First post, by hyperrmachine
I have been thinking of making a game for DOS. I want to use VGA so I went through the resolutions.
Traditional VGA modes are: […]
Traditional VGA modes are:
- 640×480 in 16 colors or monochrome
- 640×350 or 640×200 in 16 colors or monochrome (EGA compatibility)
- 320×200 in 256 colors (Mode 13h) <--- This was used for a lot of games.
- 320×200 in 4 or 16 colors (CGA compatibility)
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VGA supports custom resolutions, with horizontal resolutions of:
- 512 to 800 pixels wide, in 16 colors
- 256 to 400 pixels wide, in 256 colors
And heights of:
- 200, or 350 to 410 lines (including 400-line) at 70 Hz refresh rate, or
- 224 to 256, or 448 to 512 lines (including 240 or 480-line) at 60 Hz refresh rate
- 512 to 600 lines at reduced vertical refresh rates (down to 50 Hz, and including e.g. 528, 544, 552, 560, 576-line), depending on individual monitor compatibility.
For example, high resolution modes with square pixels are available at 768×576 or 704×528 in 16 colors, or medium-low resolution at 320×240 with 256 colors. Alternatively, extended resolution is available with "fat" pixels and 256 colors using, e.g. 400×600 (50 Hz) or 360×480 (60 Hz), and "thin" pixels, 16 colors and the 70 Hz refresh rate with e.g. 736×410 mode.
"Narrow" modes such as 256×224 tend to preserve the same pixel ratio as in e.g. 320×240 mode unless the monitor is adjusted to stretch the image out to fill the screen, as they are derived simply by masking down the wider mode instead of altering pixel or line timings, but can be useful for reducing memory requirements and pixel addressing calculations for arcade game conversions or console emulators. (From Wikipedia)
By the way I have a question. Is 400x256 a valid resolution? Can I use 400x256 (with 256 colors) with square pixels?