keropi wrote:

Maybe it's my monitor? I can't see why but maybe it just does not like the generated signal. I have found the specs from a Greek ad - you can read them on the right side:

Your monitor is better than required. This is the one I used with the Chips-card:

Predator99 wrote:

If you select a Windows 16 color driver it will never use more than 16 colors at once and will also not start to switch palettes! Imagine you have 2 Windows A +B on the Desktop and both uses a diffrent (16 out of 64) color set. Would be possible, but the colors in Window A would totally mess up when sitching to Window B. Therfore Windows uses only 16 colors and doesnt modify the standard palette. Maybe it does it for the start logo....

Actually, Windows allows you to do exactly that. Not only can you change the colourscheme for Windows overall, from any of the VGA colours.... But a program can also modify the palette itself. And indeed, that may mess up things for other windows.
There is a whole palette manager in Windows to try and take care of that, with local and global palettes and priority management over which window gets to pick colours first etc.
See here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms969897.aspx
The 'missing' colours will get approximated by dithering (remember those blue gradients in the background of fullscreen installation programs in the Win3.x era? That's a fine example of an application using more than 16 colours logically, and Windows using dithering to map that to the actual colours if you're in a palette mode of 2, 16 or 256 colours).

For simple applications, you should be okay with the default colours, but any application that tries to modify the palette will likely show up wrong, just as my 1991 Donut demo.
A real EGA driver would only allow applications to pick from the 64 EGA colours, and would probably take different dithering strategies etc to match RGB colour values, since it has a different palette to work with than VGA does.

Just to be ultra-sure it's not the monitor (because it's really strict to what signal it expects , if something is out-of-specs then strange things happen 🤣 )

Scali wrote:

Actually, Windows allows you to do exactly that. Not only can you change the colourscheme for Windows overall, from any of the V […]
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Predator99 wrote:

If you select a Windows 16 color driver it will never use more than 16 colors at once and will also not start to switch palettes! Imagine you have 2 Windows A +B on the Desktop and both uses a diffrent (16 out of 64) color set. Would be possible, but the colors in Window A would totally mess up when sitching to Window B. Therfore Windows uses only 16 colors and doesnt modify the standard palette. Maybe it does it for the start logo....

Actually, Windows allows you to do exactly that. Not only can you change the colourscheme for Windows overall, from any of the VGA colours.... But a program can also modify the palette itself. And indeed, that may mess up things for other windows.
There is a whole palette manager in Windows to try and take care of that, with local and global palettes and priority management over which window gets to pick colours first etc.
See here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms969897.aspx
The 'missing' colours will get approximated by dithering (remember those blue gradients in the background of fullscreen installation programs in the Win3.x era? That's a fine example of an application using more than 16 colours logically, and Windows using dithering to map that to the actual colours if you're in a palette mode of 2, 16 or 256 colours).

For simple applications, you should be okay with the default colours, but any application that tries to modify the palette will likely show up wrong, just as my 1991 Donut demo.
A real EGA driver would only allow applications to pick from the 64 EGA colours, and would probably take different dithering strategies etc to match RGB colour values, since it has a different palette to work with than VGA does.

Yes, its all correct you wrote.

But back to the initial question: I am saying that the Windows Standard VGA driver (640x480, 16 colors) shows the same behaviour on a EGA and a VGA card. On both cards you can select 16 out of 64 colors in this mode and they look the same. But with this standard driver you are not able to select other than the default 16 colors.
Also the dithring you have shown in your screenshot is the same in the mode on EGA and VGA.
Yes there may be a strange Windows-Program that access the VGA palettes in this mode and this will not run correctly on a EGA card. Maybe this also applies to the Windows start logo, I dont know.

Wait some days until I have my PEGA running. If I am not able to manages this I will buy the Chips from Ebay just to show you that I am right 😉

keropi wrote:

Just to be ultra-sure it's not the monitor (because it's really strict to what signal it expects , if something is out-of-specs […]
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Just to be ultra-sure it's not the monitor (because it's really strict to what signal it expects , if something is out-of-specs then strange things happen 🤣 )

I dont think its your card or your monitor. The Video mode works, therefore both is OK. I think also the (wrong colored) Windows start Logo is displayed in a 640x480 resolution? Please confirm.

For me it looks like a configuration problem. Tried to disable memory managers and shadow options? Tried to siwtch back to a 286 CPU?

Yes the logo is displayed pink... memory managers and/or shadow options have been tested , no change in behavior. In fact I am only running HIMEM.SYS 99% of the time.
I can try to install the 286 cpu back but I won't use it even if 640x480 works. The reason I did a hackjob with the Kingston upgrade is because I wanted a somewhat beefier system to run EGA stuff without having to worry about a slow cpu. The upgrade did help lots in that regard and I'd like to keep it 😀

The system as-is is the perfect size and condition for my desk 😁 that's why I went to all that trouble to upgrade it a little and resort to adding/removing PLCC/PGA sockets so it can be used on my non-IBM 286 :

Predator99 wrote:

But back to the initial question: I am saying that the Windows Standard VGA driver (640x480, 16 colors) shows the same behaviour on a EGA and a VGA card. On both cards you can select 16 out of 64 colors in this mode and they look the same. But with this standard driver you are not able to select other than the default 16 colors.

Pretty sure you can.
See my link above about GDI and local palettes etc.
You can set 24-bit RGB palette entries for bitmaps. These bitmaps are 'device independent', meaning that the bitmap is in a 'universal' format, and the OS will take care of translating it to your specific device.
As it says, it can change the global palette to better match the DIB.
I'm pretty sure this will work in Windows 3.x using a 16-colour driver.
I could probably cook up a test-program, eg loading and showing a GIF or JPG image on screen, and then we can see how the OS tries to match the colours.
As the above link describes, there is a WM_PALETTECHANGED message that windows can receive. That message exists because... the palette can change!
This has actually been causing some bugs in Windows 7 and later, when running 256-colour DirectDraw programs. Some of the colours were 'stolen back' by the OS.
See here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... s.85).aspx
Which is a result of calling RealizePalette, see here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... s.85).aspx

The RealizePalette function maps palette entries from the current logical palette to the system palette. ... The RealizePalette […]
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The RealizePalette function maps palette entries from the current logical palette to the system palette.
...
The RealizePalette function modifies the palette for the device associated with the specified device context. If the device context is a memory DC, the color table for the bitmap selected into the DC is modified. If the device context is a display DC, the physical palette for that device is modified.
...
When an application's window has the focus and it calls the RealizePalette function, the system attempts to realize as many of the requested colors as possible. The same is also true for applications with inactive windows.

Now, I haven't actually tried this yet on Windows 3.x in VGA 640x480 16-colour mode, so it may still be possible that "as many of the requested colors as possible" amounts to 0.
It may also be possible that even though you are using a VGA driver, it only uses the 64 EGA colours. But I don't think either is very likely.

Allright thanks to a member on VCF we now have the " Phoenix Enhanced Video BIOS PLUS Version 1.02 01 " as shown on the eBay auction Predator99 posted.
My card came with a Phoenix EGA BIOS from 07/21/87 - the new one is from 05/12/89 so it's almost 2 years newer and could make a difference. Too bad I can't test it before tomorrow though...

Good luck! I hope it works! 😀

Hehe, already finalized the TSR for my PEGA. Had to intercept 2 calls:
00: Set Video mode 12-->50
0F: Read Video mode --> report 12

Now Windows is running with 640x480. Some drawing errors but I do not see a false color.

More later...

So 1st my TSR 😀 Dont laugh about the code, its really quick&dirty and I was to lazy to install my MASM and Turbo Debugger 😉

__________________
a
nop
xor ax,ax
push ax
pop ds
mov ax,[40]
mov bx,[42]
push cs
pop ds
mov [251],ax
mov [253],bx
xor ax,ax
push ax
pop ds
mov ax, cs
mov [42],cs
mov ax,200
mov [40],ax
mov ah,31
mov dx,100
int 21

a 200
cmp ah, 0f
je 230
cmp ah,0
jne 250
out 80,al
cmp al,12
jne 250
mov al,50
jmp 250

a 230
mov al,12
mov ah,0
mov bh,0
jmp 250

a 250
jmp aabb:ccdd
retf

n pega.com
rcx
500
w
q
_______________________

Just copy it in a file "PEGA.ASM", run
DEBUG < PEGA.ASM
and it will output PEGA.COM

What does it do? Redirects all call to VIDEO-BIOS INT 10 to itself and stays in memory after exiting. Afterwards it looks if the 640x480 mode 12h is requested. If yes, it directs it to mode 50h as this is the 640x480 mode on my PEGA.

The called mode is also displayed on a Diagnostic Post card (port 80), so you will see the current screen mode there.

I also had to add some lines to get Windows running as it verifies the current mode on startup, will not be neccessary for other programs...

So in this form is it only useful for PEGA owners and to Display mode on the Post card, but can be easily modified to redirect other Video modes too. You can run Commander Keen on a 640x350 screen...but it will be small 😉

And Windows Display and Palette:

With VGA Driver:
Start Logo with wrong colors

Palette looks OK, but some Display problems...maybe related to my TSR which return the wrong screen number. Cannot remember this was the case with my Chips card, but the colors looked similar.

Then I switches to the standard EGA driver for comparision:

Some color differences, but palette looks similar.
And when installing a VGA card it will also look similar.

Proven that:
VGA 640x480x16 mode works on EGA cards supporting the 640x480 mode 😉

Thnaks for listening, was fun 😉

Wow great work there Predator99! I will test it in a little while and report back 😀
About the boot logo we can use the ega version instead

keropi wrote:

Yes the logo is displayed pink... memory managers and/or shadow options have been tested , no change in behavior. In fact I am only running HIMEM.SYS 99% of the time.
I can try to install the 286 cpu back but I won't use it even if 640x480 works. The reason I did a hackjob with the Kingston upgrade is because I wanted a somewhat beefier system to run EGA stuff without having to worry about a slow cpu. The upgrade did help lots in that regard and I'd like to keep it 😀

The system as-is is the perfect size and condition for my desk 😁 that's why I went to all that trouble to upgrade it a little and resort to adding/removing PLCC/PGA sockets so it can be used on my non-IBM 286 :

Looks nice...my Computing area is more...chaotic 🤣 Case is nice too but not many ISA slots. Your Monitor is also very cool and must be one of the latest EGA Monitors?

keropi wrote:

Allright thanks to a member on VCF we now have the " Phoenix Enhanced Video BIOS PLUS Version 1.02 01 " as shown on the eBay auction Predator99 posted.
My card came with a Phoenix EGA BIOS from 07/21/87 - the new one is from 05/12/89 so it's almost 2 years newer and could make a difference. Too bad I can't test it before tomorrow though...

Thanks for collecting and posting all these BIOS images! I will be very happy to have them available when I have an own chips card again. But 40€ + shipment is too much..will find a cheaper way.

Thanks!

case has 4x ISA slots - enough for my purposes:
- EGA
- SB 2.0 with CMS chips
- NIC
- MPU card

ide/floppy/ports/ps2 mouseport are all onboard devices that help lots 😀

I tried the new TSR and it does switch DOS to 640x480 but I am still getting the blank screen when windows load. I am also getting a blank screen when I try to load another program, even window's SETUP.EXE results to blank screen. The pc does not freeze though and I can exit back to DOS prompth that works.

The windows stuff seem to be 386 related , this is what I get when I load windows in STANDARD mode:

and this is after exiting setup.exe from windows directory after the tsr is loaded:

I don't know why, maybe the system, the 386 upgrade, both? I am ready to give up on it 🤣

Getting info or bios files on ega/cga cards is a challenge nowdays - I was just lucky and people shared their roms 😀 And yes prices are all over the place , typical.

I assume my TSR is of no use for you as its only for my card which has 640x480 mode 50h 😉 For you it messes everything up because mode 12h is already implemented correctly 😉

Did you try this with your PEGA and also with your Chips card?

I have no idea at the moment. Would assume your problem Windows specific. There are many other programs you can test this VGA mode with. I remember also the latest Version of MS Word for DOS supported it. Maybe you can try it...

I have only tried it with my PEGA card, not the chips one.
My 3.1 installation is just a standard/fresh one - didn't actually have the time to install things or mess with it.

I have also tried using the windows VGA driver, no tsr / mode change of any kind and running windows with the /S switch: I am getting a screen similar to the one posted above.

keropi wrote:

The windows stuff seem to be 386 related , this is what I get when I load windows in STANDARD mode:

On 386 and higher processors, "386" Standard Mode is beeing used. 😉

Forgive me for asking, but what was the purpose of "Super EGA" back in its day? Was it just so that people could attain higher resolutions while keeping their existing EGA monitors?