UniVBE (short for ''Universal
VESA BIOS Extensions
VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE) is a VESA standard, currently at version 3, that defines the interface that can be used by software to access compliant video boards at high resolutions and bit depths. This is opposed to the "traditional" int 10h BI ...
'') is a
software driver
In computing, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and o ...
that allows
DOS applications written to the
VESA
VESA (), formally known as Video Electronics Standards Association, is an American technical standards organization for computer display standards. The organization was incorporated in California in July 1989To retrieve the information, searc ...
BIOS standard to run on almost any display device made in the last 15 years or so.
The UniVBE driver was written by
SciTech Software
SciTech Software, Inc. was a privately held software company based in Chico, California.
Founded by Kendall Bennett in 1996, SciTech Software, Inc. developed many popular graphics device driver programs for the PC, ranging from UniVESA (late ...
and is also available in their product called SciTech Display Doctor.
The primary benefit is increased compatibility and performance with
DOS
DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems.
DOS may also refer to:
Computing
* Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel
* Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...
games. Many video cards have sub-par implementations of the VESA standards, or no support at all. UNIVBE replaces the card's built-in support. Many DOS games include a version of UNIVBE because VESA issues were so widespread.
According to SciTech Software Inc, SciTech Display Doctor is licensed by
IBM as the native graphics driver solution for
OS/2
OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 r ...
.
History
The software started out as ''The Universal VESA TSR'' (UNIVESA), written by
Kendall Bennett. It was renamed to ''Universal VESA BIOS Extensions'' (UniVBE) in version 4.2 at the request of
VESA organisation, and is no longer
freeware
Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...
.
In version 5.1, VBE/Core 2.0 support has added.
In version 5.2, it was renamed to Scitech Display Doctor. However, UniVBE continued to be the name used for the actual driver.
Version 6 included support of VBE/Core 3.0, VBE/SCI.
Version 6.5 introduced the ability to use Scitech Display Doctor as wrapper video driver.
Version 7 supports
VESA/MCCS, and included Scitech GLDirect, an
OpenGL emulator. This version was also ported to OS/2 and
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
(as version 1.0). However, the proposed product has never been widely available. Only pre-releases are available to the public. In the Windows SDD prerelease, it included DOS UniVBE driver 7.20 beta, the Scitech Nucleus Graphics driver, GLDirect 2.0 and 3.0 beta. SDD 7 was first released on OS/2 on the 28 February 2002, followed by a Windows beta on 1 March 2002.
SciTech Display Doctor 7.1 marked the final release of SDD, which was available on OS/2, among other operating systems. However, the Scitech Nucleus Graphics engine lived on as
SciTech SNAP
SciTech SNAP (System Neutral Access Protocol) is an operating system portable, dynamically loadable, native-size 32-bit/64-bit device driver architecture. SciTech SNAP defines the architecture for loading an operating system neutral binary device ...
(System Neutral Access Protocol) Graphics, SciTech SNAP DDC, and SciTech VBE Test Suite 8.0.
Unlike UniVBE, SciTech SNAP Graphics is designed as fully accelerated binary compatible graphic device driver, rather than patching a
GPU
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...
BIOS to be VESA-compliant.
Display Doctor is no longer supported by SciTech Software. SciTech Display Doctor 5.3a, SciTech Display Doctor 6.53, and UniVBE 6.7 were available on their FTP site,
but as of 4 October 2009, the FTP site no longer seems to be available; this seems to be related to the acquisition of SciTech Software by
Alt Richmond Inc. in December 2008.
One attempt to provide an alternative to SciTech's products was FreeBE/AF,
but the last release was on 27 June 1999.
Compatibility
UniVBE requires a video card with at least 512 KB of memory.
Although UniVBE has supported many controllers, the quality of VESA support decayed in newer incarnations, especially for owners with older hardware. In the case of newer GPUs, the video cards that use them have begun to incorporate rewritable firmware, which allows video card manufacturers to offer better VBE patches than SciTech can supply, especially for cards using
Matrox
Matrox Graphics, Inc. is a producer of video card components and equipment for personal computers and workstations. Based in Dorval, Quebec, Canada, it was founded in 1976 by Lorne Trottier and Branko Matić. The name is derived from "Ma" in Mat ...
processors.
UniVBE does not add 16-colour screen modes or text modes, but offers an option to reuse those modes with a "pass through feature". However, the text mode pass through feature has been broken since the release of SDD 6.
Matrox G-series video cards can only use video modes that utilize at most half of its memory. This is different from the
Matrox Millennium
Matrox Graphics, Inc. is a producer of video card components and equipment for personal computers and workstations. Based in Dorval, Quebec, Canada, it was founded in 1976 by Lorne Trottier and Branko Matić. The name is derived from "Ma" in Ma ...
, which was documented by SciTech as a hardware flaw.
References
External links
SciTech Software(archived copy)
VESA VBE enhancement software (archived copy)
(archived copy)
*
tp://cyberia.dnsalias.com/pub/filebase/freedos/ All SciTech UniVBE freeware files(ftp mirror)
RegCodes for former shareware SciTech products turned freewareWayback Machine
archived copy)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Univbe
Device drivers
VESA