From: Christoph Egger <Christoph_Egger@t-online.de>
  To  : Matthew Vanecek <mev0003@unt.edu>
  Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 23:04:36 +0200 (MEST)

Re: Documentation, and getting SVGALib to work...

On Mon, 5 Apr 1999, Matthew Vanecek wrote:

> On  5 Apr, Christoph Egger spewed forth:
> :: 
> :: 
> :: On Mon, 5 Apr 1999, Matthew Vanecek wrote:
> :: 
> :: > Hello, I have a couple of questions.
> :: > I've got an SiS 6326 AGP/8M video card.
> :: > I'm trying to get SVGALib (specifically, Quake ;) ), to work
> :: > w/framebuffers, using the libggi as a wrapper.  The README said to set
> :: > various environment variables, but I can't find a list of acceptable
> :: > values for the environment variables.
> :: > 
> :: > I've got libggi, libgii, and svgalib4ggi installed (latest versions). 
> :: > When I start Quake, the screen is all scrambled. 
> :: > 
> :: > Are there any limitations on the framebuffer screen resolution/depth
> :: > when running svgalib programs wrapped with libggi? Also, besides the
> :: > environment variables, is there any configuration that needs to be done
> :: > (e.g., the .conf files, etc)?
> :: 
> :: Quake2 works fine for me. Did you try quake in any other
> :: resolution than 320x200? Svgalib versions of Quake* doesn't support
> :: linear addressing, which means that we have to emulate a banked mode
> :: with 64k banks when resolution is higher than 320x200. And as the
> :: lowest resolution in Quake II is 320x240...
> :: 
> :: To make this emulation work you should do what the README says:
> :: 
> ::         Always set GSW_ASYNC (to anything but "mouse"), GSW_PAGEEMU,
> ::         GSW_MODEEMU and GSW_DB.
> ::         Setting GSW_BUT2KEY does not hurt even if your mouse has less than
> ::         four buttons.
> ::         GSW_WIDTH shold _NOT_ be used when GSW_PAGEEMU and GSW_MODEEMU is
> :: set.
> :: 
> :: Unfortunatately the emulation means that the screen data has to be
> :: copied one extra time, so you might notice a decrease in framerate
> :: (compared to running directly on normal SVGAlib) when you run in more
> :: than 320x200.
> :: 
> :: Christoph Egger
> :: E-Mail: Christoph_Egger@t-online.de
> 
> 
> Not too worried about the framerate right now.  However, I still don't
> know what to set the environment variables to.  e.g. "export
> GSW_ASYNC=<what?>".  It's not in the documents, all it says is to set
> them. But to what?? Not 'mouse' is all I know right now.  Do we set
> them to '1' or to 'keyboard'?  As I said in the second part of my
> question, there isn't any documentation that I found which specifies
> exactly what the acceptable values are for the environment variables.
>
I have written a short bash-script, which do the right things
automatically. Here is it:

#!/bin/sh

GSW_ASYNC=1 GSW_PAGEEMU=1 GSW_DB=1 ./quake2

Yes, that's all. Copy it into the directory you have installed quake2. It
runs fine for me. Go on!

Christoph Egger
E-Mail: Christoph_Egger@t-online.de