DISCLAIMER - ALL OR PART OF THIS INFORMATION MAY BE THE PERSONAL RANTINGS OF A MAD LUNATIC. IT SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH. USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK. DON'T BELIEVE ANY OF IT. ALWAYS CHECK WITH OTHER SOURCES OF (DIS?)INFORMATION BEFORE FORMING YOUR OWN PERSONAL OPINION. ============================================================================ QUESTION: WHY DOESN'T THE MPEG PLAYER SUPPORT SOUND ANSWER: MPEG Audio like MPEG Video is heavly compressed. Because of this it requires a large amount of CPU in-order to decode it in real time. A 486DX/33 can just decode (fully!) MPEG audio in real time. Besides the computational load involved in decoding MPEG audio there is also the overhead in syncronizing them properly. I believe that a 486DX2/66 may just be capable of decoding 160x120 sized mpegs at 10fps with sound. I have written some audio code but it is a low priority for me. Read the "IS FULL MPEG SOFTWARE DECODING POSSIABLE" section ============================================================================= QUESTION: WHAT IS WIN32S ANSWER: Win32s is the Microsoft Windows 32 bit extender. It lets you run several NT programs as well as the MPEG player. The lastest version of Mosaic requires it to be installed. Win32s programs will be supported in Windows 95. You can find Win32s on ftp.ecel.uwa.edu.au in /users/michael The lastest version is on ftp.microsoft.com in /developer/devtools/win32sdk Version 1.65 of the MPEG Player Requires the lastest Win32s. If you already have an old copy of Win32s on your machine you should upgrade it. ============================================================================= QUESTION: WHAT IS WING ANSWER: WinG is a fast DIB library that is designed to allow programmers to transfer images to the screen as fast as is possiable under windows. More information on WinG can be found on ftp.microsoft.com in /developer/drg/wing WinG will be a part of Windows95 (dumb name if you ask me) the next version of Windows. WinDoom the Windows version of DOOM uses the WinG Library. Look to the end of this file for known bugs, gotchas, and helpful hints for the WinG library. If you can't get the WinG version to work email me and use the Non-WinG version. ============================================================================ QUESTION: THE MPEG PLAYER IS EXTREMLY SLOW AND DISPLAYING HORRIABLE COLORS ANSWER: Check that your video card is in a 256 color mode and not a 16 color mode. ============================================================================ QUESTION: WHEN I RUN THE MPEG PLAYER SETUP IT FALLS OVER WITH AN INCORRECT FILE SIZE FOR README.TXT ANSWER: Make sure you unzip disk1.zip into a clean(empty) directory and install it from there. I will be renaming the uncompressed versions of readme.txt to readmee.txt. ============================================================================= QUESTION: I HAVE AN S3 GRAPHICS CARD THAT DOES NOT SEEM TO WORK WITH THE LATEST WIN32S ANSWER: There is a known conflict between win32s v1.15a and some S3 video drivers. Try and obtain updated video drivers. A discussion of this problem was/has been going on in comp.os.ms-windows.nt ============================================================================= QUESTION: I SELECT "USE WING" BUT WHEN I HIT PLAY THE "USE WING" UNTICKS IT SELF ANSWER: WinG only supports 256 colour DIB's under Windows 3.1 and 3.11. This means that WinG does not work with the Mono,Mono Threshold, HiColor and Full Color dithering options. ============================================================================ QUESTION: THE HICOLOR DITHERER DOES NOT WORK! ANSWER: The HiColor dither requires the display driver to support 16bit DIBS. Not many drivers do this at this time. Note - Under NT the GDI will translate the 16 bit DIB to the current display mode if the driver does not support them. This is how I know that the HiColor Dither is working correctly. If your video driver supports 16 bit DIBs please email me. ============================================================================= QUESTION: THE DISPLAY APPEARS BROKEN UP. ANSWER: This can occur if Win32s does not know how to hand the DIB's on to the display driver. With the Lastest version of Win32s (V1.15a) this should only affect the HiColor Ditherer. Try Selecting "Tranfer Small Dibs" with WinG turned off. ============================================================================= QUESTION: WHAT LEVEL OF SUPPORT CAN I EXPECT IF I REGISTER. ANSWER: I work on the MPEG Player in my own free time. If you send me a bug report I will definatly look at the problem but I can not garranty bug fix times. At the moment very very few bugs with the actual player have been reported. Most are due to compatability problems between Win32s/WinG and display drivers. If you find a bug which is not mentioned in this file and manage to fix it yourself Please email me the details. ============================================================================ QUESTION: HOW DO I CONVERT AVI FILE TO MPEGS AND VISA-VERSA ANSWER: (1) Load the AVI into the Video for Windows VIDEDIT program (comes on the Video for Windows CD) (2) Export the AVI as a DIB sequence. (3) Convert (and possiably scale) the DIB'S to .PPM files. There are shareware/freeware programs to do this. Alchemy is one. (4) use the mpeg2enc.exe file from ftp.netcomm.com in /users/cfogg/mpeg2 to turn the .ppm files into a .mpg. Make sure you use the mpeg1.par file as a template. To go the other way. (1) use the mpeg2dec.exe file from the same site as mpeg2enc.exe to extract the MPEG frames to a whole lot of .TGA files. (2) Convert the TGA files to .BMP (or .DIB) (3) Import the .DIB sequence into VIDEDIT I have done things like extracting sequences from the CDI movie "StarTrek VI" and re-encoding them as a 160x120 MPEG sequence. ============================================================================= QUESTION: WHICH IS BETTER AVI/QUICKTIME OR MPEG ANSWER: This is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. Both are fruit but each one has its own flavor. AVI and QUICKTIME are better algorithms for software decoding and are much better suited to video editing. MPEG is designed for hardware play back, gives greater compression with better quality. MPEG is a professional encoding algorithm designed for consumer applications. Digital Cable/Satalite HDTV is an example. ============================================================================= QUESTION: WHY IS MPEG USED ON THE NET ANSWER: (1) There are cheap/free players available on almost every platform. (2) High Compression => smaller files => less of a wait for the movie/animation to be downloaded. ============================================================================ QUESTION: DOES THE MPEG PLAYER WORK UNDER CHICAGO (WINDOWS95,WINDOWS 4 etc) ANSWER: Yes - but I can't give much support with this. Ask Microsoft why it doesn't supply copies of WINDOWS95 to normal developers. ============================================================================= QUESTION: WILL THE MPEG PLAYER BE AVAILABLE ON OTHER NT PLATFORMS (RISC etc) ANSWER: I am looking into this. POWERPC version is a very high possablity at the moment. ============================================================================= QUESTION: DOES THE MPEG PLAYER DECODE MPEG2 FILES ANSWER: No. MPEG2 is really designed for much higher bitrate applications (Cable TV etc) There is no real advantages in Internet sites carrying MPEG2 movies. It does not give any increase in compression. MPEG2 files usually have a lower compression (for higher quality) and hence have a larger file size (about 4 times). MPEG2 decoders can decode MPEG1 streams. Why limit your audience by putting up MPEG2 streams for no good reason. ============================================================================= QUESTION: IS THERE A MAXIMUM LIMIT TO THE FILE SIZE THE MPEG PLAYER CAN PLAY ANSWER: The unregistered version is deliberatly limited to a maximum file size of 1 MB this was done to encourage you to register. The Registered version is only limited by the maximum file size allowed under DOS (or NT). ie Very Big. ============================================================================= QUESTION: WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE REGISTERED AND UNREGISTER VERSION ANSWER: The ONLY difference is no file size limit and the about box not appearing at startup. ============================================================================== QUESTION: CAN YOU EXTRACT MPEG MOVIES FROM VIDEO CD DISKS. ANSWER: Yes... But read on There are two types of Video CD Disk: (1) Original CDI(tm) disks intended for playback via a Phillips CDI(tm) Player with an MPEG addon. Most Video CD disks are in this format. The TOC (table of contents) on these disks confuses almost all CDROM drives and drivers. (2) White Book standard VideoCD disks. All Video CD disk produced from June(July?) 94 should be in this format. The TOC is not a problem. To read MPEG data from the disks you need to extract the RAW 2352 byte sectors. This is similar to reading RAW digital audio from audio CD's but requires the drive/driver to syncronize correctly to the sector headers. Not all drives/drivers are capable of this. You may also need to remove the sector header bytes read depending on how flexable the MPEG decoder is. You should also know that CDI(tm) MPEG system layer headers differ slightly from the MPEG Standard. CDI(tm) streams use 0xb8 and 0xb9 instead of 0xc0 and 0xe0 as stream ID numbers. The only drive and driver configuration I know of that can extract MPEG sequences from CDI disks is the SONY CDU33A with the Sony interface and Sony V1.73 CDROM driver. Very few drive/driver combinations work. I have placed utilities and source to do this type of thing on our site ftp.ecel.uwa.edu.au in /users/michael/cdi . Read the cdi2mpg.txt file for a start. WARNING - posting / distributing extracted CDI MPEG Streams is a VERY bad idea and could land you in deep trouble. Don't even think about it. Version 1.65 of the MPEG Player can play either a RAW CDROM read which includes sector header bytes or a fully extracted MPEG SEQUENCE. CDI is a trademark of Phillips. ============================================================================= QUESTION: DOES CDI(tm) DISK PLAY BACK GIVE THE SAME QUALITY AS A STANDARD VCR ANSWER: In general yes. This depends on a lot of things. (1) How well the decoder decodes the images. Mainly the "post decoding" proccessing of image. (ie scaling/filtering etc). (2) How well the movie is encoded. This is still improving. (3) The type of movie. Low contrast scenes in say "The Hunt for Red October" or "Blade Runner" require more advance encoding (lots of jugglering of the qscale parameter in order to give the best quantization levels while maintaining the correct STD buffering - Note this is a guess). ============================================================================ QUESTION: IS FULL MPEG SOFTWARE DECODING POSSIABLE ANSWER: Yes but only on fast RISC Machines. I personally think MPEG decoding cards are a much better idea. These are expected to be around the $200 US dollar range later this year. >>Newsgroups: comp.multimedia >>Path: news.uwa.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yeshua.marcam.com!usc!sdd.hp.com!apollo.hp.com!netnews >>From: kaczowka@apollo.HP.COM (Peter A. Kaczowka) >>Subject: Re: Importance of MPEG and Video in MM >>Sender: usenet@apollo.hp.com (Usenet News) >>Message-ID: >>Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 11:33:37 GMT >>References: >>Nntp-Posting-Host: music.ch.apollo.hp.com >>Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Chelmsford, MA >>Lines: 37 > >> I'm looking for opinions as to the importance of Video (Especially >> MPEG) to the future of MM. Doing MPEG well really implies that >> the audience have some sort of hardware assist for playback and there >> are costs associated with such hardware. > >Not necessarily. HP already does full frame rate 1.15 Mbps >MPEG-1, 352x240x30 fps or 352x288x25 fps on its 712/80 workstation. >That's currently video only; playing the audio causes (B) frames >to be skipped as necessary, but you still get better than 25 fps. >The quality BTW is still far superior to Indeo et al even with >the frame skipping. If you reduce the MPEG bit rate down so >that the quality is equivalent to say Indeo you can easily do >30 fps with sound; the cost of decoding MPEG depends on >the bit rate. > >The 712/60 will do around 20 fps with audio. The 712/60 sells >for $3995 US with 16MB memory, disk and 1024x768 color monitor. >So these are not expensive high end workstations; fairly >comparable in price to Pentium PCs. What they do have is >special instructions and frame buffer support added to support >video. > >Presumably if we (HP) can do it eventually "commodity" PC/Mac >type machines will be able to do it also. By then of course >everyone will want CCIR type resolutions and MPEG-2 support :-) > >BTW MPEG-2 mainly is important for interlaced video. If you >are coming from a film source (which is not interlaced) or >displaying to CRT rather than a TV MPEG-2 does not offer >much advantage over MPEG-1, so I believe MPEG-1 will be >the standard for computers for quite some time. MPEG-2 is >much more important to broadcasters. > >Pete Kaczowka >HP Collaborative Desktop Lab >Chelmsford MA > ============================================================================ QUESTION: I AM GETTING A GPF IN POINTER.DLL. WHAT DO I DO? ANSWER: ============================================================================ Date: Tue, 30 Aug 1994 17:19:11 +0000 (GMT) From: Peter Caplan Subject: Solution to gpf with mpegplay and Pointer.dll To: michael@ecel.uwa.edu.au X-Envelope-to: michael@ecel.uwa.edu.au Priority: normal Hi. The problem with pointer.dll and mpegplay is a clash between the enhanced MS mouse driver v9.01 and win32s. Micro$soft have released an updated pointer.dll to circumvent this problem - see attached app note. The updated file can be found at ftp.microsoft.com (\softlib\mslfiles\hd1061.exe). This self extracting archive contains a replacement pointer.dll It only works with v9.01 I suggest you encourage people to pick this up and hope it solves this problem (I appreciate its not an mpegplay problem) Peter. DOCUMENT:Q119775 24-AUG-1994 [H_MOUSE] TITLE :HD1061: POINTER.DLL Corrects GP Fault with Win32 Apps PRODUCT :Microsoft Mouse PROD/VER:9.01 OPER/SYS:WINDOWS KEYWORDS:Appnote HD1061 Softlib ----------------------------------------------------------------- The information in this article applies to: - Microsoft Mouse driver version 9.01 ----------------------------------------------------------------- When you start a Win32-based application using Win32s under Windows 3.1 or 3.11 or Windows for Workgroups, you may receive a general protection (GP) fault in POINTER.DLL caused by the Microsoft Mouse driver 9.01 GROWSTUB component. This Application Note, "HD1061: Updated POINTER.DLL Corrects GP Fault with Win32 Applications," contains an updated POINTER.DLL file that prevents this problem. You can obtain this Application Note from the following sources: - CompuServe, GEnie, and Microsoft OnLine - Microsoft Download Service (MSDL) - The Internet (Microsoft anonymous ftp server) - Microsoft Product Support Services For complete information, see the "To Obtain This Application Note" section at the end of this article. THE TEXT OF HD1061 ================== ====================================================================== Microsoft(R) Product Support Services Application Note (Text File) HD1061: UPDATED POINTER.DLL CORRECTS GP FAULT WITH WIN32(R) APPLICATIONS ====================================================================== Revision Date: 8/94 1 Disk Included The following information applies to Microsoft Mouse Driver, version 9.01. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THIS DOCUMENT AND ANY SOFTWARE THAT MAY | | ACCOMPANY THIS DOCUMENT (collectively referred to as an Application| | Note) IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER | | EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED | | WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR | | PURPOSE. The user assumes the entire risk as to the accuracy and | | the use of this Application Note. This Application Note may be | | copied and distributed subject to the following conditions: 1) All| | text must be copied without modification and all pages must be | | included; 2) If software is included, all files on the disk(s) | | must be copied without modification (the MS-DOS(R) utility | | diskcopy is appropriate for this purpose); 3) All components of | | this Application Note must be distributed together; and 4) This | | Application Note may not be distributed for profit. | | | | Copyright (C) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. | | Microsoft, MS-DOS, and Win32 are registered trademarks and Windows | | and Win32s are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. | |--------------------------------------------------------------------| INTRODUCTION ============ When you start a Win32-based application using Win32s(TM) under Windows(TM) 3.1 or 3.11 or Windows for Workgroups, you may receive a general protection (GP) fault in POINTER.DLL caused by the Microsoft Mouse driver 9.01 GROWSTUB component. CORRECTING THE PROBLEM ====================== To correct this problem, do one of the following: - Remove POINTER.EXE from the load= line in the WIN.INI file and then restart Windows. -or- - Upgrade to the Microsoft Mouse IntelliPoint software version 1.0. For information about obtaining this upgrade, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. There is a charge for this upgrade. -or- - Install the Microsoft Mouse driver version 9.01b POINTER.DLL file included with this Application Note. The 9.01b POINTER.DLL file does not include any new functionality. It prevents the GP fault by removing some of the software functionality of the 9.01 driver (such as large pointer size and the Snap-to feature) when you are using the mouse in a Win32 application. This version of POINTER.DLL works with the 9.01 driver only; it generates various error messages when used with other versions. To install the 9.01b POINTER.DLL -------------------------------- 1. Quit Windows or Windows for Workgroups. 2. Make a backup copy of the currently installed POINTER.DLL file by typing the following at the MS-DOS command prompt and then pressing ENTER ren :\pointer.dll pointer.old where : is the location of your Microsoft Mouse files. For example, if your Microsoft Mouse files are installed in your C:\WINDOWS directory, type the following at the MS-DOS command prompt and then press ENTER: ren c:\windows\pointer.dll pointer.old 3. Insert the enclosed HD1061 disk in the appropriate floppy disk drive. 4. To copy the file to the directory containing your Microsoft Mouse files, type the following at the MS-DOS command prompt and then press ENTER copy :\pointer.dll where is the floppy disk drive containing the HD1061 disk and is the drive and directory containing your Microsoft Mouse files. For example, if the HD1061 disk is in drive A and your Microsoft Mouse files are in C:\WINDOWS, type the following at the MS-DOS command prompt and then press ENTER: copy a:\pointer.dll c:\windows --------------------------------------------------------------------- TO OBTAIN THIS APPLICATION NOTE =============================== - On CompuServe, GEnie, and Microsoft OnLine, Application Notes are located in the Microsoft Software Library. You can find HD1061 in the Software Library by searching on the word HD1061, the Q number of this article, or S14865. HD1061 is a compressed, self-extracting file. After you download HD1061, run it to extract the file(s) it contains. - Application Notes are available by modem from the Microsoft Download Service (MSDL), which you can reach by calling (206) 936-6735. This service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The highest download speed available is 14,400 bits per second (bps). For more information about using the MSDL, call (800) 936-4200 and follow the prompts. To obtain HD1061, download HD1061.EXE. HD1061.EXE is a compressed, self-extracting file. After you download HD1061, run it to extract the file(s) it contains. - On the Internet, Application Notes are located on the Microsoft anonymous ftp server, which you can reach by typing "ftp ftp.microsoft.com" (without the quotation marks) at the ">" command prompt. You can find HD1061.EXE in the SOFTLIB\MSLFILES directory. - If you are unable to access the source(s) listed above, you can have this Application Note mailed or faxed to you by calling Microsoft Product Support Services Monday through Friday, 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. Pacific time at (206) 637-7098. If you are outside the United States, contact the Microsoft subsidiary for your area. To locate your subsidiary, call Microsoft International Customer Service at (206) 936-8661. Additional reference words: 9.01 ============================================================================= THE INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THE MICROSOFT KNOWLEDGE BASE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. MICROSOFT DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL MICROSOFT CORPORATION OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER INCLUDING DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS OR SPECIAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF MICROSOFT CORPORATION OR ITS SUPPLIERS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES SO THE FOREGOING LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY. Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1994. ========================================================================== Microsoft WinG version 1.0 -------------------------- This file describes known bugs, gotchas, and helpful hints for the WinG Version 1.0 final release. ISVs may want to distribute portions of this readme file that describe configuration bugs along with shipping products that use WinG. WinG version 1.0 provides fast DIB-to-screen blts under Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95, and Windows NT version 3.5. WinG will not run on Windows NT version 3.1 or on earlier versions of Windows. WinG requires a 386 or better processor to run. WinG will not run on a 286. Known Bugs And Limitations -------------------------- The following are known problems with or useful tidbits of information about WinG version 1.0. - On Windows 3.1, WinGBitmaps must be 8 bits per pixel and must be created with full 256 entry color tables. - WinGDCs are NOT palette devices. You must change their color tables using WinGSetDIBColorTable, not SelectPalette. - WinGBitBlt and WinGStretchBlt only support bltting from WinGDCs to the screen. - Using BitBlt and StretchBlt to blt from one WinGDC to another can be very slow when a clipping region has been selected into the destination. - WinGBitBlt and WinGStretchBlt may return different values than StretchDIBits for identical blts. - A few GDI APIs do not work correctly with WinGDCs: StretchDIBits will not blt 24bpp and 16bpp DIBs into an 8bpp WinGDC. FloodFill with a NULL brush draws incorrectly FloodFill outside of the bounds of a WinGBitmap can flood the entire image Brushes created with CreatePatternBrush with a WinGBitmap fault when selected into a WinGDC on Win3x - use CreateBitmap(8,8,1,8,0) DrawIcon will crash WinGBitBlt and WinGStretchBlt will not always blt to the correct location when you have changed the Viewport and/or Window origins using SetViewportOrg or SetWindowOrg. - You cannot change the origin of halftone brushes created by WinG. - Noticeable timing differences have been found while running the WinG profiler on a computer connected to a network. For accurate results, disconnect your computer from the network the first time you run a WinG application. After the profile is complete, you can plug the net in again. NOTE: Microsoft is not liable for any damage you may incur by incorrect handling of your computer hardware. - WinGBitBlt and WinGStretchBlt use a slightly different color matching algorithm than StretchDIBits when blting an 8-bit image to a 4-bit planar display such as a standard VGA. Mixing WinG and StretchDIBits on these displays may produce odd results. - WinG relies on the mmsystem timer drivers to determine display performance. If mmsystem.dll and timer.drv are not installed correctly, the results of the performance test may be incorrect. mmsystem.dll should appear on the drivers= line of the [boot] section of system.ini, and timer=timer.drv should appear in the [drivers] section of system.ini. - WinG version 1.0 does not yet use standard DCI because of time constraints. - "Just In Time" debuggers install a fault handler in a chain along with the WinG display performance profiler. If your debugger reports a fault during the WinG display performance test, pass the fault on to Windows instead of invoking your debugger. Driver-Specific Problems ------------------------ WinG depends on Windows display drivers written by independant hardware manufacturers for much of its speed. Bugs or performance problems in third-party display drivers may cause problems in WinG. In many cases, the video card manufacturer has already fixed the bug, and upgrading your display driver will often clear away problems. There are some specific "bugs" in display drivers of which you should be aware. The list below is not intended to slight the manufacturer of any particular card or driver. A list of stress-tested configurations is available on the CompuServe WINMM forum and ftp.microsoft.com. Some names in this list are trademarks of the respective manufacturer. - Early drivers for Diamond Viper cards included a "Power Palette" option that is no longer supported by Diamond. They recommend that you upgrade your drivers if you have this option. WinG may be slower when power palette is enabled. - IBM no longer supports the IBM ThinkPad 720c. There are some problems using WinG with the ThinkPad 720c display drivers. - Cirrus drivers before version 1.43 have many known bugs which have been fixed in the more recent drivers. Be sure to upgrade your drivers if you are still running with this version. [try ftp.cirrus.com or ftp.cica.indiana.edu - michael] - Some ATI drivers offer a "Crystal Fonts" option. Turning Crystal Fonts on in 8-bit modes sets up a non-palettized driver that can slow WinG significantly. - The ATI mach8 Radical drivers cause a number of problems in both WinG and in Windows with some versions of the ATI chipset. Be aware. - The ATI VGA Wonder drivers (W31-*.drv) will crash during a call to StretchDIBits in the profiler. Users can run the SVGA256.DRV driver that shipped with Windows. - Many miro Crystal drivers have problems with StretchDIBits, so they crash during profiling. - Early ATI Mach 32 PCI cards have a hardware timing problem and will hang while blting. ATI will replace these cards for no cost. - WinG is incompatible with the #9GXE "TurboCopy" mode. Use the #9 control panel to disable TurboCopy (it is off by default). - WinG uses a GetPixel to synchronize with display hardware when writing directly to the screen. The ATI Mach 32 driver's GetPixel does not work properly, so it is possible to use GDI to draw to the screen, then use WinG to blt to the screen and have them overwrite each other. Be careful mixing GDI drawing commands and WinG blts to the display. - The Orchid mmtllo.drv driver for the Prodesigner IIs has duplicate system colors which prevents applications from getting an identity palette and greatly reduces the WinG blt speed. A workaround is to set SYSPAL_NOSTATIC mode or use standard the Tseng ET4000 drivers instead of the mmtllo drivers. ============================================================================