The RageXL.card driver is a P96 driver implementation for the
32-bit wide, SDRAM PCI budget version of the RageXL card. Unlike
other card drivers, this driver is card specific and will only
drive one particular card model, namely the 32-bit budget
version of the RageXL card that can be cheaply bought as new
from various large IT suppliers.
* AGAIN, NOTE THAT THIS DRIVER IS NOT A GENERIC RAGEXL DRIVER *
This is because the RageXL bios does not contain system-agnostic
information on how to initialize the chip.
This driver includes support for the latest P96 versions such as
panning, screen draging, mode mixing and overlay windows, also known
as "PIP", short for "picture in picture". Due to limitations of the
hardware, panning is quite jerky and jumps in units of 8 to 2 pixels,
depending on screen mode. Screen dragging is limited to screens of at
most 720 pixels horizontal resolution, again due to hardware
limitations. Chunky screens and 24bpp (RGB, without alpha channel)
screens cannot be dragged at all. As for P96 screens in general, the
foreground screen cannot be dragged if there is no background, or the
foreground screen uses panning.
The driver supports all features the card offers: Accelerated
rectangle filling, rectangle inversion, copying, line drawing, and
pattern fill, also conversion from planar to chunky is accelerated.
The card also offers a hardware sprite used as mouse pointer, though
as for many PC cards, it supports only two colors, the third inverts
the background.
24bit RGB mode is only partially accelerated, it does not support text
drawing, pattern fill and line drawing, but it does support rectangle
filling and copying rectangles; it therefore supports fast scrolling.
This driver requires openpci, found on aminet at
https://www.aminet.net/driver/other/openpci68k.lha
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Changes for release 43.434:
- This is the first public release of the RageXL driver.
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This driver is provided to the Amiga community as contribution
and gift in return to the A4000 I had the honor to receive.
Thanks a lot, folks! Here is something in return.
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Installation:
- Download OpenPCI from
https://www.aminet.net/driver/other/openpci68k.lha
exgract it and run the installer in the archive.
- Copy RageXL.card to LIBS:Picasso96/
- If not already present in the system, install P96 with the
included installer, but do not select any graphics card.
The P96 installer will then place a file "Generic" in
DEVS:Monitors.
- Take this, or any other P96 monitor icon, and edit its
tool types with the workbench. Add or modify the following
tool type:
BOARDTYPE=RageXL
- Rename the icon to RageXL.
- Reboot the system, and start either Picasso96Mode or
P96Prefs (preferred).
- For P96Prefs, select the RageXL monitor and press on
"Add Default Modes", then edit the modes to your liking.
In particular, for low resolution modes, it may be necessary
to adjust the horizontal or vertical frame size (the first
two numbers on the right-hand side of the window) to
adjust the horizontal and vertical refresh rates to match
the requirements of the monitor.
- For the Picasso96Mode program, you need to create the
desired modes manually.
The following additional tool types are recognized by the
driver and can be added to the driver icon either by the
workbench:
INTERRUPT=<yes|no>
Enables or disables usage of the vertical blank interrupt
of the board. Not all PCI bridge boards may support this.
If present, screen operations can be synchronized to the
screen, avoiding tearing.
DISPLAYCHAIN=<yes|no>
Enables (with "yes") or disables (with "no") support for
switching monitors. The card itself does not offer a
VGA switch, but if you connect the VGA output of the
card with one input of your monitor, and the native
Amiga output with another input, the inactive output
will be disabled, allowing smart monitors to switch
between the outputs. This may be used as a poor-men's'
VGA switch.
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The THOR-Software Licence (v3, January 2nd 2021)
This License applies to the computer programs known as the "RageXL.card".
The "Program", below, refers to such program. The "Archive" refers to
the package of distribution, as prepared by the author of the Program,
Thomas Richter. Each licensee is addressed as "you".
The Program and the data in the archive are freely distributable
under the restrictions stated below, but are also Copyright (c)
Thomas Richter.
Distribution of the Program, the Archive and the data in the Archive by a
commercial organization without written permission from the author to any
third party is prohibited if any payment is made in connection with such
distribution, whether directly (as in payment for a copy of the Program) or
indirectly (as in payment for some service related to the Program, or
payment for some product or service that includes a copy of the Program
"without charge"; these are only examples, and not an exhaustive
enumeration of prohibited activities).
However, the following methods of distribution involving payment shall not
in and of themselves be a violation of this restriction:
(i) Distributing the Program on a physical data carrier (e.g. CD-ROM,
DVD, USB-Stick, Disk...) provided that:
a) the Archive is reproduced entirely and verbatim on such data carrier,
including especially this licence agreement;
b) the data carrier is made available to the public for a nominal
fee only, i.e. for a fee that covers the costs of the data carrier,
and shipment of the data carrier;
c) a data carrier with the Program installed is made available to the
author for free except for shipment costs, and
d) provided further that all information on said data carrier is
redistributable for non-commercial purposes without charge.
Redistribution of a modified version of the Archive, the Program or the
contents of the Archive is prohibited in any way, by any organization,
regardless whether commercial or non-commercial. Everything must be kept
together, in original and unmodified form.
Limitations.
THE PROGRAM IS PROVIDED TO YOU "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY. THERE IS NO
WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. THE ENTIRE
RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD
THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY
SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT THIS LICENCE, YOU MUST DELETE THE PROGRAM, THE ARCHIVE
AND ALL DATA OF THIS ARCHIVE FROM YOUR STORAGE SYSTEM. YOU ACCEPT THIS
LICENCE BY USING OR REDISTRIBUTING THE PROGRAM.
Thomas Richter
Note that this program is also available under license from individual
Computers, Jens Schönfeld GmbH.
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Send ideas, improvements, bug reports (please as concrete as possible)
to:
Thomas Richter
EMail: thomas.richter@alumni.tu-berlin.de
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Richter,
July 2025.
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