3D Blaster Banshee User Guide On-line Version
Installation Guide Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Creative Technology Ltd. No part of this manual may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, for any purpose without the written permission of Creative Technology Ltd.
Cre a tiv e E nd-U s er S o ftw a re L ic e nse A g re e m en t PLEASE READ THIS DOCUMENT CAREFULLY BEFORE OPENING THE SEALED DISK PACKAGE OR INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE. BY OPENING THE SEALED DISK PACKAGE OR INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE, YOU ARE AGREEING TO BECOME BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THE AGREEMENT, PLEASE DO NOT OPEN THE SEALED DISK PACKAGE OR INSTALL THE SOFTWARE.
SPECIAL PROVISIONS APPLICABLE TO THE EUROPEAN UNION IF YOU ACQUIRED THE SOFTWARE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION (EU), THE FOLLOWING PROVISIONS ALSO APPLY TO YOU. IF THERE IS ANY INCONSISTENCY BETWEEN THE TERMS OF THE SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT SET OUT ABOVE AND THE FOLLOWING PROVISIONS, THE FOLLOWING PROVISIONS SHALL TAKE PRECEDENCE.
Safety & Regulatory Information The following sections contain notices for various countries: Safety Information CAUTION: This device is intended to be installed by the user in a CSA/TUV/UL certified/listed IBM AT or compatible personal computers in the manufacturer’s defined operator access area. Check the equipment operating/installation manual and/or with the equipment manufacturer to verify/confirm if your equipment is suitable for user-installed application cards.
Contents Introduction System Requirements............................................................................. vii Driver Updates ...................................................................................... viii Getting More Information..................................................................... viii For 3D Blaster Banshee............................................................. viii 1 Setting Up Your 3D Blaster Banshee 3D Blaster Banshee Connectors..........................
5 Using Creative SoftMPEG Getting More Information .....................................................................5-1 Starting Creative SoftMPEG.................................................................5-2 Playing Tracks.......................................................................................5-6 Working with the MPEG File Playlist...................................................5-8 Using the Preferences Dialog..............................................................
Introduction 3D Blaster Banshee is a state-of-the-art, fully integrated 128-bit VGA/2D/3D/video accelerator with full VMI interface. Engineered to meet the demands of value-conscious but discerning gamers, 3D Blaster Banshee combines the best of VGA and 3D game accelerator technologies to eliminate the need for a separate 3D accelerator card. As a VGA card, it harnesses an outstanding graphics engine to enhance your overall visual experience.
Driver Updates To download the latest Banshee drivers, visit Creative’s website (refer to the Technical Support leaflet for details). Getting More Information For 3D Blaster Banshee The Help file for 3D Blaster Banshee gives a brief introduction to the features supported by your graphics card. To open the Help file 3DBB.HLP, click the Start button, point to Programs, followed by Creative, followed by 3D Blaster Banshee, and then click the 3D Blaster Banshee Help icon.
1 Setting Up Your 3D Blaster Banshee This chapter familiarizes you with the 3D Blaster Banshee and shows you how to set it up. ! 3D Blaster Banshee Connectors ! Setting Up 3D Blaster Banshee Card 3D Blaster Banshee Connectors Connectors are multiple pins or multiple-pin receptacles that allow you to attach other devices to your 3D Blaster Banshee. PCI gold-striped bus connector Monitor Output connector Connects to your monitor via a monitor cable.
3. Remove the cover from your computer. If you are replacing an existing VGA card with 3D Blaster Banshee, remove the existing VGA card. 4. Locate a free PCI expansion slot for your 3D Blaster Banshee. The relative length and position of the PCI expansion slots are shown in the figure. AGP slot PCI slot ISA slot PCI systems usually give slot 1 top priority. For best performance and compatibility, place the 3D Blaster Banshee into slot 1 if possible. See your computer’s manual for the location of slot 1.
9. Connect the monitor cable to the Monitor Output connector of your 3D Blaster Banshee. VGA monitor 3D Blaster Banshee VGA monitor cable Monitor output connector If you are using a multi-frequency monitor, you may need a 15 pin PS/2-compatible adapter cable. If your multi-frequency monitor has a TTL or analog switch, set the switch to analog. Refer to your monitor’s manual for additional information.
2 Installing Software After you have installed your 3D Blaster Banshee, you can install the software. The 3D Blaster Banshee CD contains the following drivers and applications: ! Drivers for Windows 95 and Windows 98 (common to both) ! Drivers for Windows NT 4.0 ! Creative BlasterControl for Windows 95 and Windows 98 ! Creative BlasterControl for Windows NT 4.0 ! Creative SoftMPEG for Windows 95 ! Glide drivers ! Colorific™ for Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.
2. When a dialog similar to Figure 2-1 appears, ensure that the Driver From Disk Provided By Hardware Manufacturer option is selected. Figure 2-1: Select driver from disk provided by hardware manufacturer. 3. Click the OK button. 4. Insert the 3D Blaster Banshee CD into your CD-ROM drive. 5. In the Install From Disk dialog, type D:\WINDOWS (where D: represents your CD-ROM drive) and click the OK button. 6. If prompted to select drivers, click the 3D Blaster Banshee drivers.
2. When a dialog similar to Figure 2-2 appears, click the Next button. Figure 2-2: The Update Device Driver Wizard dialog. 3. When the Other Locations button appears in the Update Device Driver Wizard dialog, click the Other Locations button. 4. Insert the 3D Blaster Banshee CD into your CD-ROM drive. 5. In the Select Other Location dialog, type D:\WINDOWS (where D: represents your CD-ROM drive) and click the OK button. 6. In the Update Device Driver Wizard dialog, click the Finish button. 7.
Installing in Windows 98 1. Switch on your system. Windows 98 automatically detects the graphics card. An Add New Hardware Wizard message box appears, informing you that a display adapter has been detected. 2. When a dialog similar to Figure 2-3 appears, ensure that the Display A List Of All The Drivers In A Specific Location, So You Can Select The Driver You Want option is selected.
If you are installing Banshee as a second or subsequent card to make use of Windows 98’s multi-monitor capability, you will see an Update Driver Warning message telling you that the driver you have selected may not work correctly. You must click the No button to confirm that you want to use the selected driver. Otherwise, the system will install the wrong driver and will not recognize the card as a Banshee card (for details, See “Windows 98 Multi-Monitor Display Problems” on page 3-2.). 7.
6. Insert the 3D Blaster Banshee CD into your CD-ROM drive. 7. In the Install From Disk dialog, type D:\WINNT40 (where D: represents your CD-ROM drive) and click the OK button. 8. In the Display list box, select the 3D Blaster Banshee drivers. 9. Click the OK or Close button until you are prompted to restart your system, and then click the Yes button. 10. If the Invalid Display Settings message box appears after your system has restarted, click the OK button and change the display settings.
3 Troubleshooting Determining your Windows 95 Version To determine your Windows 95 version number: 1. Right-click the My Computer icon, and select Properties. The System Properties dialog appears. 2. On the General tab, note your Windows 95 version number. Possible version numbers are: ! 4.00.950 ! 4.00.950A ! 4.00.950B System Hangs, Blank Screen or Corrupted Display After installing 3D Blaster Banshee and starting your system, the monitor displays a blank screen.
Windows 98 Multi-Monitor Display Problems The monitor connected to the second or successive Banshee card remains blank even though the card and its drivers have been installed. If you do not specify Banshee’s drivers during the software installation (see “Installing in Windows 98” on page 4), the system installs the second or successive Banshee card as a VGA card which does not support Windows 98’s multi-monitor feature. Update the device drivers to Banshee’s drivers: 1.
2. Lower your monitor’s resolution. For the resolutions supported by your monitor, refer to its manual. Monitor display exhibits pixel drop (that is, pixels, usually white in color, appear on the screen) or other abnormal behavior. The settings that you have selected for your graphics card may be incompatible with one or more games or applications that you are running. Use the factory default settings. 1. Right-click your desktop, and then click Properties on the shortcut menu. 2.
2. In the My Computer window, double-click the Creative Banshee icon. If the installation program does not run, double-click the Win95/Win98 folder icon followed by the Setup icon. 3. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation. Creative SoftMPEG Creative SoftMPEG launches and quits immediately without giving any error messages This is probably due to the application resource DLL file MPGRS32S.DLL being missing from the application directory.
• Unable to display About box. Ensure that CTRES32.DLL is present in your system. Cause The file CTRES32.DLL is required to display Creative SoftMPEG’s About box. Action Check that the file is in your system. If it is not, you may want to reinstall the application. Creative SoftMPEG can still run without this file. • Unable to load mixer. Try running the Creative Mixer application from its program group to verify if it is installed properly.
• Failed to launch Multimedia Properties. Check if application is installed. Action Make sure that CONTROL.EXE exists in the Windows directory and MMSYS.CPL exists in the Windows system directory. If not, you may want to reinstall your Windows. The player can still run without these files.
4 Using BlasterControl After you install the Graphics Blaster, the BlasterControl property pages indicated by the logo are added to the Display Properties dialog, and the Settings page is modified to include a virtual desktop control. The other unmarked pages are standard Windows Display property pages. Only the new and modified BlasterControl property pages are covered in the Installation Guide. For information on other display property pages, refer to your Windows documentation.
Opening Display Properties Dialog The Display Properties dialog provides you with controls to customize screen elements. There are three ways to open the Display Properties dialog: ! Right-click on the Windows desktop to display a shortcut menu. Click Properties. ! Click the BlasterControl graphic in the right-hand corner of the taskbar. ! Right-click the BlasterControl graphic in the right-hand corner of the taskbar. The shortcut menu (Figure 4-1) appears. Click Display Properties.
Adjusting Display Settings Several of your display settings can be changed using the Monitor property page in BlasterControl (Figure 4-2): ! Refresh Rate ! Display Position ! Display Size A few test patterns are provided to help you adjust the size and position of your display. Click the Test Pattern area to display different test patterns on the screen. Whatever changes you make are immediately reflected by the test pattern. Figure 4-2: Monitor property page.
Changing Refresh Rate To select a particular refresh rate: 1. Click the down-arrow button at the side of the Refresh Rate list box (Figure 4-3). Figure 4-3: Refresh Rate list. A list of all the refresh rates that are supported by your Graphics Blaster card appears (Figure 4-4). 2. Click the desired frequency. 3. Click the OK or Apply button. A confirmation dialog (Figure 4-5) prompts you to confirm the refresh rate selection: Figure 4-4: Selecting the refresh rate.
Changing Display Position To adjust the position of the screen display, click the Up, Down, Left, and Right positional buttons in the Alignment group (Figure 4-6). Figure 4-6: Positional buttons in the Alignment group. Changing Display Size To change the size of the display area, click the plus (+) and minus (-) Figure 4-7: Sizing buttons (Figure 4-7) shows the controls. buttons for sizing the displayed area.
Assigning and Clearing Hot Keys The Hotkey property page (Figure 4-8) allows you to assign hot keys to your screen resolutions, color depths, and virtual desktop controls. This allows you to switch between display modes quickly. For example, you may switch the color depth from 256 colors to 16.8 million colors by pressing a key. Figure 4-8: Hotkey property page. Assigning Hot Keys To assign a hot key to a combination of resolution and color depth: 1.
3. Press the hot key you want to assign. For example, if you press the F12 key, “F12” appears in the Key Assignment text box (Figure 4-10) under the Operations list. Figure 4-10: Assigning the F12 key. 4. Click the Assign button. The hot key assigned is displayed next to the selected resolution and color depth (Figure 4-11) in the Operations list. Figure 4-11: Hot key is assigned. 5. To use the hot keys immediately, select the Enable Hotkey check box.
Adjusting the Virtual Desktop BlasterControl adds a Desktop area function to the familiar Settings tab page. Now, in addition to selecting your display resolution, color palette, and font size, you can select a virtual desktop that extends beyond the physical screen resolution of your monitor. The virtual desktop feature allows you to take advantage of the high resolutions offered by Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT even if your monitor is not large enough for you to use those modes effectively.
The Hotkey property page allows you to activate two powerful virtual desktop features by assigning hotkeys to them: Zoom In/Out and Pan Lock. Zoom In lets you get a close-up view of your work by reducing the screen resolution. For example, if you are using a resolution of 1024x768, pressing the Zoom In key instantly switches your Graphics Blaster to a screen area of 800x600 pixels and a desktop area of 1024x768 pixels. Pressing the Zoom In hotkey again reduces the screen area to 640x480.
Correcting Display Settings You may inadvertently select a display setting that causes distortion, for example, a high refresh rate that is not supported by your monitor. The monitor starts to flicker. To correct the settings: 1. Restart the system in Windows Safe mode: a. Restart your system. When the message “Starting Windows...” appears, press the F8 key on your keyboard. A list of options appears. b. Select Safe Mode and press the ENTER key. 2.
5 Using Creative SoftMPEG Creative SoftMPEG is an MPEG player that plays Karaoke CDs, Video CDs, and .MPG files. This chapter includes the following sections: ! Getting More Information ! Starting Creative SoftMPEG ! Playing Tracks ! Working with the MPEG File Playlist ! Using the Preferences Dialog ! Using Command Line Switches ! Using Keyboard Shortcuts Track and file are used interchangeably throughout this chapter to refer to MPEG files, and Karaoke CD or Video CD tracks.
Starting Creative SoftMPEG To start Creative SoftMPEG: 1. Double-click the Creative SoftMPEG icon in your Graphics Blaster’s program group to open the interface (Figure 5-1). Touch-Sensitive Display Playback Control Power Off Menu Minimize Fast Track Selector Eject Playlist Figure 5-1: Creative SoftMPEG interface.
you select the “Display Track Number and Duration” option in the shortcut menu, the touch-sensitive display (Figure 5-2) appears. Repeat Mode Selector Track Info Introduction Mode Selector Shuffle Mode Selector Player Selector Graphic Slider Graphic Volume Control Figure 5-2: Creative SoftMPEG’s touch-sensitive display. Graphic Slider Portion of current track that has played. Also, controls playback position of current track. Graphic Volume Control Shows the volume level of the player.
Minimize Button The Minimize button minimizes Creative SoftMPEG to a button on the Windows 95 taskbar. Playlist Button The Playlist button opens the MPEG File Playlist dialog. Use the MPEG File Playlist dialog to create sets of tracks for playing. Figure 5-4: MPEG File Playlist dialog. Collection Title Give a title to your playlist. Display files specified in List Files of Type. Assign an artist name to a track. Make notes relating to a track. Create a new collection.
Add Add All Remove All Remove Directory Add selected tracks to the Playlist. Add all the tracks to Playlist. Remove all the tracks in the Playlist. Remove selected tracks from the Playlist. Specify the drive, path and type of files to view in the File List. Confirm the compilation of tracks in the Playlist. Cancel changes made in the Playlist. The playlist reverts to its last saved copy. Display the online help facility.
Playing Tracks To start playing a track, click the Play button . To stop playing a track, click the Stop button . Playing a Particular Track To play a track using the Fast Track selector: 1. Click a number button on the Fast Track selector to select that track. To select a two-digit track number, click both numbers consecutively within two seconds. For example, to choose track 15, click button 1 and then button 5. Playing the Track at a Different Position To play a track from a certain position: 1.
If you are already playing a track, Creative SoftMPEG immediately goes to the new position and starts playing. If your player is not playing a track, click the Play button to start playing the track from the chosen position. Playing Tracks in Random Order To play tracks in random order, select the Shuffle Mode selector in the touch-sensitive display. The Shuffle mode shuffles the playlist and randomly rearranges the playlist.
Adjusting the Volume You can adjust the volume of Creative SoftMPEG using the Graphic Volume slider on the touch-sensitive display. Click and drag the Graphic Volume slider to the level you want. Selecting Sound Card and Volume Device SoftMPEG allows you to control multiple sound cards installed in your system, and control multiple volume devices of a sound card. To select the sound card to control: 1. Click the right mouse button on the Graphic Volume slider, or press CTRL+SHIFT+V. 2.
Adding Tracks to the Playlist To add tracks to the playlist: 1. Select tracks to add to the playlist from the File List (see Figure 5-4). The Playlist is on the left; the File List is on the right. 2. To add the selected tracks to the Playlist, click Add. To add all the tracks in the File List to the Playlist, click Add All. You can also add tracks to the playlist by: ! Double-clicking the tracks in the File List. ! Dragging tracks from the File List and dropping in the Playlist.
Rearranging Tracks in the Playlist To rearrange a track in the playlist: 1. Click the track in the Playlist and drag it to the new position. The track is inserted at that position in the Playlist. Assigning Names of Artists to Tracks To assign a name to a track: 1. Select the track. 2. For a new artist, type in the name in the Track artist box. For an existing artist, select the name in the artist Name box.
Using the Preferences Dialog The Preferences dialog similar to that in Figure 5-6 allows you to set preferences for Creative SoftMPEG. Figure 5-6: Preferences dialog. Balloon Help Display information about a control or button currently selected. Enable/disable balloon help by selecting/clearing the Balloon Help check box. Show Track Display the time remaining on a track in addition Time Remaining to displaying the time played.
Intro Length Specify the amount of time in seconds between tracks when Creative SoftMPEG is in Intro mode. Step Specify the number of frames for each step command. The greater the value, the greater the number of frames for each step. Save Settings On Save changes made in the Preferences dialog Exit when you exit from Creative SoftMPEG.
6 Sonnetech’s Colorific® and 3Deep® Colorific® True Color Matching Colorific color management software is the industry-standard process for monitor-to-monitor and monitor-to-printer color management. It accurately matches colors between your screen and printer or over the Internet by calibrating the monitor colors. The software leads you through a series of choices about what you see on your screen.
After Running Colorific When you complete the Colorific calibration, Colorific creates a color profile of your monitor and loads those settings each time you turn on your computer. The way you use this profile depends on your operating system and applications. Windows 95/98 only Colorific creates a custom profile for your monitor for use with the ICM (Image Color Matching) module built into Windows 95/98.
Using 3Deep To use 3Deep to calibrate monitor gamma value: 1. Click the Start button, point to Settings and then click Control Panel. 2. In the Control Panel window, double-click the 3Deep icon. 3. On the 3Deep Control Panel, move the Tweak slider or click the Calibrate Display button. About True Internet Color® Colorific works in conjunction with browsers, tools, and plug-ins to provide accurate color when you view or create Web sites.
Technical Support Updated information about using Colorific and 3Deep can be obtained from Sonnetech’s web site at www.colorific.com. Alternatively, you can call Sonnetech’s 24-hour fax-on-demand system at (415) 957-9941 with a fax phone. If you can’t find the information you need in these sources or in the program’s Help screens, call Colorific Technical Support at (415) 957-0152 or send e-mail to info@colorific.com.
A Technical Specifications General Features ! Fully integrated 128-bit VGA/2D/3D video accelerator ! Full VMI interface ! VESA DDC2B support 3Dfx® Banshee™ Chipset ! 2D acceleration • Single-cycle 128-bit Windows GUI acceleration • Full featured 128-bit BitBlt engine ! 3D acceleration • Full triangle parameters hardware setup • 16-bit integer and floating-point Z-buffering with biasing • Alpha blending on source and destination pixels • Sub-pixel and sub-texel correction • 24-bit color dithering applied to
PCI 2.1 Compliant (for Banshee PCI) ! Full support for PCI system bus, with the ease of Plug and Play installation Addressing and Interrupts ! Plug and Play configurable I/O addresses and interrupts Utilities ! BlasterControl ! Creative SoftMPEG Player ! Sonnetech Colorific/3Deep Applications Supported ! All Windows 95 applications, including DirectDraw and Direct3D games and applications ! Glide applications under Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.
B Technical Support At Creative Labs, we are committed to giving our customers the best product possible with excellent technical support. The information below is correct as this manual goes to press; check the software disk for a README file that will give any changes. Updated information about using Colorific and 3Deep can be obtained from Sonnetech’s web site at www.colorific.com. Alternatively, you can call Sonnetech’s 24-hour fax-on-demand system at (415) 957-9941 with a fax phone.
! TTD (hearing-impaired):405 372 7341 Monday—Friday:10:00 a.m.—6:00 p.m. ! Webphone:clvwp1@clok.creaf.com Monday—Friday:10:00 a.m.—6:00 p.m. Operating hours (U.S.A. Central Time) ! Monday—Saturday:8:00 a.m.—10:00 p.m. ! Sunday:Noon—8:00 p.m. ! Public Holidays:Closed You can get our latest program and driver updates, technical data, and answers to frequently asked questions through these 24-hour services: ! BBS:405 742 6660 ! CompuServe:Go Blaster ! Fax Back:405 372 5227 ! Internet:http://www.soundblaster.
