On Sunday 04 July 2004 01:47 pm, David Gillett wrote:
>   16 colours is all that the generic VGA driver provides, because that's
> all that's in the VGA spec.
>   The closest things to generic specs supporting 256 colours are (a) a VESA
> SVGA spec that seems to have been largely abandonned, or (b) the IBM 8514/A
> spec which was emultaed by many ATI cards and a few others.  Drivers for
> these, IF you can find them, MIGHT work with some random unidentified card.
>
>   If the card was legal to sell in the US, it probably has an FCC ID number
> on it somewhere.  I believe there are sites where that can at least give
> you the manufacturer, if not the model.
>
> Dave Gillett
>
> On 3 Jul 2004 at 7:18, Bob Zuccarello wrote:
> > I have an unknown vga video adaptor card that displays only 16 colors.
> > Does anyone have a generic driver that will allow me to get 256 colors?
> > Or any suggestions as to what I can do otherwise. Using the settings on
> > the display does not alter the setting from 16.
> >
> > Bob Zuccarello


Bob:
Adding to Dave Gillette's comment, you can find the FCC ID search site at:
http://www.fcc.gov/oet/fccid/. This will tell you the name of the company
that manufactured the card. Sounds good, but it may prove to be a blind
alley. Many add-in cards are manufactured by small shops that provide little
or nothing in terms of support. All is not lost, however. While you're
getting the FCC ID number, note the manufacturer and model number of the main
chipset; in most cases, the chipset manufacturer will provide a suitable
driver at their website.

Regards,
Carroll Grigsby

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