[MiNT] XaAES -(f)video HELP for NEWBIES

[m.tarenskeen@zonnet.nl (Martin Tarenskeen)]

On Tue, 5 Feb 2002 18:14:19 -0600, Brian J. Roland wrote:

> I'm amazed at how well this AES is coming along.  Excellent work!
>
> I do have some lamer questions about falcon modes.  I've studied the chart in
> the files over and over, and for the life of me I can't figure out how to
> translate this information into two numbers like below.
>
> -fvideo 26 (640X480 16 color mode)
>
> By trial and error I discovered that -fvideo 27 sets 640X480 256 colors.
>
> Can anyone shed light on how to calculate this for me?
>

Ok. First some examples.
If you are using a VGA color monitor, the most commonly used Falcon video 
resolutions can be set as follows:

-fvideo 24 :	640*480*2
-fvideo 25 :	640*480*4
-fvideo 26 :	640*480*16
-fvideo 27 :	640*480*256
-fvideo 20 :	640*480*TC(16bits), 40 columns
-fvideo 276 :	640*480*TC(16bits), 40 columns, line doubling

	ST compatible modes:
-fvideo 152 or -video 4:	640*400*2 (ST HIGH)
-fvideo 409	or -video 3:	640*200*4 (ST MID)
-fvideo 402 or -video 2:	320*200*16 (ST LOW)

( I don't know if there is any difference between the -fvideo and -video versions ?) 

More things are possible, the above examples are only valid for a Falcon with
a VGA color monitor.
It's all explained in \xaaes\docs\usrguide.txt, chapter 1.1).
Open a window with this text to use as reference, and read on.
(Isn't multitasking great :-) 

If you are not very good with binary numbers:
bit 0-2: 000 = 0
         001 = 1
         010 = 2
         011 = 3
         100 = 4
bit 3: 1 = 8
bit 4: 1 = 16
bit 5: 1 = 32
bit 6: 1 = 64
bit 7: 1 = 128
bit 8: 1 = 256

Example: 16 colour = 2 (bit 2 set)
	      80 columns = 8 (bit 3 set)
	      VGA monitor = 16 (bit 4 set)
	      Other bits = 0
	      Total 2 + 8 + 16 = 26
	      Result: -fvideo 26 gives 640*480*16 videomode

It is also possible to use a binary notation, the same example would be:
         -fvideo b00011100 or b11100
With this method you don't have to calculate anything, just set the appropiate bits
from bit 0 (mostright) to bit 8 (mostleft). The "b" stands for binary notation :-) 

I hope my explanation will be helpfull. As Henk mentioned earlier, I have written
a script to start xaaes from the login. You don't really need this script, but it
may prevent crashes when XaAES can't find it's resources, or when for some reason
/dev/moose isn't installed. (This happens when you forget to install XMOOSE.XDD or
sometimes in combination with SPIN.XFS. Try changing the order of these files if
the latter happens). As a bonus my script can be started with xaaes -h , which
will show chapter 1.1 of usrguide.txt. (less and grep are needed for this option)
Optionally an environment variable XAAESDIR can be set which is used by the script,
which makes things easier if XaAES is installed on a different partition then C: .

As XaAES is improving, it is rapidly becoming a serious and competitive free 
alternative for N.AES. Good work Henk !

Martin Tarenskeen