Can't go wrong with Sierra and LucasFilm Games of the time. They really did a great job with EGA.

Platforming-wise, you have Commander Keen as well as a few other Apogee titles. Duke Nukem, Bio Menace Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, etc.

And EGA Trek. 😁

CkRtech wrote:

And EGA Trek. 😁

Yeah! (^_^)

Beautiful EGA Games:

- Most all older Adventures are really beautiful on EGA
- TestDrive2
- Overkill
- Speedball
- Xenon2

I should boot-up my 286 TowerAT (EGA) and look for the Games/Demos/Intros
that are installed on the 1Gb SCSI harddisk.

EGA-Pixelart-Collection (Hires) https://www.flickr.com/photos/94839221@N05/se … 157652364100484
TowerAT (EGA) https://www.flickr.com/photos/94839221@N05/se … 157660715046016
Some small older Vids on that EGA-Machine https://www.youtube.com/user/drzeissler

jheronimus wrote:

[...] 2. I also have this Oak OTIVGA EGA/VGA combo card (the yellow one on the photo). Any reason to use it instead of the Prism […]
Show full quote

[...]
2. I also have this Oak OTIVGA EGA/VGA combo card (the yellow one on the photo). Any reason to use it instead of the Prisma card?

2017-03-31%2022.10.05.jpg

3. Any reason to use an earlier DOS version, aside from "period-correctness"?

nice build! congrats!

About the OTIVGA/EGA card: I have a similar one and in EGA mode it will be faster than any EGA card - even the high end ones. But if you plan to use it in EGA mode prepare for incompatibilities: games that auto-detect for ega/vga will assume it's a VGA card and it will produce an unusable image (GODS comes to mind) or wrong colors. Some allow you to force EGA , some just have the issues no matter what.

About DOS, 6.22 is just fine - going to a lower version doesn't have any benefits - at least on the stuff I do on my 286/EGA setup. Keep 6.22 😎

keropi wrote:

About DOS, 6.22 is just fine - going to a lower version doesn't have any benefits - at least on the stuff I do on my 286/EGA setup. Keep 6.22 😎

I'm always using MS-DOS 5.00a on anything below a 486. It's fast, small, and not bloated with stuff I don't need (memmaker, double space, msav, etc.). Also, it has QBasic already (and hence edit.com) and comes with DOSShell, which I really like.

^ the only edit.com worth mentioning is the one from ms-dos 7xx - it works fine in previous versions.
I have found 6.22 to have better memory management but as always YMMV

The OAK cards have got a nifty little mode utility called VGAMODE.
It works from the 037c model onwards and allows for a selection of CGA, EGA, VGA and Hercules(!)
This is nice for CGA games in particular, because the emulation supports palette 0 via registers (tested with Starquake).
Here's a little video with the Hercules mode in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YtFhfny_oI

Edit: Utility attached.

^ try it with GODS or Supaplex and see what happens - mode is ignored

I got a weird issue — whenever I leave text mode (e.g., Norton Commander or DOS prompt) and launch a graphical game, the screen starts producing a slightly noticeable hissing sound and it's a bit unnerving. Got that with Vette, Test Drive 2, etc. Is that an issue with the screen itself, or the graphic card?

most likely the monitor changes from 25khz to 15khz for the game... some hissing is not something unusual, does it not go away after a while?

^ try it with GODS or Supaplex and see what happens - mode is ignored

Okay, so I tried. The Supaplex game works fine in VGA mode, but not so well in EGA. 🙁
That had to be expected, though. Because the EGA was so similar to VGA, there probably was
little reason to implement a full emulation of it (unlike CGA/Hercules which wanted 6845 compatibility).

The OTI cards probably do very little in this case, and it rather is related to the emulation of the Video BIOS.
VGAMODE perhaps instructs the OAK VGA BIOS to hide some of its modes and features.
Normal EGA games (pre-VGA) might fall for it, but not the later ones.

I haven't really checked, but I suspect Supaplex uses a 16 colour mode also,
perhaps even an EGA mode, with a modified palette. Anyway, it seems to run fine in VGA mode.

Also, another game, Skyroads works fine with OAK's EGA emulation.

vga mode will be fine - I haven't detected anything weird as well. But jheronimus asks about using the card in EGA mode: that's where the problems start since some games nommater the setting will default to a wrongly-detected VGA card.
The supaplex detection specifically only fails in dual vga/ega cards and with some ega cards that can display a 16color vga mode. Pure/real EGA cards work fine.

I see, makes sense, thanks. At least the OAK does support some of the more important CGA stuff, at least.
If I had access to an actual EGA monitor, I would love to do some testing and compare the results with a true EGA adapter! 😁

Maybe I'm missing something, but does Skyroads support EGA graphics?
Also, doesn't that game require a 386?

Hm. Just double-checked on my 286 and DOSBox..
It works fine here.

Prince of Persia also has a great looking EGA mode.

maybe we should start a thread about (good) EGA games 😁 , we all know the sierra/lucas/apogee ones but there are tons more out there - like Skyroads that I had not idea as well

I'm wondering if Skyroads had multiple releases. For example, there are different versions of Sierra games. Some only do VGA. Some only do EGA, and others can do EGA or VGA (using VGA emulation through 620x200 EGA mode).

keropi wrote:

maybe we should start a thread about (good) EGA games 😁 , we all know the sierra/lucas/apogee ones but there are tons more out there - like Skyroads that I had not idea as well

vogons seems to have some rumbling about EGA as well as 286s lately. It would be fun to create an enthusiasts guide for the two - games that work well on 286 hardware as well as good EGA games.