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I've an a1200hd/040 attached to an NEC 17" monitor via a scando. I would like to enable the VGA modes (800x600, at least) but I do not know what will happen to all the ntsc and pal games I have collected. I also have cd32 capabilities thru my surfsquirrel.

What will happen if I take off the scando and disable all the monitor drivers except for the VGA driver?

[Damion]

Most games open on their own screens, so unfortunately
they will not work on a VGA type monitor unless
scandoubled. Also, you will need to leave in at least
a double pal/ntsc monitor driver in addition to the
VGA only patch in order to use a VGA type monitor without
a scandoubler, unless of course you use the multiscan
or euro72 drivers.

With scandoublers you can still use the super72
and double pal/ntsc drivers along with the VGA only
patch, it should just pass through. The VGA only patch
will still only bump the scan rate up to about 29khz
or so with the double pal/ntsc drivers, but most VGA-type
monitors can handle this.

With some system friendly games you can try using no
scandoubler, a double pal/ntsc driver, VGA only patch
and enable mode promotion. It attempts to promote the
display to a VGA-esque display, but is a bit flaky, at
least in my experience.

I would recommend leaving the scandoubler hooked up; the
video modes that aren't around the 15khz range will
just be passed through.

"D"...a single character name...that's very suspicious.

I immediately trust you.

The problem with the scando is that the only high resolutions it shows are Hi res interlaced for ntsc and pal. I have collected a string of useless monitor drivers, including everything you named and some more, I think. None test out.

Is there something I should know about monitor drivers?

"D"...very interesting.

[Damion]

Yeah, my real name is Damion. My other nick is
Dr.Fritz, but I thought that might have been too
scary for A.org, so I stuck with D, which is what
some of my friends call me anyway ( and is short
for either Damion or Dr.Fritz... :-) )

So when you select a multiscan mode like productivity
laced does the screen just go blank?

Yep, that's exactly what it does.
Do you recognize the symptom?

[Damion]

It would seem that your scandoubler won't pass
through the other modes...bummer, I thought they
all did. Well, most games won't work on a VGA
monitor without the scandoubler...you could use
one of those monitor switch-boxes. That's probably
what I would do, or just put up with switching
the cords periodically. Personally, I use pal hires-
laced with max overscan, and then just adjust the
monitor borders in. That gives you pretty close to
an 800x600 display, and you won't suffer the major
slowdown from using multiscan or euro72.

Thanks again, D. (today is Thanksgiving) I'll try that. I was really surprised that the scando would not access other interlaced modes too. It almost makes me want to return to my 1950. 800x600 was no problem for it.