How to use Targa/TIGA as a stand alone card in DOS?

[rmay635703]

I am having trouble getting the ATVista card working in the Pentium system I chose so I am moving down to a 486 box, thus far I have tried using various VGA cards with the Targa card but can't get the software to capture anything. I believe that I likely have address conflicts.

I am going to try setting up windows 3.1 on the 486 box but then also set Windows 3.1 to the TIGA driver (Texas Instruments video card driver that should work on any targa card), I will then need to reboot and remove the VGA card, put the atvista in alone and see if after the beeping stops and it boots into windows I can see something

Any ideas how to make a TIGA card show DOS related text and information?

It appears I need to keep some sort of 2nd video card in there to use this but it also has to work with the ATVista and not conflict with any resources.

Cheers
Ryan May

 

[njroadfan]

The Targa cards are likely dedicated GUI accelerators that lack support for traditional VGA video modes and more importantly, the video BIOS at C000h needed to drive them in DOS. Running two cards side by side is normal for this setup and there shouldn't be any conflicts.

 

[bear]

Targa and TIGA are totally unrelated.

Targa (and the related ATVista) does not function as a DOS display. It has no BIOS extension ROM which would allow it to function this way. It works with broadcast-standard video signals, and requires the associated Truevision software to work in DOS (or correct drivers to work in Windows). If you have conflicts, it is not with your primary display adapter. If Windows drivers do exist to use it as a regular display (and not as a special output for Video for Windows or similar) you may find that it only syncs to a TV. The corresponding Macintosh NuVista product does have one VGA-like display mode (640x480 31kHz), but you can't use this for broadcast video work. If the ATVista has this mode, that doesn't make it VGA-compatible.

TIGA is the TI Graphics Architecture, which implements a (more or less) common software interface for display accelerators built around the TMS34010/34020 accelerator chip. Many (not all) TIGA cards implement a normal BIOS extension ROM which offers VGA compatible modes. No TIGA driver will ever produce results with your ATvista card.

 

[bear]

Er. So, I forgot that the ATVista has a TMS34010 on it.

However.

This does not make it a TIGA card.

 

[rmay635703]

Er. So, I forgot that the ATVista has a TMS34010 on it.

However.

This does not make it a TIGA card.

ATVista should be able to display TIGA graphics, in fact in needs to be able to, however the TIGA driver is sadly 256 colors, I was just hoping to get something out of this board, and yes I do have a matched Sony medical dental broadcast display monitor to match up to it. Along with the breakout cable.

At this time I have not sucessfully gotten it to respond video in or out.