ATI Graphics Drivers (Experimental) -- BeOS R3

As Be expands hardware support for the BeOS, we will occasionally release drivers for hardware not supported by the current BeOS CD "package", in advance of its inclusion in a future package. This page describes ATI graphics card drivers for BeOS Release 3.x. These drivers may not be completely tested and certified, but they work on our systems, and should work on yours.

These drivers were released on August 25, 1998.

IMPORTANT NOTE: An improved and fully supported version of this driver is included with BeOS Release 4. We recommend you upgrade to BeOS Release 4, rather than use these drivers with BeOS Release 3.

Description

This page describes and offers for download experimental drivers for ATI graphics cards, based on various flavors of ATI 3DRage chipsets, including 3DRage II, 3DRage Pro, and 3DRage LT Pro. Among others, the following cards use such chipsets, and should work with our drivers:

• ATI All-In-Wonder (PCI or AGP)
• ATI All-In-Wonder Pro (PCI or AGP)
• ATI Xpert@Work (PCI or AGP)
• ATI Xpert@Play (PCI or AGP)

Other graphics cards or built-in graphics systems which use the same ATI chipsets should also work.

Note: These drivers are known to not work with Xpert98 cards, based on the 3DRage Pro Turbo chipset, and will probably not work with other cards based on that same chipset. The BeOS Release 4 versions of these drivers do support the Xpert98 cards.

IMPORTANT NOTE: There is no guarantee these drivers will work with your system. We've used them on ours, but they are still considered "experimental." Use at your own risk. See below for recovery details if the drivers should render your system unusable.

Who Can Use These Drivers

Anyone running the BeOS Release 3.1 or 3.2 can download and install these drivers. However, they will only be useful and effective on systems using an ATI graphics card, or a graphics card based on the ATI 3D Rage Pro chipset. If you don't have such a card, don't bother.

This update is for the BeOS Release 3 running on the Intel Architecture platform only (PowerPC drivers for ATI cards are included with Release 3.x).

IMPORTANT NOTE: These drivers will not work on any version of the BeOS except Release 3.x. If you install them on your BeOS Preview Release or BeOS Release 4 system, you can render your system unbootable.

Getting and Installing the Drivers

Downloading and installing the ATI graphics drivers is very simple. Please read the below instructions completely before beginning however, so that you are certain to follow the correct installation procedure.

The drivers consist of two files, which must be installed into the /home/config/add-ons/app_server/ directory.

These installation instructions assume that you are installing onto a system which has only a single graphics card, the card intended to be used with the new ATI drivers, and that you are currently using the SVGA graphics driver in grayscale mode. If your configuration or situation is different, you are assumed to be clever enough to modify the instructions to fit your situation.

1. From your BeOS system, download the ATI drivers package.

   The graphics drivers are contained in a SoftwareValet Package, and can be downloaded from the following locations:

   Via HTTP: http://www.be.com/support/updates/r3/intel/ati_exp_drivers.pkg
   Via FTP: ftp://ftp.be.com/pub/beos_updates/r3/intel/ati_exp_drivers.pkg

   Be sure to transfer the package file in binary mode; if you receive a checksum or other error when trying to use the package, that's almost certainly the problem.

2. Open the ATI drivers package with SoftwareValet.

   Depending on how you downloaded the package file, you may be able to do this by double-clicking the package file. Otherwise, simply Control-drag the ATI drivers package onto the SoftwareValet application icon to open it with SoftwareValet.

3. Read the instructions which automatically appear.

   Just to double-check that you're doing everything correctly, read the instructions which are included with the package, and which automatically open when you open the package with SoftwareValet.

4. Click the Accept button.

5. Click the Begin button and then the Continue button to install the drivers.

   The two graphics driver files are named 3DRagePro and 3DRageLTPro. The graphics driver files will be installed into the /home/config/add-ons/app_server/ directory of your boot volume. You can choose an alternative installation disk, if you wish, from the volume pop-up menu.

6. Close SoftwareValet and reboot your BeOS system.

   Your system should no longer use the grayscale SVGA graphics driver, and instead should boot and be usable in color.

How to Tell if the Drivers are Working

The new graphics drivers are working if your system boots, and your screen is in color (assuming it was previously in grayscale mode).

How to Recover if the Drivers are Not Working

If your system is unable to boot with the new drivers installed, you can reboot your system using the SVGA graphics driver:

1. Reboot your system, using a hard reset/power cycle if necessary.

2. When the BeOS Boot Sequence screen appears, press and hold the Space Bar until you enter the Boot Options screen.

3. Use the cursor keys to highlight the Select graphics mode boot option, and press Return.

4. Again use the cursor keys to highlight the Safe mode VGA option, and press Return.

5. Use the cursor keys to highlight the Boot BeOS option, and press Return to boot into the BeOS using the SVGA graphics mode.

6. Once you have booted into the BeOS, remove the ATI drivers you just installed from your system, so you'll be able to boot into SVGA mode automatically. The drivers are located in the /home/config/add-ons/app_server/ directory.

At this point, if you can tell us details about your card, that would be extremely helpful in tracking down the problem, and providing an improved driver to ATI card owners everywhere. Use our Support Request Form, and specifically mention your card make and model (and any other details you can give us about the card), and that it failed with the experimental ATI graphics driver.

Older Experimental ATI Drivers

We previously released another pair of ATI 3DRage drivers, whose file names were ATI-GTB-PC and ATI-RagePC. The newer drivers in this package should support more cards, more bit depths (including 15/16 bits-per-pixel), and provide better performance than the older drivers.

To avoid any conflict between the different versions of these ATI drivers, it is necessary to de-install the old drivers. This SoftwareValet package handles that automatically, by moving the old drivers out of their installed location, and into a /home/old_ati_drivers, creating that directory if necessary. So, should your graphics card be supported only by the old drivers (which is very unlikely), you can boot back into Safe VGA mode, as described above, and replace the new drivers with the old.

Should this turn out to be necessary, we'd really like to know about it. Please use our Support Request Form, and specifically mention your card make and model (and any other details you can give us about the card) and that it works with the old ATI drivers, but not the new.