LGR just recently used an IBM/AT with EGA Monitor. Great Image quality!!
My TowerAT has a built-in Gemini-VC1 (Hercules/CGA/EGA) is possible.
EGA with 256K up to 800x600@16colors!

I think you know my EGA-Art-Collection on Flickr 😀
https://www.flickr.com/photos/94839221@N05/al … 157652364100484

...the ega-japanese-porn art is not visable...sorry 🙁

^ yes I have seen the art collection - looks awesome! stuff like that made me want an EGA setup 😁

I had a Paradise EGA card in my 286 and it seemed to work pretty well.

I haven't seen any EGA card benchmarks, but I'd be surprised if video performance is the bottleneck in such a system...

If I remember correctly, I swapped the Paradise card for an ATI Wonder EGA and never really noticed any difference.

The biggest bottleneck in my system was the ST-251 hard drive, video performance was never an issue.

DonutKing wrote:

I haven't seen any EGA card benchmarks, but I'd be surprised if video performance is the bottleneck in such a system...

Pretty sure it is.
Back in the days of the 286/386SX-16 I already started to notice performance difference between machines with Paradise VGA vs Trident, Oak or Realtek.
It wasn't super-dramatic, but you could certainly notice the VGA card bottlenecking the system, especially the really bad ones (the Realtek was horrible, walking offscreen in Monkey Island resulted in a slideshow during 'scrolling').

So by that logic, if there are EGA cards that are as fast as the better VGA cards of that era, you would be able to notice it as well.
All I know is that an IBM EGA card is extremely slow, much slower than a decent VGA card in EGA mode. Probably slower than any VGA card.
But I don't have much experience with EGA clones, so I'm not sure if some of them really stand out in a positive way, performance-wise.

Avoid the original ibm ega card, unless you get it with the full 256kb and don't want to use it with a monochrome display. The ATI ega wonder is far more versatile.

https://books.google.de/books?id=Vy8EAAAAMBAJ … 0review&f=false

There was an article on a us-magazine between 1985-1988 were 5-10 ega cards were compared and benched, but I could not find it yet.

****
EDIT

I think I found it:
https://books.google.de/books?id=gC-DsOtl2MgC … 0review&f=false

Thanks for all the suggestions and input, I'll look for a Paradise or EGA Wonder card then - it is also interesting the original IBM card is slow, nice to know.
I will study dr.zeissler's link, really interesting.

I have benchmarked several ISA VGAs on my 286/16 system with Wolfenstein3D - WD90C30 is the fastest at around ~12fps IIRC, CL5429 is 1fps slower at ~11fps and realteks/oti/oak are almost at 7-8fps. A fast VGA does make a difference.

my tower at https://www.flickr.com/photos/94839221@N05/al … 157660715046016
has the gemini-vc1. these are suitable drivers for it. very interesting what the image contains.

Some progs on the EGA-Tower-AT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--4XmCKyPqo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nvu_CUTKSE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YuFQbghCBM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nvu_CUTKSE

some EGA clone would supplement the original IBM's EGA with Plantronics modes (which somewhat similar to PCJr/Tandy Modes, but not quite compatible due to how PCJr/Tandy modes works).

keropi wrote:

Hiya!

The time has come to delve into EGA territory since I found a color EGA monitor 🤣

You're very lucky! Would love to see pictures of that monitor in action 😀

I have a few EGA cards but haven't really had the time to check if there are noticeable speed differences between them. Last year when I was toying around with my turbo XT clone I remember EGA games being really slow, to the point that most of them were not very playable. CGA works really well with this machine of course, and if I'm not mistaken I think I tried a VGA card and it might even have been a bit faster than EGA, suprisingly.

I have fond memories of EGA games from the late '80s and would love to be able to play them again on my CGA monitor. But since they don't seem to work so well on my XT, I've been thinking of building a dedicated EGA machine, probably with some 286 or a 386SX16...

I was toying around with my turbo XT clone I remember EGA games being really slow, to the point that most of them were not very playable.

This is my memory as well. I would play games in CGA because they were faster.

I have only tested CGA and VGA on my XT build they seemed OK. I would guess that since EGA/VGA games are more demanding on the system a 8088/V20 is not enough. Unless you are referring to EGA games being faster on a VGA card and slower on an EGA in the same XT?

I will post pics of the monitor once I get it next week, it comes with an Olivetti 286 PC with onboard EGA, I will use this until I get a nice EGA card for my other 286 pc that I want to use.