I was going by the Max ADU value that PHD2 would allow after connecting to the camera which is 255 and not editable/changeable when the native Windows driver is chosen. I did hear back from QHY support and they did say the Windows driver is 8 bit operation with PHD2. They indicated they were going to contact their developers to contact PHD2 to see what is necessary to enable 16 bit mode in the Windows driver within PHD2. They also indicated it operated in 16 bit mode if connected directly to SGP, MaximDL, NINA, and some other 3rd party software. I take that as the PHD2 connection is the only one where 8 bit mode is the only current option for their Windows driver.
Oddly, the ASCOM driver selection does NOT enable an 8 bit/16 bit mode selection in QHY ASCOM driver dialog. But with the ASCOM driver selected, PHD2 does allow the MaxADU to edited - it just won't hold it, dropping back to 255 (8 bit value). But it's like there is confused communication between PHD2 and the QHY driver - when a guide star is selected the ADU is shown in 16 bits with 65535 being the fully saturated value in the guide star box. What was disturbing is the PHD2 insisted on selecting stars that were fully saturated (by that 65535 adu level reading) and I had to switch "Saturation via star profile" to get a non-saturated star selected - never had that issue before so it caught me by surprise. I know this latest beta QHY driver pack is the version recommended and the QHY support person wanted to make sure that was the version I was running. But there is something in the QHY PHD2 SDK (I'm assuming) and/or in the QHY ASCOM coding that seems to not be in alignment when used in PHD2.
Software Bisque support has asked me to run a guide session within TSX/guiding with TSX to get a good hour or so of data (NIH concerning PHD2, but I can't control that).
I never got to actually guiding with the native Windows driver, the camera response was so slow/delayed that it was unusable. It could not take/feed consecutive images to PHD2 for focusing and took forever to create a Dark Library. In the Dark Library creating process you would watch it take an image, a delay of several seconds then two or three quick images, then a delay again. I just thought it was the software not updating status consistently, so didn't pay much attention other than it was taking a long time to get the Dark Library created.
Next step was just trying to get the OAG focused well enough to get some good (ish) stars - using the PHD2 loop function to watch the stars/HFR values while making adjustments on the OAG (I connect remotely with RDP, so my wife was FaceTiming me to let me watch the display while I was out at the OTA). It would update with each focus adjustment for one to two images, then nothing would change for the period of 3 to 4 images, then get a sudden update (and you had to realize it wasn't updating so you didn't keep chasing the 'fixed' display).
I then ran calibration in PHD2 with the native Window drivers and it finally did complete, but it would take an image then loop for two or three times the image exposure time, then take an image, loop - rinse and repeat through the entire calibration process. When the calibration finally completed, the graph looked OK, but I wasn't willing to try to guide with that sort of camera performance.
I went back to ASCOM driver at that point and started playing with USB traffic readout speed as PHD2 was losing connection just sitting doing nothing. I went up in value and it got worse, so I started down. I left it at 15 as the spot where I got to reliable camera connections. I misunderstood the slider though - according to the QHY tech, the lower the number on the slider, the faster the USB communication. I don't know why PHD2/QHY choked on the default 40, and I've never had to adjust that setting for ZWO. I don't know if their USB slider is the same in regards to speed/bandwidth as the QHY. Once that camera disconnect issue was resolved, the Dark Library process and calibration went as fast as the normally do. What I suspect is the non-adjustable Window driver was having the same issues as the ASCOM driver set at 40, just that PHD2 saw the windows driver and did not perceive a dropped/slow camera response like it did with the ASCOM driver. ???
I did NOT go back and try to fine tune OAG focus after all of that, and I think I should have in retrospect. So that is one of my objectives tonight, aside from the TSX guide run for SB Support.