Formac GA collection
Formac Inc.
System
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Year: 1997
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What is Formac GA collection? What is ProGraphics:
ProGraphics Control, ProGA or simply GA is a videocard driver.
ProGraphics is needed for the
- ProVision 2 (GA3)
- ProVision 4 (GA4)
- ProMedia (GA6)
- ProMedia 3D Pro (GA8)
- ProFormance (GA5)
- ProFormance II (GA7)
- ProFormance Light (GA10)
- ProFormance III (GA12)
videocards.
ProGraphics supports MacOS 7.5 to 9.2
Question: Isn’t the latest Version the best? Why archiving all the old versions?
Answer: The Formac control panel is special as it supports several different graphics cards. This will in turn make some functions used by different architectures and possibly break some backwards compatibility. This is especially true for the short lived ProMedia 3D Pro which uses the Permedia 2 chip. The Permedia 3 is very similar on an architecture level but handles texturing and especially transparency very different. The result is broken 3D for the Permedia 2 from v5.5.0 onwards. Other cards like the Virge based ProMedia 20/40/40+ are equally prone to „fluctuating“ support.
From v5.4.0 onwards the ProFormance III (Permedia 3) receives the main attention and other cards may encounter less support in regards to 3D.
Collected info about the updates: 5.9.6:
2D:
• fixed a screen update bug with iTunes
• enhanced reliability of the ProGraphics screensaver
5.9.5:
2D:
• Bugfix for a carbonlib problem on some G3´s
• 16:10 Monitor with Line frequency range extended now from 80kHz to 125KHz
• 4:3 Monitor with Line frequency range extended now from 60kHz to 130KHz
• 17/350 Monitor added to list
• 17/650 Monitor added to list
• 19/400 Monitor added to list
• 19/600 Monitor added to list
• 21/750 Monitor added to list
• Sony 24 inch Monitor fw900 added to list
5.9.3:
3D:
• OpenGL fog with Tomb Raider 4, F/A-18 Korea 1.1
• support for Deus Ex
• support for OpenGL ‘compiled vertex arrays’ feature which brings performance in games with high polygon count
• improved general 3D performance
2D:
• the control panel window cannot get lost anymore
• support for monitors with up to 120kHz line frequency
5.8.0:
3D:
• Star Wars Episode maximum fog is higher
• Star Wars Episode texture border
• Unreal Tournament + Klingon Honour Z Buffer
• Bugfix for the Playstation emulator
• removed a TextureTiling Border bug in Unreal
• enabled Zoom mode (used by Playstation Emulator and Unreal Tournament)
• Kawasaki ATV DEMO no more black screen
2D:
• new color-temperature slider for SGI LCD 1600 Backlight
• Hotkeys for unused Functions are now default empty
• Bugfix for the Photoshop rectangular selection in 50% grey area
• Bugfix for MetaCreations Poser text-drawing
5.7.1:
- no info
5.7.0:
- no info
5.6.2b:
- no info
5.5.9:
- no info
5.5.8b:
- no info
5.5.7:
- no info
5.5.6:
- no info
5.5.5:
- no info
5.5.3:
- no info
5.4.6:
- no info
5.4.0:
- supports the new formac ProFormance III
3D:
- improved rave support for many games (FutureCop Full Version, TombRaider II, Unreal etc.)
2D:
- several QuickTime bugs fixed
- font cache supports smoothed fonts in System 8.5 or Adobe ATM
- font cache is significantly faster
- fixed minor drawing bugs (old programs, MPW, AppleCD Audio Player)
5.2.2:
- supports the new formac ProFormance II Light and ProMedia 3D Pro graphic cards
3D:
- improved 3D imaging quality for ProFormance II
- more resistant to specific bugs in games and benchmarks
2D:
- ProFormance now reliable in new G3 machines
- fixed missing texts in buttons (rare, crashed the machine)
- fixed few very rare drawing bugs
- when gamma correction is disabled, other cdevs or inits can apply gamma correction at boot time
5.1.2:
3D:
- improved performance in G3 machines
- faster and smoother textures for the ProFormance II
2D:
- bugfix for rotated Quicktime movies
- bugfix for big movies (source > 512 * 512 Pixel)
- bugfix for hardware incompatibility between ProFormance cards and G3 or Umax machines
5.1.0:
2D:
- the control panel supports manual selection of the connected monitor
- it is compatible and required for the ProFormance eprom revision 1.2.9
- improved Quicktime support for the ProFormance II
- bugfix for ProFormance II: sporadic hangups while booting (especially G3, as soon as the control panel is loaded)
- bugfix for Quark 3.3.x: black frames while draging pictures fixed
- bugfix for multi screen setups featuring ATI cards or ATI onboard graphics: sporadically missing pixels in the bottom right of fonts
5.0.3:
3D:
- ProFormance II supports transparent texturs
2D:
- incompatibility with other PCI drivers (e.g. Hermstedt ISDN) fixed; our control panel would not load properly
- bugfix for 7600/7.5.5: after closing the control panel the finder could not launch any apps
- now you can change resolution and color depth within the ga control panel
- changing the size of our font-cache is effective imediatelly
- faster in several applications (like Pagemaker, QuarkXPress)
- pretty rare drawing bugs fixed
5.0.1:
2D:
- fixes occasional crashes of ProMedia cards, using 1016 x 768 x millions in Apples 7200 and several Umax machines
5.0.0:
- supports the new formac ProFormance II graphic cards
- Improvement of 2- and 3-D acceleration (2-D = all cards, 3-D = ProFormance II, ProFormance and ProMedia)
2D:
- redesigned user interface
- drawing bug fixes for big two color pictures for Canvas and Freehand
- drawing bug fixes for combining the font cache with Adobe Type Manager; antialiasing works only if the font cache is disabled (see ATM readme)
- faster in many applications (like Photoshop, Netscape and others)
- specific Resolutions for DDC capable monitors (e. g. formac 24/600) for the ProFormance II
4.5.0:
- NO support for NuBus graphic accelerators
- Improvement of 2- and 3-D acceleration (2-D = all cards, 3-D = ProFormance and ProMedia)
3D:
- Additional switch for deactivating 3-D and Quicktime™ acceleration
2D:
- Bugfix for Pagemaker 6.5 with Pro Vision 4/xx
- Gamma correction improved
- Cache performance in 8 bit with Pro Formance optimized
- Performance of Quicktime™ with Pro Media improved
4.2.1 (last Version for 68k and NuBus):
3D:
- control panel includes now the Quickdraw 3D acceleration software for the ProFormance cards
2D:
- hardware acceleration for the Apple MPEG S/W decoder with ProFormance cards
- more Quicktime acceleration features (color transformations) with ProFormance cards
- minor drawing bug fixes for the ProMedia cards
4.2.0:
- supports the new formac ProMedia 20/40 graphic cards
4.1.4:
- fixes the problem of Quicktime crashes for the ProFormance graphic cards in the 256 color mode for special movie compression methods.
4.1.3:
- fixes a boot bug with 68K Macintosh computers
4.1.2:
- supports the new formac formac ProFormace 40/80 graphic cards
-> these cards supports now Quicktime scaling
-> 21" trueColor Fullscreen realtime playback possible
- better Font cache performance for all PCI grtaphic cards
4.0.9:
- fixes drawing errors and boot problems with the ProVision2 graphic card for the 800 x 600 resolution
4.0.7:
- supports the new Apple Games API: "Game Sprockets"
- compatible with Timbuktu Pro 2.0
- fixes drawing bug with Softwindows
- compatible with Apple Powerbook Duo docking station
4.0.6:
- fixes a boot bug with Systemupdate (german) 7.5.3
4.0.3:
- bug fix for color mismatches during blits with extended transfer modes in 256 color mode (e.g. image moving with QuarkXPress under palette windows)
- bug fix for non visible tearoff menues in the 3D render program "formZ".
4.0.1:
- some additional performance increasing for the PCI graphic cards
- full acceleration with enabled screen mirroring
- bug fix for the GWorld-handling with Vivapress 2.01
- bug fix for the screenshot problems with PCI graphic cards
- Ident window in the controlpanel by simultenous using of formac graphic cards
3.6:
- uses now the new Apple-Interface for graphic cards in PCI computer
-> impressed performance for polygons, ovals, arcs,…
-> screen mirroring not supported yet
3.5.1:
- better performance for 8x8 patterns for the ProVision 4/xx PCI cards
Version 3.5:
- supports the new formac ProVision 4/80 (8 MByte VRAM) graphic card for the Apple PowerMac PCI generation..
- Bugfix for hidden icons in long lists
- additional modul for extended cursor-handling (color & size)
3.4.1:
- better performance for complex shapes with the supported PCI cards
- Hot-Keys only with Modifiers-Keys (Shift, Command, …) valid
3.4 :
- supports the new formac ProVision 4/60 (128 bit acceleration) graphic card for the Apple PowerMac PCI generation..
- swichable Full-Window-Dragging
3.3.2:
- fixed Systemcrashes during the boot phase in the PowerMac 9500/132
3.3 :
- supports the now formac ProNitron GA 2 PDS graphic card. for the Apple PowerMac 5200 / 6200 computer.
3.2:
- supports now the formac ProVision2 graphic card. for the Apple PowerMac
PCI generation.
3.1:
- increased performance for complex objects (arcs, polygons, …).
- full acceleration for scrolling over more than 1 screen.
- now compatible of the screensaver with background processes
- possible delete of the hotkey's with <- (backspace) und Delete.
- balloon help now also for the zoom window.
3.0:
- supports ProNitron GA and the new ProNitron GAII graphic card.
- full native for the PowerPC.
- modular user interface with additional features:.
info, gamma correction, screensaver and hardware zoom/panning (only GAII).
- balloon help.
2.6:
- compatible with the PowerPC's (works in the emulation mode).
- same functionality as the version 2.5
2.5:
- Controlpanel with the acceleration software for the ProNitron GA - graphic card.
Download Formac GA collection for Mac
(18.97 MiB / 19.89 MB)
GA control panels / BinHex'd, use Stuffit Expander  8 /  2024-01-05 /  8ad4cbbcb105472f1a20475876d3bdc437923adc / 
/ 
(2.28 MiB / 2.39 MB)
ROM files for Formac cards / Zipped 1 / 2024-01-05 / 478d3267abde46d26b8df8c2b22c1e8d7496feb4 /
/
Architecture
System Requirements From Mac OS 7.5 up to Mac OS 9.2 Compatibility notes Only works on real HW |
Formac_GA_collection.sea.hqx
