First time RTG User

[IvanEBC]

Hi Folks.
Instead of hammering poor Lukas who created the VA2000 FPGA RTG card, i thought i might ask some of the more generic questions here. I never had GFX Cards years ago or now, so its my first experience and while things look VERY pretty, i'm struggling.

I want to ask a number of what i hope are easy answers .... so ... take a number.. better than spamming EAB with threads?
System is A4000/040/25 270mb ram/OS39 BB1+2/800x600

1. I still use Dopus 412, i've been groaned at enough and i took another look at 5, i can't cope with 5 and want to use 4, but 4 doesn't work unless i run it on the workbench screen (looks ugly and in my way - and found it crashes .. like alot.

2. If i run games or demos, they load up using only half my screen, i've set WB to 800x600 x16..... i got this VA2000CX that i believe was meant to solve this issue....I read that in order to run full screen, i need screenmode available for those lower resolutions? Like 320x200 etc, in screenmode, they are present.

3. Other than picasso96 which was part of the install, do i need other items for stuff to run correctly? One demo i got from Aminet says don't forget to use rtgmaster.library... is this something i need ALL the time and might be why i'm struggling, or just something that demo might use. And is there other important software i need to look at to make RTG a smoother experience.

Lastly, is there a good demo around that has an AGA and RTG version that i can run independently to visualise the difference?

[IvanEBC]

NOTE about Number 1. I have a bigramplus and i suspect that even though it has worked flawlessly for the past 6 months, with the VA2000, something is conflicting and causing the crash, not dopus and i can't unpack large files (10mb+) to ram cause i booted fresh and did it from shell, dopus not even loaded and it still crashed.
Can't remove bigramplus cause the system decides to hand and not boot without it now (odd behaviour)

[jayminer]

I also prefer DOpus 4 over 5 but there are newer versions of 4 than the very old 4.12, perhaps the newer ones (4.18 I think) would work better.

Does your 320x200 screenmodes show up fullscreen when you try them in the horrible horrible Picasso96Mode ?

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by IvanEBC

1. I still use Dopus 412, i've been groaned at enough and i took another look at 5, i can't cope with 5 and want to use 4, but 4 doesn't work unless i run it on the workbench screen (looks ugly and in my way - and found it crashes .. like alot.

Why don't you use 4.16? Opens on a separate screen for me. At least on native chipset…

Originally Posted by IvanEBC

2. If i run games or demos, they load up using only half my screen, i've set WB to 800x600 x16..... i got this VA2000CX that i believe was meant to solve this issue....I read that in order to run full screen, i need screenmode available for those lower resolutions? Like 320x200 etc, in screenmode, they are present.

RTG games and demos, or normal custom-chip only games?
If you're referring to RTG games, you do indeed need correct screen modes for the VA2000, and sadly you have to fight both with PicassoMode, which is one of the most user-unfriendly programs ever, and the VA2000 driver, which is a bit of a hack.

Originally Posted by IvanEBC

3. Other than picasso96 which was part of the install, do i need other items for stuff to run correctly? One demo i got from Aminet says don't forget to use rtgmaster.library... is this something i need ALL the time and might be why i'm struggling, or just something that demo might use. And is there other important software i need to look at to make RTG a smoother experience.

RTGmaster is only used for some games and demos.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by IvanEBC

1. I still use Dopus 412, i've been groaned at enough and i took another look at 5, i can't cope with 5 and want to use 4, but 4 doesn't work unless i run it on the workbench screen (looks ugly and in my way - and found it crashes .. like alot.

Have you tried mode promoting it? Download ModePro from Aminet:
http://aminet.net/package/util/cdity/ModePro

And this will let you "promote" old screens to whatever resolution you choose (in your case, a Picasso one).

I used to use ModePro a lot to promote public ECS/AGA screens to Productivity. Worked great most times.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by IvanEBC

1. I still use Dopus 412, i've been groaned at enough and i took another look at 5, i can't cope with 5 and want to use 4, but 4 doesn't work unless i run it on the workbench screen (looks ugly and in my way - and found it crashes .. like alot.
?

Dopus4 on Screen RTG It's fine, application compatibilityIs given by the system not by Dopus4.

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