Grzyb wrote on 2024-05-03, 16:09:
Jo22 wrote on 2024-05-03, 15:00:
I mean, visual novels on MSX 2, Sharp x68000 and PC-98 did make good use of higher resolutions and colour depths, too.
No 64 KB segment size limit in the 68000.
And weren't 32-bit extenders common on the PC-98 long before they appeared in the standard PC software as well?
Not sure, I'll have to check. Some earlier PC-98 models were based around 8086 (or V30) and 80286 processors.
There's a technological difference between PC-9801 and PC-9821 line, essentially.
The latter is from the 90s and more modern.
Later models had used extenders, I suppose. The Windows 3.0 Enhanced-Mode kernal was being used as some EMM386 replacement, at some point.
Or do I'm mixing things up here? Hm. I'll have to check. My memory is a bit sketchy here. 😅
Grzyb wrote on 2024-05-03, 16:09:
Also, before VESA BIOS Extensions got common, it was simply impossible to write an SVGA program and expect it to work on all SVGA cards.
I guess x68000 and PC-98 were more uniform, and no such problems, right?
Well, there was SVGA.BGI for Borland languages, which covered most known ISA VGAs of the time.
But in terms of direct SVGA support, 800x600 16c was about the only "universal" mode.
The Paradise/WD, V7 VEGA and ET-4000 (ET-3000 too?) VGA mode numbers were kind of popular, I suppose.
Supporting those should have covered quite some PCs among users, albeit not all of them.
The VBE specification essentially was meant to standardize 800x600 16c mode, initially.
But by 1990 onwards, many if not all ISA VGAs had shipped with VBE TSRs on the supplied diskettes. The manufacturers weren't unaware about the market situation, after all.
So the technology was "there". 640x400 256c was even more monitor friendly than 800x600.
Windows 2.x drivers (800x600 16c and 640x400 256c) for the Paradise PVGA were dated 1988, if I'm not mistaken.
Anyway, the lack of VBE support directly in VGA BIOS surely was a problem of the time.
Many PC owners apparently didn't have the diskettes with the utilities that were bundled with the VGA cards.
But it's also understandable that VGA BIOSes didn't have VBE support yet.
The specification was pretty "beta" and still changing, so manufacturers did opt for VBE TSRs, rather.
Which in turn hindered VBE support in the DOS compatibility box of OS/2 1.x.
VBE TSRs don't work there. *sigh*
Edit: Quote fixed. Sorry about that.
Edit:
Grzyb wrote on 2024-05-03, 16:09:
I guess x68000 and PC-98 were more uniform, and no such problems, right?
Using an X68000 required a multisync monitor, essentially. The supplied original monitor of the X68000 could do 24 KHz, I think.
The platform was pretty arcade-ish all in all.
Edit: The X68k platform was trisync, essentially - 15/24/31 KHz.
https://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:x68000_monitors
PC-98/PC-9801 was on par with EGA or VGA, visually.
In their heyday, graphics adventures/visual novels had used 640x400 with 16c, by default.
The used graphics hardware was standardized, like VGA was.
Later models had supported 640x400 256c, even.
More information here:
https://www.target-earth.net/wiki/doku.php?id … og:pc98_devcode
What I meant was that "we" had 640x400 resolution available at the very beginning of the VGA era. In 256 colour depth, even!
So it would have been possible for western games to be on par with those Japanese games, graphically.
We also had 640x480 16c (mode 12h), with changing palette, but..
Western artists didn't like to work with 16 colours.
Most of our game designers loved 256 colours, which the fixation to mode 13h (320x200 256c) pretty much had proven.
So 640x400 256c would have been the only reasonable upgrade path to them, likely.
Standard VGA in 640x480 16c (mode 12h) wasn't bad by any means, but our game designers simply had an aversion against it for whatever reason.
It was rarely been used past simulations and sophisticated text-adventures with graphics.
Sadly. Because freeware, shareware and public domain games using it didn't look bad at all.
Windows 3 desktop games looked ok, often.
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