HanJammer wrote:VGA (SVGA) works in EGA modes as well. […]
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VGA (SVGA) works in EGA modes as well.
Why one would want EGA?
- EGA had TTL output (although many older VGAs had dual outputs as well) so if you have TTL monitor - EGA will be ideally suited for it.
- Many EGAs had composite output - comes in handy too.
- If you want period-correct 8088/80286 build - CGA or EGA will be perfect too.
Other than that - there is no true advantage running EGA over VGA.
CGA on the other hand is whole different story 😀
To me the main point of using EGA over VGA is getting scanlines - IMO it's how the games are supposed to be displayed. When the game developers were designing them they were using EGA screens as well, so they were drawing the graphics with scanlines in mind. When you display these games on VGA, they get scandoubled and I've always found that the resulting image looks somewhat wrong. It's the same story with many retro console users who prefer to play on CRT TVs or Sony PVMs.
Here's a quick comparison shot. 1st image is with a VGA card straight to the VGA input of an LCD screen:
Then with an EGA card going to an MCE2VGA converter and then the VGA input of the same LCD screen.
Needless to say these scanlines look better on a CGA or EGA monitor, but regardless of this, I much prefer the second picture. Some may find the effect subtle but to me it makes or breaks the playing experience - I have zero interest in playing these old games on VGA 🤣
Ozzuneoj wrote:I was just curious and looked up DeathTrack and found this user review:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/deathtrack … /reviewe […]
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I was just curious and looked up DeathTrack and found this user review:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/deathtrack … /reviewerId,16/
If you had just the right machine (an 80286 was ideal), the framerate was a good blend of detail and speed. But if you had a much slower or faster machine, Dynamix's way of adjusting that was to let you control how much detail was on the screen. This was fine for slower machines, but on fast machines, you can't add enough detail to get the game running properly. It's ludicrously fast on anything past a 386/33. Unfortunately, they repeated this behavior in other games, like David Wolf: Secret Agent and Motocross.
If one of your goals is to be able to play this game, you'll probably want to drop the 486.
Thanks for the link. I've tried this game on many machines so far, 286-12 to 286-20 works quite well actually but there are slowdowns (maybe these are due to having a SB 2.0 in the system?) - that's why I was looking into experimenting with a 386 in the first place. I know a 486 is a bit of a silly idea for EGA but I just wanted to see how far I could push it 😀