Contents

Introduction

Running MGA Control Panel

Quick Help feature

MGA Control Center

Display controls

Changing Mode settings

Restarting Windows

Virtual Desktop

Color controls / pixel depth

QCDP drivers

Fonts

ModeSWITCH controls

Switching display modes

Using Hotkeys

PixelTOUCH controls

Panning

Zooming

Basic Control Panel buttons

OK

Cancel

Help

Control Panel buttons - Defaults

Control Panel buttons - Cursor (color)

Cursor color buttons

Control Panel buttons - Hotkeys

CenterWINDOW

MGA Quick Access

Quick Access / Display mode

Quick Access / Feature Buttons

Quick Access / Zoom

Quick Access / System menu options

Changing Windows drivers


Introducion
Introduction

MGA CONTROL PANEL version 2.1

The MGA Control Panel provides you with easy access to the many features of your MGA Windows 3.1 drivers. Using MGA Control Panel you can:

· Change the screen resolution for Windows

· Change the number of colors available

· With the ModeSWITCH driver, change the screen resolution on the fly without exiting Windows

· Select a font size for your Windows display

· Change the size of the Windows desktop area, which can be larger than the screen area (virtual Desktop). This is also available with the ModeSWITCH driver.

· Select zoom factors of x1, x2, and x4

· Change the cursor color

· Center pop-up dialog boxes in your current display

· Maximize applications to the size of your on-screen area.


Running Control Panel
Running MGA Control Panel

To run MGA Control Panel just click on its icon in the MGA Tools group window. After you have made the changes you want, click on the OK button to confirm, and the Control Panel program will close. Clicking on the Cancel button lets you exit the program without saving any changes.

MGA Control Panel dialog box

The main Control Panel dialog box contains panels and buttons to:

· Control your display Modes (you can set up four different modes for instant access)

· Enable certain display features (CenterPOPUP, MaxVIEW)

· Change your Zoom setting

· Enable/disable ModeSwitch

· Change cursor color

· Configure Hotkeys


Quick Help feature

When you are running Control Panel you can get a brief description of each of the controls by clicking the right mouse button on or near the control


MGA Control Center

The MGA Control Panel and MGA Quick Access programs keep track of your display settings, and pass commands to the MGA Control Center.

The Control Center minimized (it always runs minimized) icon, located at the bottom-left corner of your desktop  informs you what the current mode is (1024 x 768, 8 bit color in this example), as well as the size of the virtual Desktop (1280 x 1024) and your current zoom setting (z1 means x1 zoom).

If you use the Windows Alt+Tab method of switching between active programs, and you let go of both keys when you see the MGA icon, MGA Control Center will automatically start MGA Control Panel for you.

You must leave the MGA Control Center running to use your Hotkeys, MGA Control Panel, or MGA Quick Access. If you close Control Center, you will have to restart Windows in order to use the MGA Control Panel and Quick Access programs.


Display controls

Click on one of the option buttons to select a new screen resolution. Not all of the resolutions supported by MGA Control Panel are available on all boards or monitors (some may be grayed out).      See Also: Default Settings

Changing Mode settings:

To configure one of the four display Modes, click on the Setup button for that mode. You can reconfigure the modes at any time.

A dialog box opens to allow you to configure your Resolution, virtual Desktop, Colors, and Font size. You can make your choice for Resolution by clicking on an option button or by clicking the left mouse button in the visual display panel (to the right of the Desktop settings panel) and resizing the white screen.

Restarting Windows

· When you change settings in Display, virtual Desktop, Colors, or Fonts , and you are currently using that mode (and not running ModeSWITCH), Windows will have to be restarted. A dialog box appears, informing you that you must restart Windows for the change(s) to take effect.

· When you enable or disable the Use ModeSWITCH checkbox (in the main dialog box), Windows will have to be restarted. A dialog box appears, informing you that you must restart Windows for the change(s) to take effect. Once you are using the ModeSWITCH driver, you will not have to restart Windows when you switch or modify display modes.

You may also select Continue at this point to exit MGA Control Panel and restart Windows manually at a later time, or select Restart Windows to restart Windows automatically and immediately. If you select Cancel, your changes will be discarded.


Virtual Desktop

An additional feature of MGA Control Panel is that it allows you to set up a virtual Desktop area that's larger than the actual screen display. For example, this feature lets you set up a Windows virtual Desktop environment that occupies an area of up to 1600 x 1200 pixels, but view it at a Display size of 1024 x 768.

The virtual Desktop allows you to, for example:

· View a two-page side-by-side document

· Open a large, fully maximized spreadsheet and view smaller blocks of cells while avoiding long redraw delays.

The available virtual Desktop sizes consist of all the resolutions greater than the display resolution, up to the maximum resolution available for the current pixel depth.You can make your choice for the Desktop by clicking on an option button or by clicking the right mouse button in the visual display panel to the right, and resizing the dark grey desktop 'surface' around the white screen.

If you are not using the ModeSWITCH driver, and the changes are made to the current mode, Windows must be restarted for your new virtual Desktop setting to take effect.

When you want to see a part of the screen that's hidden from view (but still active in the virtual Desktop area), just touch one of the screen edges with the mouse cursor to pan there (see PixelTOUCH).


Color controls / pixel depth

Select one of three color settings in this panel. The list contains all of the color possibilities supported by MGA Control Panel even though they may not all be available at your current resolution. If this is the case, Control Panel will automatically select the highest resolution that supports your choice. The panel to the right of the option buttons shows you an approximate spectrum display of the available colors.

Tables of the available color depths for each MGA board type are presented at the end of Chapter One of your installation manual. When you change the color depth, Windows must be restarted (if you are not running ModeSWITCH) because each pixel depth choice you select results in a different display driver being used.

QCDP drivers

There are 8-bit and 15-bit QCDP drivers which are used (in place of the 8 and 16-bit drivers) when you enable ModeSWITCH. These drivers feature a hardware dithering process which emulates true color (24-bit pixel depth) using only 8 or 15 bits of color. This allows greater selection of resolutions than the normal 24-bit, 16.7 million colors Windows display driver. The drawback lies in speed of operation, which will be slower than the standard 256 color driver, but about the same as with the 24-bit driver.


Fonts

Choose between the two option buttons to select between Small or Large font.

Fonts controls the size of the characters used by system menus and dialog boxes. The setting you choose will also affect the size of various other system resources such as buttons and window size.

· You'd normally select Small font for the 640 x 480 resolution. If you select a resolution of 640 x 480 in the Display panel, Small font is selected automatically. You can change this manually if you wish.

· Large font is automatically selected for resolutions of 800 x 600 or greater.

The default is Large font , to match the default resolution of 1024 x 768 for Mode 1. Windows must be restarted when you change the font.


ModeSWITCH controls

ModeSWITCH introduces an alternate method of setting up the display. The ModeSWITCH feature uses a special Windows driver to toggle between various resolutions and pixel depths on-the-fly.

ModeSWITCH can save you a great deal of time when you switch between, for example, a high-resolution 256 color display and a medium resolution 16.7 million color mode. Other advantages are the fact that display switching is immediate, and that all your applications can remain open, because Windows isn't actually restarted.

You should run our Monitor Selection program and configure for your monitor before using the ModeSWITCH driver.

When you click on the Use ModeSWITCH check box, you can switch between the four modes you have configured without restarting Windows each time. You will have to restart Windows only when you enable or disable ModeSWITCH. Note that Windows will always start up with the last mode you were using.

You can also change the configuration of a mode while running ModeSWITCH, and use it immediately. In ModeSWITCH all modes, except for 24-bit color, will be using the QCDP driver.

Switching display modes

You can switch between display modes by:

· clicking on the option button for a mode

· using the Hotkey for that mode

· using the Quick Access panel to select a mode

The ModeSWITCH driver can use the Small or Large font, but the same font will be used for all resolutions. The Small font will be selected for all modes if one of your ModeSWITCH resolutions uses it.

Using Hotkeys

Four hotkeys have been selected by default (they are not enabled by default), but you can click on the Hotkeys button to choose different hotkeys to access the four available modes. Your Windows display will instantly switch to the predefined display settings for a mode when you press the hotkey for that mode. Note that the hotkeys for ModeSWITCH do not work while a DOS window is active (has the input focus).


PixelTOUCH controls

PixelTOUCH is an effortless panning and zooming feature. To activate PixelTOUCH zooming, click on the Hotkeys button and then select and enable a hotkey for the zoom.

Panning

When a virtual Desktop greater than the display resolution is selected, panning is automatically enabled. To pan, simply touch an edge of the screen with the mouse cursor. You can also lock your view to a certain area and disable panning by enabling the PanLOCK feature. If no virtual Desktop is used, panning won't be possible until you've zoomed.

Zooming

The zoom is very easy to use. You only have to press the user-definable hotkey to toggle through the three zoom factors, or select a zoom factor through the MGA Control Panel or Quick Access panel.

As long as MGA Control Center is running and PixelTOUCH is enabled, you can set a hotkey that'll instantly change the zoom factor. The zoom is centered over the current mouse cursor position.

The hotkey (Ctrl + F5 by default) toggles in a circular order through the three zoom factors ( x1, x2, x4, x1, ...). The x4 zoom is unavailable at resolutions of 800 x 600 and lower.

When you zoom in to an image, other areas of the image are outside your viewing area. To see the hidden parts when you're at zoom factors greater than x1, move the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen and the screen will pan in that direction. At zoom factors of x1, x2, and x4, the display pans 16, 32, and 64 pixels at a time, respectively.

Note that the hotkeys for PixelTOUCH do not work while a DOS window is active (has the input focus).


Basic Control Panel buttons

OK

The OK button accepts the changes to your display and closes the MGA Control Panel program. The Display, virtual Desktop, Colors, and Fonts options require you to restart Windows to change them if you're not using ModeSWITCH, and you are using the mode you just changed. (So does enabling or disabling ModeSWITCH). When you've selected those options, you're prompted to restart Windows immediately.

If you dont need to use a change immediately, you can click on the Continue button, which allows you to continue working at the same settings until the end of your Windows session. The next time you start Windows, the changes will be in effect.

Cancel

The Cancel button cancels all new selections made since the MGA Control Panel dialog box was opened, and closes the MGA Control Panel program.

Help

Click on the Help button for this on-line help about MGA Control Panel.


Control Panel buttons - Defaults

To reset all options in the main menu to their default settings click Defaults.

The default settings for MGA Control Panel are:

· Zoom x1

· Disable Modeswitch

· Features checkboxes not enabled

· Current display mode is Mode 1

To reset each mode to its default, click on the Setup button for that mode, then click on the Default button in that dialog box, then click on OK.

The default settings for the Display modes are:

· Default Mode 1 settings are:	· Default Mode 2 settings are:

Display: 1024 x 768	Display: 1024 x 768

Desktop: 1024 x 768	Desktop: 1600 x 1200

Color: 8-bit, 256 colors	Color: 8-bit, 256 colors

Font: 	Large font	Font: 	Large font

· Default Mode 3 settings are:	· Default Mode 4 settings are:

Display: 1024 x 768	Display: 800 x 600

Desktop: 1024 x 768	Desktop: 800 x 600

Color: 16-bit, 65K colors	Color: 24-bit, 16.7 M colors

Font: 	Large font	Font: 	Large font

Click here to see Hotkey defaults.


Control Panel buttons - Cursor (color)

When you click on the Cursor button, the Cursor color selection dialog box opens. This dialog box lets you interactively set the colors of your mouse cursor. The Cursors Preview panel displays three frequently used cursors to show you how your colors will look.

The cursor is composed of two distinct areas. Use the Modify panel to select the area (Foreground or Background) you want to edit. When you select the foreground or background color, the corresponding color component values appear in the Color Space panel edit boxes at the bottom right, and the scrollbars are updated accordingly to show the current color value.

Use the Color Space panel to set the color of the selected area. The three letters after the title of the panel tell you what color space you are working with (RGB or HSV) to select your cursor color:

· RGB: This stands for the Red, Green, and Blue components that make up a color. The value range is from 0 to 255. A setting of 0,0,0 will give you black, and a setting of 255,255,255 will yield white.

· HSV: This is an alternate system for determining color composition. The letters stand for Hue (tint), Saturation (pureness) and Value (brightness). Click on the To HSV button to set your colors using this color system.

° The Hue determines the tint of the color: a value of 0 is red, 43 is yellow, 85 is green, 128 is cyan, 170 is blue, 213 is magenta, and 255 is red again.

° The Saturation determines the pureness of a color: a value of 255 gives a crisp (saturated) color, values less than 100 give a washed-out (unsaturated) color, 0 gives you white (regardless of the Hue component).

° The Value component is a measure of the brightness of the color: a value of 0 gives black, regardless of other two components, and a value of 255 gives a very bright color.

With either system, you can use the slider buttons to interactively scroll to a value, or you can enter the value you want in the box to the right of the slider bar. See Also: Cursor color buttons.


Cursor color buttons

OK button: Click on the OK button to accept the changes and activate them immediately. Your color selection will remain until you change it again through MGA Control Panel.

Cancel button: Click on the Cancel button to cancel all color selections made since the Cursor color selection dialog box was opened, even if the Test or Default button was pressed.

Default button: Click on the Default button to reset the foreground and background colors to the system defaults of black and white.

Test button: The Test button sets the active cursor to the selected foreground and background colors. You can move the cursor around and try it out before clicking on OK to make it final.

To HSV button: The To HSV button is visible only when you're editing in RGB space. Pressing the To HSV button will convert the RGB scrollbars to the HSV scrollbars with Hue, Saturation and Value set to the currently selected color.

To RGB button: This button is only visible when you're editing in HSV space. Pressing the To RGB button will convert the HSV scroll bars to the RGB scrollbars with Red, Green and Blue intensities set to the currently selected color (see RGB color space panel).


Control Panel buttons - Hotkeys

When you click on the Hotkeys button, a dialog box opens for you to configure hotkey settings for:

· The four display modes

· PixelTOUCH

· MaxVIEW

· CenterWINDOW

· PanLOCK

Note that there are hotkey combinations selected, but none of them enabled by default.

The default Hotkey settings are:

Mode 1: Shift+F6

Mode 2: Shift+F7

Mode 3: Shift+F8

Mode 4: Shift+F9

PixelTOUCH: Ctrl+F5

MaxVIEW: Ctrl+F12

CenterWINDOW: Ctrl+F11

PanLOCK: Ctrl+F3


CenterWINDOW

This feature will center your display area on the currently active window. You can enable this feature by clicking in the Enable Hotkey checkbox button. When you want to center your display around the active application, use the hotkey combination to call the command. This feature works even when your display is zoomed in on another area, and is only available through a hotkey.


MGA Quick Access

Running the MGA Quick Access program gives you a faster way to access the features of MGA Control Panel. Double click on the icon to launch MGA Quick Access. The dialog box opens immediately. It is divided into three areas, from left to right these areas control the active Display mode, the Features, and the Zoom factor. As well there are System Menu configuration options.


Quick Access / Display mode

You can change your current display mode just by clicking on the button (1, 2, 3, or 4) for another mode. You can get information on the settings for a particular mode by clicking your right mouse button on the mode button. A popup window will show you the settings for the Display resolution, Desktop size, pixel depth, and Font size for that mode button.

You can enable or disable ModeSWITCH by clicking on the bottom button in this area (You will have to restart Windows). The button stays depressed to indicate that ModeSWITCH is running. While ModeSWITCH is running, you can change modes just by clicking on one of the four mode buttons.


Quick Access / Feature buttons

PanLOCK

PanLOCK locks your view to the current display area when you're using a virtual desktop larger than the current resolution. This feature, once enabled, can be toggled on/off by a Hotkey or by MGA Quick Access (you sould set Quick Access for Follow display, Always on Top). The current state is shown in the main MGA Control Panel window, in the Features panel.

PanLOCK also affects the zoom feature. If you zoom in to an area, and PanLOCK is on, you will not be able to pan over to another area of your desktop.

CenterPOPUP

This feature will cause any pop-up dialog boxes to be centered in your current display area. You can enable this feature by clicking on the CtrPOPUP button or by clicking on the checkbox in the main MGA Control Panel window.

MaxVIEW

When you use the maximize button for an application, this feature limits the size of the window so that it does not extend outside your immediate working (on screen) area (you can still scroll to any off-screen areas on your desktop). MaxVIEW does not work when you're in a x2 or x4 zoom.

You can also toggle this feature on and off by clicking in the checkbox in the main MGA Control Panel window or with the hotkey for MaxVIEW.


Quick Access / Zoom

By clicking on the [image] or [image] button, you can immediately zoom into or out from your present view. This gives you an alternate to using the hotkey for zooming.


Quick Access / System menu options

If you click in the system menu area [image] of Quick Access, or press Alt+spacebar while the program is in focus, the dialog box offers you configuration options for Quick Access.

The configuration options include:

No Title: When this is enabled (shows a check mark), the title bar and system menu area disappears. You can also enable and disable this option by double clicking on any area in Quick Access where there is no button.

Show Vertical/ Horizontal: This will toggle you between a vertical or horizontal layout for the Quick Access window.

Follow display: When this is enabled, (usually in combination with the next option) the Quick Access window will follow you when you scroll your display to another area of your desktop.

Always on Top: When this is enabled, the Quick Access window will always be on top of any applications you are running. If this is combined with the Follow Display option, you will always have Quick Access within your viewing area.


Changing Windows drivers

If later on for some reason you wish to run Windows with a different driver (perhaps for some other display adapter in your system), just run the Windows setup program.

To do this, from DOS, enter these lines:

c:

cd \windows

setup

Highlight the Display option, press Enter, and select the new driver you wish to use (either from the list presented or by selecting Other and responding to the prompts). To return to the MGA Windows driver, run Windows setup as just explained, and select any one of the following options:

Matrox MGA 16-bit 65K Colors

Matrox MGA 24-bit 16.7M Colors

Matrox MGA 24-bit Packed Pixel

Matrox MGA 8-bit 256 Colors

Matrox MGA ModeSWITCH

Windows will start next time with the selected driver, at the 640 x 480 resolution. You'll be able to select a new resolution (and other features of your display) by running the MGA Control Panel program.


Default Hotkey mode settings
   The default Hotkeys for MGA Control Panel are:

Mode 1: Shift+F6	Mode 2: Shift+F7
Mode 3: Shift+F8	Mode 4: Shift+F9
PixelTOUCH: Ctrl+F5	MaxVIEW: Ctrl+F12
CenterWINDOW: Ctrl+F11	PanLOCK: Ctrl+F3


PanLOCK locks your view to the current display area when you're using a virtual desktop larger than the current resolution.


MaxVIEW:

When you use the maximize button for an application, MaxVIEW limits the size of the window so that it does not extend outside your immediate working (on screen) area (you can still scroll to any off-screen areas on your desktop). MaxVIEW does not work when you're in a x2 or x4 zoom.