FMA 3500 (486DX) Notebook with Cirrus Logic GD610

[Peter z80.eu]

Hi,
I am desperately looking for a graphics card driver for the FMA 3500 (486DX) Notebook, which uses a CL-GD610 (VGA) graphics chip.
This notebook has a VGA display, but monochrome (no color).
DOS games will use 256 colors at once, although you cannot differentiate between the (missing) shades of grey.
Windows 95 allows only to 16 colors (at 640x480) with the "Standard VGA". I was trying to use other Cirrus Logic graphics card driver (e.g. GD542x or similar) but it does not work.
Also, if I choose "SVGA", I am still only able to select 16 colors (not 256).
Any hints what I can do ?
Googling for GD610 (or older GD510) Windows 95 driver was unsuccessful.

Best regards Peter

 

[GiGaBiTe]

I found this DOS driver, or what I think is a driver:

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=874069#p874069

As for Windows 95, I think you're going to be out of luck getting a working driver. The GD610 predates Windows 95 by almost five years, and even Windows 3.1 by at least a year. It was never designed with Windows support in mind.

The color depth of the screen depends on how much video memory the video chip has available. According to VGA Museum, the chip supports from 256k to 1024k of video memory. If SVGA mode is dropping the color depth down to 16 colors, I'm inclined to believe your card has the minimum 256k. 800x600@4bpp color uses 234k of video RAM, which is very close to the 256k it probably has. You'd need at least 512k to get 256 colors in 800x600.

 

[Peter z80.eu]

Unfortunately it's not a driver, the programs included in the archive file are only DOS tools to switch to external monitor, to reverse the screen etc.
I do not look for 800x600 in 256 colors, 640x480 in 256 colors would be enough.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

The only thing I can recommend then is the experimental Windows 9x VESA driver:

https://bearwindows.zcm.com.au/vbe9x.htm

It's not perfect and it is very slow since the CPU is doing the grunt work of drawing the screen, but you can get 256 colors assuming the video chip supports VESA modes and has enough RAM.