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A question for all you MS Windows experts, from a very-much-
not-Windows-expert:
The Compaq desktop that I recently got from the local recyclers
in Seattle has a video card saying:
"ATI 3D"
"Rage Pro turbo AGP"
"215R3 DUA33"
"B3K 35"
"9818 AA"
And the drivers that Win95 has on the CD won't let me set a
screen resolution greater than 640x480. Since my old 486 box
easily went beyond 1024x768, I assume I can do better, so I
downloaded a driver file from www.rim2000.com, the first place
google sent me. This file is about 3.2Meg in size and is
called ati524.exe. Doing Start->Run on this file produces
four files:
disk524.exe
disk524.r00
disk524.r01
ati524.PIF
Given the sizes and names, I take it that these "disk" files
are intended to be put onto floppies. I'm perfectly prepared
to do that, but it occurs to me that it's insane to download a
file, only to uncompress it onto floppies to then re-install
into a computer. I mean, it's already IN the computer, isn't it?
If I Start->Run the disk524.exe file, I get a screenful of info
that seems to indicate successful extraction of lots of files,
and no request for further disk insertion, etc. After this
process, the Control Panel->Display screen seems to find the .inf
file it needs in the "Have disk" section, but scrolling down the
now-much-expanded list of potential drivers always ends in a GPF
in a "Rundll32" when I get about halfway down the scrollbar, as
though maybe it wants something on those subsequent disk files.
My questions to the experts are: is this the normal way a driver
is downloaded and installed? First download, then exe it, copy several
files to several floppies, then install via drive A:??? I guess
if that's the drill, I'll do it, but it seems so mad that I thought
I'd ask here first.
Is there somewhere else besides www.rim2000.com that folks in the
know like to go for video drivers? The official ATI site I found,
www.atitech.ca, has drivers only for Win XP, Me, 2000, and NT,
and apparently no info whatsoever as to the capabilities of this
card I have.
TIA,
Jim
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