VOGONS


Reply 20 of 45, by HanJammer

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OldCat wrote:

What is the racing game with red car displayed above? I'd like to give it a try on my monitor setup to check how it will look.

Deathtrack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2GXWb2aiGU

Pretty cool game.

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Reply 22 of 45, by dr.ido

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Predator99 wrote:
HanJammer wrote:

- Many EGAs had composite output - comes in handy too.

Yes? Which one? 😉 I have may EGA cards but these Cinch-Connectors are all "fake". None of them outputs a composite signal on it.

I've never found an EGA card with a active composite output either. Don't the RCA connectors actually go to the feature connector on the card - to enable them needs an addon card that I have never seen.

Reply 23 of 45, by Jo22

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HanJammer wrote:
Deathtrack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2GXWb2aiGU […]
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OldCat wrote:

What is the racing game with red car displayed above? I'd like to give it a try on my monitor setup to check how it will look.

Deathtrack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2GXWb2aiGU

Pretty cool game.

Indeed, looks fine. 😀

The games seem to use (M)CGA/QVGA low-res resolution with an EGA colour palette, though (320x200).
No surprise, though. Displaying 3D vector graphics in real EGA @ 640x350 would have been too stressing for the usual systems of the time..
Anyway, I'm just mentioning it. The game would have looked even better if it had had full EGA support as an option! 😁

@MMaximus Cool monitor! There are also some older, but interesting games that support full EGA resolution, I believe.
CD-Man, Zeliard, Starflight, Sim Ants, EGATrek, MS Flight Simulator, Frederik Pohl's Gateway, Games from Magnetic Scrolls come to mind right now.
Afaik, the Sierra On-Line games (AGI) sadly did use a "virtual machine" (interpreter) with pixel doubling, - for platform independance -, I suppose.

Edit: Correction. Starflight uses 320x200, too. It supports Monochrome CGA, though, which uses 640x200.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 24 of 45, by alvaro84

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Jo22 wrote:

Edit: Correction. Starflight uses 320x200, too. It supports Monochrome CGA, though, which uses 640x200.

Another in-between thing is Wizardry 7. It supports EGA and VGA and in EGA it uses 640x200x16 mode so it has 2 16-color pixels to simulate a 256-color one.
And, IIRC, Eye Of the Beholder II does the same.

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Reply 27 of 45, by Phido

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The win95 logo is 256 colour and I think uses palette cycling.. So only works on VGA and higher.
You can hack some drivers to add CGA and EGA modes in the inf so you can have your desktop in 640x200 b&W if you really want. Win 3.x can use cga/ega as well

There were some high res EGA cards and modes. 256kb memory or more. You could also swap crystals to get higher resolutions.

Back in the day I had a old 286 wang with an EGA card and a NEC multisync that had TLL and VGA inputs.

Reply 28 of 45, by Jed118

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I think you can hack in EGA drivers from Windows 3.1

Here's an old video of Windows 98 on EGA drivers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZljVxwIzTM

I know that I got a 256 color VGA driver for my VGA Wonder card to work with Windows 3.0 - I just put the .drv files in the SYSTEM directory and edited system.ini to point to that driver. Attempting to install the driver to Windows properly (driver is for 3.1x) would cause an error, so I poked around a Windows 3.1 computer to see how it was loaded. It reminded me of the days when you had to sit down and figure shit out yourself instead of googling everything 😉

Now to find some time to play with that 3/486 EISA board I have...

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Reply 29 of 45, by Disruptor

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Jed118 wrote:

I think you can hack in EGA drivers from Windows 3.1
...
I know that I got a 256 color VGA driver for my VGA Wonder card to work with Windows 3.0 - I just put the .drv files in the SYSTEM directory and edited system.ini to point to that driver. Attempting to install the driver to Windows properly (driver is for 3.1x) would cause an error, so I poked around a Windows 3.1 computer to see how it was loaded. It reminded me of the days when you had to sit down and figure shit out yourself instead of googling everything 😉

You even can hack the Windows 3.0 CGA driver to work with Windows 95.
However, you'll have to guess which button is activated due to the 640x200 monochrome mode.

Reply 30 of 45, by Jed118

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Hurray for VxD!

On an equally silly note, I got a Paradise 8 bit 256k VGA card a couple weeks ago and finally flew home with it and other parts - the only thing I had on hand was a PII 350 machine, so I stuck that card in an 8 bit slot and booted 98SE. Found the card, installed the drivers for it - unsurprisingly, it's low res and slow. The starfield simulation screensaver works OK, but everything else is just a laugh. Even the BIOS screen reads in line by line - a really fast reader can keep up with the text 🤣.

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Reply 31 of 45, by root42

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alvaro84 wrote:
Jo22 wrote:

Edit: Correction. Starflight uses 320x200, too. It supports Monochrome CGA, though, which uses 640x200.

Another in-between thing is Wizardry 7. It supports EGA and VGA and in EGA it uses 640x200x16 mode so it has 2 16-color pixels to simulate a 256-color one.
And, IIRC, Eye Of the Beholder II does the same.

Similar trick is also used by Monkey Island 2 and Indiana Jones 4. By then EGA was anyway out of date.

But it’s probably nice to try anyway.

Some demoscene productions use EGA modes for their bitplane tricks and speed often combined with VGA register or palette tricks, so the programs wouldn’t run on real EGA cards.

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Reply 32 of 45, by MMaximus

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Anonymous Coward wrote:
MMaximus wrote:

Are there any limitations with the type of system that an EGA card can be used with? I have an EGA wonder 800+ that I tried successfully in an XT, a 286-12 and a 386SX-16.

If you're going to stick an EGA card in a 486, the 800+ would be a poor choice, because it's not a true EGA card. It's really an 8-bit VGA Wonder (also sold as the VGA Edge) that doesn't have the VGA connector or RAMDAC soldered in.

I've heard about the EGA wonder 800+ not being a real EGA card. At the time I made the thread it was my only EGA card (I found it in a Commodore PC I bought) - I have acquired other EGA cards since then. I still think it has a few nice features like the configuration software, and the ability to display hi-res EGA on a CGA monitor thanks to interlacing. The monitor autodetection leaves something to be desired though - when I tried it with a 5151 the monitor didn't really like whatever the card was outputting.

Caluser2000 wrote:

My Redstone XT Turbo came with EGA card and TVM EGA monitor. It cost me nothing. The monitor has some cool features. In text mode I can select green or amber for that old skool look.

RedstoneXT.JPG

Nice monitor and case! Are you using this machine much? I've found out EGA really slows things down on an XT...

Jo22 wrote:
... […]
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HanJammer wrote:
Deathtrack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2GXWb2aiGU […]
Show full quote
OldCat wrote:

What is the racing game with red car displayed above? I'd like to give it a try on my monitor setup to check how it will look.

Deathtrack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2GXWb2aiGU

Pretty cool game.

...

@MMaximus Cool monitor! There are also some older, but interesting games that support full EGA resolution, I believe.
CD-Man, Zeliard, Starflight, Sim Ants, EGATrek, MS Flight Simulator, Frederik Pohl's Gateway, Games from Magnetic Scrolls come to mind right now.
Afaik, the Sierra On-Line games (AGI) sadly did use a "virtual machine" (interpreter) with pixel doubling, - for platform independance -, I suppose.

Edit: Correction. Starflight uses 320x200, too. It supports Monochrome CGA, though, which uses 640x200.

Thanks! We can also mention Might & Magic III: Isles of Terra which has an interesting 640x200 mode. It really slows down the game though!

IIRC all the EGA games I played back in the day were 320x200 in 16 color. I think I only ever played one that made use of the higher resolution - VETTE.

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Reply 34 of 45, by Jo22

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MMaximus wrote:

Thanks! We can also mention Might & Magic III: Isles of Terra which has an interesting 640x200 mode. It really slows down the game though!

IIRC all the EGA games I played back in the day were 320x200 in 16 color. I think I only ever played one that made use of the higher resolution - VETTE.

You're welcome. 😀 I mentioned the other games so you can test your EGA monitor and see how it performs in full fidelity,

Phido wrote:

Sim city definitely uses the 640x350x16 color mode.

Thanks for the info! That game is great, even supports the math-co. 😀

Phido wrote:

EGA modes were a pain in the ar*e to program with.. VGA became popular because it was easier to program.

Hi, do you mean the 320x200 modes and/or the scrolling/dual-page/palette tricks by any chance ?
I found the 640x350 mode to be similar to VGA's 640x480 mode so far. At least for the basic stuff (set pixel, set colour etc). 😀

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 36 of 45, by Scali

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Jo22 wrote:

Hi, do you mean the 320x200 modes and/or the scrolling/dual-page/palette tricks by any chance ?
I found the 640x350 mode to be similar to VGA's 640x480 mode so far. At least for the basic stuff (set pixel, set colour etc). 😀

EGAs 320x200 and 640x350 mode work basically the same, and VGA's 640x480 is basically the same as well, just using another palette.
But yea, VGA mode 13h is easier to program... It can't do much in terms of scrolling/dual-page though. You'll need mode X for that, which is about as complicated as EGA (it uses the same logic to control the planes).

http://scalibq.wordpress.com/just-keeping-it- … ro-programming/

Reply 37 of 45, by OldCat

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Just a quick plug with my very own EGA monitor (output from Toshiba T5100):

Catacombs 3D

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Crime Wave in high resolution

EGA_CrimeWave_hires.jpg
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Crime Wave in low resolution

EGA_CrimeWave_lores.jpg
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Reply 38 of 45, by Murugan

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As I found out, for some strange reason, my Olivetti monitor (according to the scarce info on the net) is EGA but only shows image when I hook it to the Olivetti that it came with.
On my IBM EGA and a EGA Wonder, only a scrambled line. My 5153 shows both an image when I confugure them for CGA.
Didn't know monitors could be picky.

My retro collection: too much...

Reply 39 of 45, by HanJammer

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dr.ido wrote on 2019-06-07, 10:44:
Predator99 wrote:
HanJammer wrote:

- Many EGAs had composite output - comes in handy too.

Yes? Which one? 😉 I have may EGA cards but these Cinch-Connectors are all "fake". None of them outputs a composite signal on it.

I've never found an EGA card with a active composite output either. Don't the RCA connectors actually go to the feature connector on the card - to enable them needs an addon card that I have never seen.

ATI EGA Wonder 800 for example has composite out. Regular EGA Wonder too (internal pins).

Statement that the EGA Wonder is a price reduced VGA card is generally invalid when it comes to the whole family, and true only in case of EGA Wonder 800+ which is VGA Edge without VGA analogue out (being 8-bit does nothing to do with it as the Edge 8, VIP and some other ATI VGA cards of the same era are also 8-bit). EGA Wonder and EGA Wonder 800 are true EGA cards (EGA Wonder 800 also supports some VGA 16-bit modes and has VGA analogue out, but it doesn't really change a thing) using different chipset (ATI 18699-0 while 800+ uses VGA ATI 18800).

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