I'm thinking that the so-called EGA graphics were actually tailored for VGA, since the game seems to enter EGA 320x200x16 mode and then make some palette changes, which only show up with VGA machine types (as they should, since 200-line modes always have a fixed palette on the EGA).

As long as a 200-line mode is active, a genuine EGA card would display the same image regardless of the monitor type. Possible exceptions would be those "super-EGA" Boca/Paradise/etc. boards that supported *x200 in 64 colors on certain monitors, but I wouldn't know if that's what the game was designed to support... VGA seems like a more probable assumption, given the timestamp of 1992.

The game has settings for CGA, Tandy, EGA, and VGA, with the last supporting the standard 256 color mode.

A standard EGA card and a standard 200-line monitor can only display 16-colors in the 4-bit RGBI format. Thus on most monitors, you should get the same screen as the Tandy, although I wonder if the palette writes mentioned change the colors you see. Those "super-EGA" cards must be able to switch a special monitor into a 200-line 6-bit RrGgBb mode.

Here is the demo : http://www.classicdosgames.com/game/Magic_Pockets.html

Every color in the EGA screens is part of the standard 16-color palette, so I'm not seeing any issue. Actually, the EGA colors are similar to the VGA colors, so I tend to think that was the intention.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Every color in the EGA screens is part of the standard 16-color palette, so I'm not seeing any issue. Actually, the EGA colors are similar to the VGA colors, so I tend to think that was the intention.

I am sorry, you are correct. I simply assumed that EGA and TGA would look the same. There are no color values in the palette in the screenshots I took which use a color outside the 16-color RGBI model. The light blue, light red and light gray and bright white are used twice, and only 9 distinct colors are on the screen.

I assume that the game remaps the palette registers on an EGA mode from the default 16-unique colors to use those colors that work best for its underlying bitmaps, even if that means repeats. Tandy also has palette registers, so why not remap its palette registers as well?

As long as a 200-line mode is active, a genuine EGA card would display the same image regardless of the monitor type.

It's not a matter of the EGA card but of the monitor. The EGA card could easily be reprogrammed for the other colors in 320x200, but the monitor won't understand it. Unless the monitor has a "64-color" button that has to be pressed every time.

In the 320x200 16kHz mode both monitor and EGA BIOS keep CGA compatibility. At the ~21kHz 640x350 mode the monitor unlocks the 64 colors.

A nice method would have been to switch by sync polarity - but IBM didn't have the idea or there were other constraints.

I checked the game with my Everex EV-157B EGA card and IBM 5153 Color Display it seems to display the same colors as DOSBox with the EGA machine type. It certainly does not display the greenish tint of the Tandy. DOSBox is correct and I was mistaken.