First post, by LSS10999
It seems some DOS games expect a working VGA connection, not DVI, nor HDMI, through some means I don't know yet. Otherwise it will refuses to run.
Actually I was talking about this game: EPIC from DID. There was a thread in DOSBox Games/Apps here talking about the game refuses to run and says "needs VGA display, sorry". Though it was for DOSBox back then and was fixed for it, I had that issue on my DOS machines as well, and at that time my video card on that machine was connected using DVI instead of VGA to my LCD monitor.
A few days ago I did an experiment by connecting to my LCD monitor using the VGA port instead on that machine, and the game worked. Then I shut the machine and replugged the DVI while keeping the VGA connection, and let my monitor use DVI output, the game still works, even on DVI output.
However, on another machine which has a video card that only has two DVI ports and no VGA, the trick didn't work, even if I connect one of its DVI port using a DVI-VGA converter to my monitor.
And thus, it seems in order to get EPIC working, there are two requirements needed to be met:
- Your video card MUST have a native VGA (D-Sub) port.
- The VGA port on your video card MUST be connected to a monitor.
Otherwise, the game will refuse to run and says "needs VGA display, sorry".
So far this is the only game I know that have such requirements. My other games work fine without issues over DVI.
And here are the questions:
- Through what methods can DOS programs use to check if there is a working VGA connection to a monitor or not?
- Is it possible to fool such games to always think there is a VGA monitor present? Since there are some good video cards that do not have native a VGA port, and as for EPIC, the game actually can output over DVI without problems.