aries-mu wrote:

dionb wrote:

I only wonder now if, for example: say you take a DOS game from 1994 or 1993. Say you run the SETUP.EXE file of such a DOS game and the program, being older, in the VIDEO CARD setup section, in the S3 sub-section, doesn't show the Vision 868 or Vision 964 or Trio64 as they didn't exist yet. And say I don't want to use a generic SVGA setting. I wonder if, by selecting the latest S3 it's gonna have (for example 911 or 805 or 928), it's gonna work like S3-optimized even with an S3 Vision 868 or Vision 964, or at least still better than if I use the generic SVGA setting (being the same chip manufacturer, although a different model).

can you name some DOS games with such setup program and specific vga chipset optimizations?
and we arent counting custom Virge decelerated games like Destruction Derby or Screamer

rasz_pl wrote:

can you name some DOS games with such setup program and specific vga chipset optimizations?
and we arent counting custom Virge decelerated games like Destruction Derby or Screamer

The only one I surely remember is SimCity 2000.
I'm sorry, It's been such a long time that I forgot... (Mortal Kombat maybe?)

aries-mu wrote:

rasz_pl wrote:

can you name some DOS games with such setup program and specific vga chipset optimizations?
and we arent counting custom Virge decelerated games like Destruction Derby or Screamer

The only one I surely remember is SimCity 2000.
I'm sorry, It's been such a long time that I forgot... (Mortal Kombat maybe?)

afaik those shipped with Univbe, a TRS updating VESA support in case your card shipped with early/broken version

rasz_pl wrote:

afaik those shipped with Univbe, a TRS updating VESA support in case your card shipped with early/broken version

Right! I remember indeed. There was a UNIVESA.EXE file in the Sim City 2000 installed directory or one of its sub-directories.
But still the SETUP program of the game allowed to choose both the sound card among many (including AdLib and Creative models of course) and the graphic card among many (which included S3, Tseng Labs, and if I recall even Cirrus Logic).

So what would that UniVBE do exactly?

checked my collection
1993 release has /VESA folder with individual VESA TSR programs for particular VGA chip

1 Directory of \VESA
2
312/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          .
412/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          ..
512/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          AHEAD
612/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          APPIAN
712/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          ATI
812/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          BOCA
912/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          CIRRUS
1012/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          COMPAQ
1112/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          C_AND_T
1212/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          DIAMOND
1312/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          EVEREX
1412/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          GENOA
1512/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          HEADLAND
1612/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          HERCULES
1712/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          IBM
1812/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          IRIS
1912/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          OAK
2012/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          ORCHID
2112/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          PARADISE
2212/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          PERFECTV
2312/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          SIGMA
2412/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          SPIDER
2512/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          STB
2612/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          TECMAR
2712/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          TI_PORT
2812/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          TRIDENT
2912/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          TSENG
3012/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          UNIVESA
3112/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          VIDEO7
3212/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          WESTERN
33               0 File(s)              0 bytes
34              30 Dir(s)

1994 build just shipped univesa without bothering/confusing users

rasz_pl wrote:

checked my collection 1993 release has /VESA folder with individual VESA TSR programs for particular VGA chip […]
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checked my collection
1993 release has /VESA folder with individual VESA TSR programs for particular VGA chip

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1 Directory of \VESA
2
312/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          .
412/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          ..
512/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          AHEAD
612/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          APPIAN
712/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          ATI
812/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          BOCA
912/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          CIRRUS
1012/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          COMPAQ
1112/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          C_AND_T
1212/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          DIAMOND
1312/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          EVEREX
1412/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          GENOA
1512/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          HEADLAND
1612/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          HERCULES
1712/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          IBM
1812/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          IRIS
1912/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          OAK
2012/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          ORCHID
2112/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          PARADISE
2212/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          PERFECTV
2312/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          SIGMA
2412/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          SPIDER
2512/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          STB
2612/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          TECMAR
2712/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          TI_PORT
2812/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          TRIDENT
2912/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          TSENG
3012/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          UNIVESA
3112/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          VIDEO7
3212/21/2012  19:24    <DIR>          WESTERN
33               0 File(s)              0 bytes
34              30 Dir(s)

1994 build just shipped univesa without bothering/confusing users

↑↑↑ WOW LOOK AT HOW FANTASTIC IS THAT!!! ↑↑↑

wow even the proprietary Compaq cards!! Must have been the QVision cards, they were good, even EISA.

Does that mean that, even if a new card was released and wasn't supported by the SETUP program of the game, by loading the UniVBE TSR driver it would work optimized for that whatever new card?????

aries-mu wrote:

Does that mean that, even if a new card was released and wasn't supported by the SETUP program of the game, by loading the UniVBE TSR driver it would work optimized for that whatever new card?????

It depends the games/application use cases. If all they required were high resolution/colors modes, then yes, and with VESA 2.0+ linear frame buffer (LFB) is a standard and 32-bit protected mode games can speed up drawing operations with LFB because LFB enables more efficient pixels operation from CPU. This is a typical use case for games.

For professional DOS apps such as AutoCAD, the video ASICs accelerated drawing primitives are not accessible through VESA 2.0+ standards. The specialized video ASICs drivers for AutoCAD (AutoCAD Display Interface) called ADI drivers would enable such accelerated drawing primitives for zoom, rotate, layers, fills and clears. Remember that unlike IBM VGA, IBM 8514/A and XGA display standards do have accelerated drawing primitives. VESA later came up with VESA VBE/AF standard in hope to support video ASIC accelerated functions, but that wasn't very successful, as the focus for productivity apps shifted to Windows GUI. The OS vendors (Microsoft, SGI, IBM etc.) would never rely on VESA to define display driver standards. Everyone would have their own display driver standard models to expose drawing primitives and accelerated functions. VESA standards then became a generic, unaccelerated fallbacks.

aries-mu wrote:

Does that mean that, even if a new card was released and wasn't supported by the SETUP program of the game, by loading the UniVBE TSR driver it would work optimized for that whatever new card?????

from a quick glance Im guessing all Setup program does is show you results of vdetect.exe Vesa detection
every one of those 28 directories contains a custom VESA driver. For a new card to not be on univbe list would mean it was released past 1994 and already had updated VESA driver included in its bios.

Simcity 2000 readme.txt talks all about problems and solutions to getting your card VESA capable before running the game. Looks like Maxis put a ton of work in making sure everyone would be able to play in SVGA mode. They kept working on it while updating the game, shipping univesa 3.2 in 1993, and later univbe 5.0 beta in 1994, even the latest(1.01) release has both univbe and additional custom drivers just to be sure all bases are covered.

kjliew wrote:

It depends the games/application use cases. If all they required were high resolution/colors modes, then yes, and with VESA 2.0+ linear frame buffer (LFB) is a standard and 32-bit protected mode games can speed up drawing operations with LFB because LFB enables more efficient pixels operation from CPU. This is a typical use case for games.

For professional DOS apps such as AutoCAD, the video ASICs accelerated drawing primitives are not accessible through VESA 2.0+ standards. The specialized video ASICs drivers for AutoCAD (AutoCAD Display Interface) called ADI drivers would enable such accelerated drawing primitives for zoom, rotate, layers, fills and clears. Remember that unlike IBM VGA, IBM 8514/A and XGA display standards do have accelerated drawing primitives. VESA later came up with VESA VBE/AF standard in hope to support video ASIC accelerated functions, but that wasn't very successful, as the focus for productivity apps shifted to Windows GUI. The OS vendors (Microsoft, SGI, IBM etc.) would never rely on VESA to define display driver standards. Everyone would have their own display driver standard models to expose drawing primitives and accelerated functions. VESA standards then became a generic, unaccelerated fallbacks.

Very interesting to know and detailed, thanks. Wow, there was so much going on already at those times!
Sometimes, I wish GUI environments like Windows never took off and we remained with the DOS command prompt (ONLY) forever! 😁

rasz_pl wrote:

from a quick glance Im guessing all Setup program does is show you results of vdetect.exe Vesa detection every one of those 28 d […]
Show full quote

aries-mu wrote:

Does that mean that, even if a new card was released and wasn't supported by the SETUP program of the game, by loading the UniVBE TSR driver it would work optimized for that whatever new card?????

from a quick glance Im guessing all Setup program does is show you results of vdetect.exe Vesa detection
every one of those 28 directories contains a custom VESA driver. For a new card to not be on univbe list would mean it was released past 1994 and already had updated VESA driver included in its bios.

Simcity 2000 readme.txt talks all about problems and solutions to getting your card VESA capable before running the game. Looks like Maxis put a ton of work in making sure everyone would be able to play in SVGA mode. They kept working on it while updating the game, shipping univesa 3.2 in 1993, and later univbe 5.0 beta in 1994, even the latest(1.01) release has both univbe and additional custom drivers just to be sure all bases are covered.

Thorough analysis, thanks. Yes, it was a FANTASTIC game, IMO one of the greatest ever, from one of the greatest software houses! (y) (y) (y) to Maxis!