Xclaim VR card: an assortment of info

a. Previously, I had reported that ATI was planning to post new drivers for the VR card on its web site - by early February at the latest. I subsequently received an email from a reader who said that ATI tech support had told him that ATI will not make these drivers publicly available. When I queried my contacts at ATI about this, I was told that tech support was wrong and that tech support would be instructed not to say this anymore. Yet, several weeks after that, Ed Sikorski sent me the following message that he received from Dave Geddes of ATI tech support:

"The software for the XCLAIM GA, XCLAIM VR and XCLAIM 3D are licensed, and as a result are not available for public access. The drivers that shipped with the XCLAIM VR and XCLAIM 3D are fully compatible with QuickDraw 1.5. If you are experiencing difficulties with QD3D, please forward the details and we can see if we can resolve your issue. If you are experiencing difficulties for which you feel you need updated software, please forward any relevant details so we can diagnose any problems."

Meanwhile, no new drivers are on the ATI web site. Curious.

Update: Weird. During the same week in early February that Ed got the above email, another MacFixIt reader was sent the following email:

"An updated released of the XCLAIM VR software will be released in the very near future. This update will address your issue. We will be posting the software on our Website when it is released. If you wish to have us mail you a diskette, please send us your complete mailing address, restating the problem, we will automatically send a diskette when it is released."

b. An "unofficial" web site devoted to the Xclaim VR cards, previously mentioned on this page, appears to have packed up and left town. I have no word on its current location, if any.

c. Fran Sendbuehler's NEC VGA monitor - hooked up to an Xclaim VR card - appeared to die after she tried to select a resolution not supported by the monitor. NEC told her that the adapter was not supposed to "supply a signal for resolutions it does not support," but yet it did. Adjustments to the jumper switches on the adapter appeared to be needed (this would have required an additional purchase as the adapter supplied by NEC did not come with jumpers). ATI Tech support initially suggested taking out the VR card for about 15 minutes and then reinserting it as a means of getting the monitor back (Fran tried this and it did not work). The real solution (which ATI did not suggest) turned out to be to zap the PRAM in the way that also zaps the NVRAM on PCI-Macs (as described in Troubleshooting System 7.5.3).

d. Ward Curry reminds me (as also mentioned on MacInTouch a few days ago) not to use the Graphics Accelerator extension that comes with the Mac OS if you have a VR card installed. If the extension gets installed, when you install Mac OS 7.6 for example, get rid of it.

e. Eric Belsley, on the MRP, reports that the VR card is not compatible with CU-SeeMe.