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Author Topic: Change screen resolution in DOS  (Read 37715 times)

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rogmil

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Change screen resolution in DOS
« on: February 10, 2008, 02:07:09 PM »
I am running Windows 98SE on a Dell Latitude CPi laptop with Neomagic graphics. I need to run an old graphics DOS application. When I reboot from Windows to DOS not all the screen is used for the DOS prompt. I would like to change the resolution to use the full screen which is what the application requires. I don't know much about DOS but I have put the each of following lines in the config.sys and config.dos files in turn and rebooted the machine each time:

DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\NMGC.DRV
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\NMGCVCC.VXD
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\vmm32.vxd

The driver files are identified by Control Panel->System->Device Manager->Device Manager tab -> Display Adaptors->Properties->Driver tab->Driver File Details. None of the changes have worked, some caused the machine to hang. Any ideas about how to do this will be gratefully received. I have looked elsewhere on the web but not really found any answers.

llmeyer1000



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    Re: Change screen resolution in DOS
    « Reply #1 on: February 10, 2008, 02:30:58 PM »
    Do you have a second operating system, you are rebooting to, such as DOS 6.22. If so what op system?

    The smaller window you refer to suggests to me that perhaps you are only opening up a CMD window while still running in windows. If that is the case, Right Click the Title bar, click properties, and under the options tab, click Full Screen. After turning on the full screen, it will appear just like the Dos screen that you are looking for. When done type exit to return to windows.

    Let us know either way!
    I may not be understanding your situation.
    « Last Edit: February 10, 2008, 02:48:35 PM by llmeyer1000 »

    rogmil

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    Re: Change screen resolution in DOS
    « Reply #2 on: February 10, 2008, 03:17:35 PM »
    Thanks for the reply. I get to DOS by doing the following

    1) Start-> Shut down
    2) Select "Restart in MS DOS Mode"
    3) Select OK

    to get back to windows I type "exit" to the dos prompt

    Broni


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    Re: Change screen resolution in DOS
    « Reply #3 on: February 10, 2008, 10:25:36 PM »

    rogmil

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    Re: Change screen resolution in DOS
    « Reply #4 on: February 11, 2008, 07:45:36 AM »
    I have tried reschange (thanks for the suggestion) and I get the following:

    reschange -listmode: gives an empty list of modes
    reschange -width=1024 -height=768 -depth=8: says that the resolution is not supported.

    I also tried depths of 16 and 32 with the same result as 8. When running Windows the resolution is set at 1024x768 with 256 colours or so the Display settings in the Control Pannel says. So the resolution I have tried should be OK. I can only think that DOS is running a different display driver to windows. Can anybody confrm this and tell me how to use the correct driver.

    Thanks

    Roger

    Broni


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    Re: Change screen resolution in DOS
    « Reply #5 on: February 11, 2008, 03:30:35 PM »
    DOS does not have video drivers and uses either Standard VGA default resolution, or your video card default resolution. I'm not quiet sure, which one.
    I'd bet 1024x768 is too high. Try something like 640 x 480.
    Is it a wide screen, or regular one?

    rogmil

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    Re: Change screen resolution in DOS
    « Reply #6 on: February 12, 2008, 03:06:38 AM »
    I have tried the following command:

    reschange -width-640 -height=480 -refresh=60 -force

    and I get an error:

    "Testing (640 x 480) 8bpp, 0Hz

    Command Line:
    (none)

    An error occurred when changing display resolution"

    I have tried the same resolution in Windows and the area of the screen that is used reduces to the same as used when I run DOS so I suspect 640x480 is the resolution that DOS is using anyway.

    I should also have mentined before that when I boot back to DOS (Start->Shut Down->Restart in MS DOS mode) I can't run reschange as DOS says "This program cannot be run in DOS mode".  To run reschange I have to run the DOS comamnd window and run reschange from there. I run the DOS window in full screen mode.

    Thanks again for your help

    Roger

    rogmil

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    Re: Change screen resolution in DOS
    « Reply #7 on: February 12, 2008, 07:12:19 AM »
    Problem Solved – embarrassingly

    I have just been on the Dell support forum and searched for an answer and the second thread I looked at said I should type Fn F7, which worked. The label on the keyboard for Fn F7 says “Font” so I would never have guessed. I have spent hours on this so it just shows that you have to look in the right place, it hadn’t occurred to me that the solution was Dell specific. Thanks again for your help.

    Roger

    Broni


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    Re: Change screen resolution in DOS
    « Reply #8 on: February 12, 2008, 12:23:24 PM »
    Hallelujah!...Cool :)

    rogmil

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    Re: Change screen resolution in DOS
    « Reply #9 on: February 18, 2008, 06:29:29 AM »
    I have looked into this further and it's possible to change the screen resolution that DOS uses. This can be done with the program in vmode11.zip from www.hitechlabs.tk. This accepts a hex value for the video mode that is required. Look at the end of the source code in the same zip file to see a range of video modes. For example to set 1024x768 with 64k colours requires the command “vmode 117’, 13, 10” where 117 is the hex value of the mode, I don’t know what the "13, 10" is for though but the command works. To find out what modes a video adaptor supports you can use System Analyser from www.sysanalyser.com. Scroll down to the section on the video adaptor to see the modes. There are probably other programs that display the video modes as well. Unfortunately the program I'm using resets the mode to a lower resolution when it starts and I doubt this can be fixed.

    Roger

    Broni


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    Re: Change screen resolution in DOS
    « Reply #10 on: February 18, 2008, 09:22:21 AM »
    Thanks for the update.