Great Hierophant wrote:

As far as I can tell, there are only the ET3000AX and ET4000AX chipsets. The AX suffix seems ubiquitous.

Unless of course you had an ET4000/W32P.

I think the AX bit is just for the base model.

The line fading effect uses the attribute register 3C0h index 14h. VGADOC says: "Note: this register does not affect 256 color modes." The demo runs in 256 color mode.

I've tried the following cards:

ET4000AX TC6058AF - perfect
ET4000AX TC6059AF - no line fading
ET4000AX TC6100AF - no line fading
ET3000AX 11038F-0005 - no line fading, flood fill problem
S3 Trio class - problems with picture bouncing, wobbling, flood fill, zooming, no line fading
TVGA8900B - problems with picture bouncing, wobbling, flood fill, no line fading
OTI037C 8 bit - problem with wobbling, y-zooming, no line fading
KU82706 - problems with picture bouncing, wobbling, no line fading
So Tseng Labs fixed an incompatibility in later chip revision. This also means that DOSBox has a bug 😉.

This demo was written for the TC6058AF.

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

This demo was written for the TC6058AF.

Wow, thanks for testing, now I know which card to look out for. 😁

Uh, they want about 50 euros for a card...

I guess we know the answer, that early revisions of the ET4000 work perfectly and nothing else thereafter does. I assume the ET3000, maybe not the later revisions, also work perfectly.

Maybe the attribute register functionality that makes Copper should only work when the machine type is svga_tseng. The svga modes have other problems with Copper, however.

ET3000 - datecode 9025
TC6058AF - 9150
TC6059AF - 9208

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

This demo was written for the TC6058AF.

OUTSTANDING testing! My hat is off to you, sir!

Does the ET3000 line effects work with the demo, or did the programmer find the bug that worked only in a comparatively small number of ET4000 cards?

Nope, the screen stays black on all parts where this register is involved on the ET3000. They already had it right, then broke it in the early ET4000, then fixed it again.

The ET3000 also has a problem with the flood fill effect. Every second frame (when the picture fills) is shifted down by one pixel giving a flickering / blurred impression.

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

This demo was written for the TC6058AF.

Just that one version? What would you guess about even older ones? I have an Orchid ProDesigner II (long and low card, perhaps to accommodate PS/2 cases) with a TC6046AF 9025.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

This demo was written for the TC6058AF.

Just that one version? What would you guess about even older ones? I have an Orchid ProDesigner II (long and low card, perhaps to accommodate PS/2 cases) with a TC6046AF 9025.

If you can test it, I for one would be interested to know the results.

Anything could happen - even that the line fading works but another part gets broken.

h-a-l-9000 wrote on 2012-12-15, 15:45:

The line fading effect uses the attribute register 3C0h index 14h. VGADOC says: "Note: this register does not affect 256 color m […]
Show full quote

The line fading effect uses the attribute register 3C0h index 14h. VGADOC says: "Note: this register does not affect 256 color modes." The demo runs in 256 color mode.

I've tried the following cards:

ET4000AX TC6058AF - perfect
ET4000AX TC6059AF - no line fading
ET4000AX TC6100AF - no line fading
ET3000AX 11038F-0005 - no line fading, flood fill problem
S3 Trio class - problems with picture bouncing, wobbling, flood fill, zooming, no line fading
TVGA8900B - problems with picture bouncing, wobbling, flood fill, no line fading
OTI037C 8 bit - problem with wobbling, y-zooming, no line fading
KU82706 - problems with picture bouncing, wobbling, no line fading
So Tseng Labs fixed an incompatibility in later chip revision. This also means that DOSBox has a bug 😉.

This demo was written for the TC6058AF.

I have CardExpert TSVGA 9015-12 with ET4000AX TC6059AF and no wobble or line fading. 🙁

It makes some strange blue color flickering in beginning of Nooon - Stars demo too, is it compatibility issue or broken?

Congrats on the necro! This thread has been inactive for more than 10 years!

DOSBox-X almost correctly emulates the demo's video effects now. In the current release, 2023.10.06, you must set the following in the .conf file:

[dosbox]
machine=svga_et4000

and add the following lines to :

[video]
vga attribute controller mapping=4low
allow hretrace effects=true

I say almost because the wobble does not match the output from my capture (but it may be better than the original): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSv4gbxZJr8