Monster 3D Troubleshooting

Windows 95

If you experience a problem using Monster 3D under Windows 95, there are three possible causes of your problem:

DOS

If you are experiencing problems using Monster 3D under DOS, there are two possible causes of your problem:



If you are using Monster 3D with a Diamond Stealth64 3000 Series with Diamond GT Drivers











































Your game is incompatible with Monster 3D or the 3Dfx chipset.

Monster 3D supports the following 3D API's:

Windows 95

DOS

If the game you are playing does not support one or more of these 3D API's, your game will not be able to recognize Monster 3D, and hence will not take advantage of it. Check with the game publisher in question about obtaining a version that will support any of the above API's.

















































Monster 3D is not properly installed.

Check to make sure that Monster 3D is properly seated in its PCI slot and that the pass-through cable is firmly and correctly connected to your graphics card. For more information, please see Monster 3D Installation Instructions.
















































Monster 3D drivers are not correctly installed.

Your Monster 3D CD includes the Mojo diagnostic program, which is also installed in your Diamond program group when you install Monster 3D drivers. Mojo is a diagnostic program that will determine if your Monster 3D drivers are correctly installed. If they are correctly installed, Mojo will report the salient details of your drivers, including version number, location, and so forth. To execute Mojo, select it from the Diamond group in your Start Menu\Programs, or double-click on its icon from inside your Windows folder. Mojo will only run in a Windows 95 environment.

Software Diagnostic



Hardware Diagnostic

If your drivers are not installed correctly, Mojo will not run; it will abort before it can complete its diagnostic tests.



































Stealth 64 Video GT Drivers

The S3 968/868 video controller which is used in Diamond's Stealth64 Video 3000 series of video cards, among others, contains a memory bug. This bug may cause problems with the Monster 3D card when running Diamond GT drivers. 968/868 claims to require 32 MB of frame buffer memory, but it actually decodes 64 MB of frame buffer memory on a PCI bus. Sometimes, Monster 3D gets mapped by Windows 95 into the 968 upper 32 MB of memory decode address. This memory conflict will crash your computer.

To determine if you have this conflict, run the Mojo diagnostic utility. If Mojo runs correctly, you do not have this memory conflict. If Mojo crashes or fails to run, you may have a memory conflict.

In order to remove the memory conflict, please follow these directions:

  1. Right-click on My Computer and choose Properties.
  2. Select the Device Manager panel.
  3. Double-click on Display adapters and then double-click on S3 Vision968 PCI or Stealth 64 Series drivers.
  4. Select the Resources panel and scroll down in the Resource type area of the panel. Record the Memory Range value.
  5. Open the MULTIMEDIA Control Panel and then double-click on Monster 3D PCI Video Multimedia Device.
  6. Click on the Resources panel and scroll down in the Resource type area of the panel. Record the Memory Range value.

After you have recorded the different memory addresses for your Stealth64 Video 3000 series card and your Monster 3D card, change the Memory Range values so Stealth64 Video 3000 and Monster 3D are 64 MB apart. If Stealth64 Video 3000 is mapped at EE000000, then change Monster 3D to E0000000. If Stealth64 Video 3000 is mapped at FA000000, then change Monster 3D to FC000000.













API - Application Programmers Interface

An API is a series of software commands used by programmers to implement a specific set of instructions, such as the creation of 3D graphics, and make those instructions avialable to other programs, or to make specific functions of your operating system, such as Direct3D, available to an application.