrox canceled the win9x plan.
So I want to know more about win9x driver.

[Zanna]

... and don't forget that for some people, like me, the Win98 driver lack was the ultimate excuse blocking the upgrade from g400Max (I have the Max, a very good card..) to a Parhelia or Millennium-P



I think Matrox would not expose all hardware details externally releasing the parhelia specs... this people don't want that the developer community enable the secret "render subject nude" tecnology, (it was implemented the first time on the Matrox Ralph© experimental borad )....

[a_h]

@Kuriton:

I regret, but this windriver-IDE seems to be useful for rather simple hardware, like some controller ics or something like that. Or for self-built electronics.

You seem to be very excited about writing a P-driver! If you really want to start, I wish you good luck!

PS: for what purposes do you want to write the driver?

[Mikko]

You will need more than just the drivers for controlling all the features of Parhelia.
You'll have to convert PowerDesk software also, witch is using Microsoft .NET Framework application...

[High_Jumbllama]

Parhelia's and P-Series are professional cards. There is no reason to support Win9X.

Why go back anyways? 95 was an advance over 3.1, 98 was more stable with better hardware support. ME which everyone agress was a festering pile of crap!

2K was not perfect but after DX8 and SP2 could actually be considered a good if not great all around system. XP well the opinion zealots all disagree but it is very fast and stable due in some part at least to getting rid of all the festering legacy crap. Win98se was fast and I myself kept it for far too long , but I gave it up for 2K. I had my 98se system tweaked to be very stable. Besides some crappy games that I ran, it was very, very stable. 2K could even handle those games.