If you are using the GT drivers for Windows 95 supplied by Diamond Multimedia Systems with any of the following video cards:
Stealth SE
Stealth 64 VRAM
Stealth 64 Graphics 2000 series (Stealth 64 DRAM is included in this series)
Stealth 64 Video 2000 series
Stealth 64 Video 2001 series
Stealth 64 Video 3000 series
the following Claris applications may exhibit strange color distortion and/or screen redraw problems.
ClarisWorks, ClarisImpact, and ClarisDraw will display blacked-out New Document dialog boxes, as well as other blacked-out menu items and dialog boxes. In some cases the documents themselves will be black.
FileMaker Pro 3.x will display mouse trails, mouse droppings and lines on the screen when moving anything in Layout Mode. Forcing a screen redraw (zooming in and zooming out, minimizing the screen, or switching to another layout and back again) will clear up the problem until something is moved or resized in the layout.
You can tell if you are using the Diamond GT drivers in several ways. The easiest way is to see if you have the InControl Tools icon in the notification area of your Windows 95 Taskbar (a diamond-looking icon located near the clock). Or, you can look in the Control Panel at the DISPLAY properties to see what driver you are currently using. To do this, do the following:
- Click on the START button, point to SETTINGS and then point to CONTROL PANEL
- In the Control Panel window, double click on the SYSTEM icon
- In the System Properties screen, click on the DEVICE MANAGER tab at the top
- Locate the DISPLAY ADAPTERS item and click on the plus sign next to it
- The information listed under Display Adapters is the video driver you are currently using.
There are several solutions and workarounds to this problem:
1) Diamond has an ALPHA driver on their FTP site that fixes the problem with ClarisWorks, ClarisImpact, and ClarisDraw. The alpha drivers DO NOT fix the problem with FileMaker Pro. Diamond's FTP address (as of the writing of this article) is
ftp://ftp.diamondmm.com
. There are complete installation instructions included with the driver from Diamond. Note that since these are still alpha drivers, it means they have not been officially tested, certified and released by Diamond. More information about this is also included with the driver.
2) You can use the Diamond-specific drivers off of the Windows 95 CD-ROM. These drivers are located in the \DRIVERS\DISPLAY\DIAMOND folder on the Windows 95 CD (upgrade or retail version) or in the \DRIVERS\DISPLY\STEALTH folder on the Windows95 OEM version CD ("For Distribution Only with a New PC") . There is a README text file as well as an INSTALL text file that you can consult for more information on these drivers -- including detailed directions on how to install them. Using these drivers will fix ALL video related problems when using a Stealth video card and ANY Claris application listed above. You will lose any functionality you might have had when using the InControl Tools supplied by Diamond. The InControl Tools DO NOT work with non-GT drivers.
3) You can contact S3 Incorporated (they are the makers of the accelerator chip(s) used on the Stealth line of video cards) and download the drivers for the specific chipset your card uses. As of the writing of this article, S3 can be reached on the Internet at
http://www.s3.com
.
These errors are caused by a compatibility problem between the GT drivers and Claris applications. While this might appear to be a Claris related problem, it is actually a problem with the GT drivers as other non-GT drivers have been proven to work successfully.
Contact Diamond Multimedia for more information on Stealth compatibility and driver availability.