Technical Note 05
Holes Appear in a Window or the Band-Pass Window Crashes
Introduction
On rare occasions a user has reported that BassBox crashes whenever the Band-Pass window is selected. At other times mysterious holes appear in the Band-Pass window whenever it is opened in BassBox. The holes may also appear in other large windows. The program may crash after this happens. This problem usually indicates that there is not enough computer, Windows is running in "standard" mode rather than the more common (and recommended) "386 enhanced" mode, too many applications are being run at the same time or an incompatible video drive is installed. Each of these possibilities will be discussed.
Not Enough Computer
BassBox requires a minimum computer with a 386 processor, 4 MBytes of RAM and Windows 3.1 or later. The processor can be either an SX or DX model because BassBox does not use a math coprocessor. Do not attempt to run the program on a computer with a 286 processor or with less than 4 MBytes of RAM. Do not attempt to run the program with older versions of Windows (such as Windows 3.0).
Windows "386 Enhanced" Mode
The most likely cause of the aforementioned problem is insufficient memory or Windows resources. Although BassBox can be run on a computer with only 4 MBytes of RAM (memory), it should not be run if Windows is running in "standard" mode. The normal mode for Windows is the "386 enhanced" mode. If you type "win" at the DOS prompt to run Windows, it will try to run in the "386 enhanced" mode unless there is not sufficient memory. Note: It is unfortunate that Microsoft chose to call these two modes "standard" and "386 enhanced" because it causes confusion. The "standard" mode is really not the standard one. It is intended for very low-end systems with 286 processors or less than 2 MBytes of RAM. The "386 enhanced" mode is the real standard mode because it is the normal operating mode. And it applies to 486 and Pentium processors—not just 386 processors.
The "386 enhanced" mode enables Windows to use "virtual memory" (among other features). Virtual memory is not real memory. It is a trick that Windows plays to make the system think that part of the available hard disk space is memory (RAM). With virtual memory enabled, systems with only 4 MBytes of RAM can appear to have much more and run large programs like BassBox. Consult the Windows User’s Guide for more information.
Users must switch to the "386 enhanced" mode and enable virtual memory if Windows is not presently configured this way. Usually, there will be a line like "win /s" in the autoexec.bat file which runs Windows in "standard" mode (the optional parameter "/s" forces Windows to use the "standard" mode). Simply remove the "/s" option from the end of the line to allow Windows to run in the "386 enhanced" mode. You can force Windows to load in this mode by substituting the "/3" option (example: "win /3"). Use the 386 Enhanced control panel program in the Windows Control Panel to enable virtual memory after Windows is running in the "386 enhanced" mode.
Running Other Programs in the Background
Running other Windows applications and/or DOS sessions in the background while running BassBox can result in inadequate memory and Windows resources. This can also cause holes to appear in windows. We recommend that all other programs be shut down before running BassBox if problems are experienced.
Video Driver Incompatibility
Windows has a long reputation of having weird problems with various video drivers—especially with suped-up high-performance ones. If the problem persists and all of the preceding steps have been taken, contact the manufacturer of the video controller in the computer and obtain an updated driver. Most video controller manufacturers frequently update these drivers and have bulletin boards so users can easily download them.
Hint: You can test your video driver to see if it is really causing the problem. To test it, temporarily eliminate it by selecting the standard VGA driver that ships with Windows. This is done using the Windows Setup program and it may require you to have the original Windows installation disks handy. Microsoft’s VGA driver is known to be very stable. If you can run BassBox with no problems, then you can assume that the video driver is the problem.
If all else fails...
If none of the preceding steps fixes the problem, reinstall a fresh copy of Windows and then reinstall BassBox. (This provides a "clean" environment and removes any Windows files which may have been corrupted.) If this doesn’t work, then there must be an incompatibility with the computer.
