Modify system palette in Windows 3.1 (VGA) \ VOGONS

Modify system palette in Windows 3.1 (VGA)

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First post, by mills26

Posted on 2022-05-04, 08:26

mills26 Offline

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Hi. I started this thread on another forum but I want to post it here just in case, and also to share some info I found.

I wanted to redefine the windows 3.1 system palette with the VGA driver (640x480 16 colors), to set the pico-8 one, (it looks awesome for everything). Windows itself can change the 16 color palette when loading the startup logo, but once it starts there is no way to edit the colors themselves.

On vintage computer federation they suggested me to look inside vga.drv, because it seems to define the 16 colors there, and I found RGB tables with the values for the palette used in VGA 😀.
The bad news is, I edited the values using a hex editor, and it did not change the rgb values, just uses that tables to look for the closest color in the fixed palette, and rearranges the same 16 ugly colors 🙁.

Someone could make a windows program which changes VGA registers, but I think that will only work while the program is running, also windows will reset it every time it loads a dos program.

Is there any other way to change the system palette?.

I don't think there is a windows 3.1 source code, that would be awesome, rgb values for the palette are surely stored somewhere. Maybe they are not stored, and windows just resets the VGA card and uses the default EGA palette.

Reply 1 of 6, by bakemono

Posted on 2022-05-04, 09:40

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If Win 3.1 indeed uses the default palette set by the BIOS, then how about patching the int 0x10 handler?

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Reply 2 of 6, by Jo22

Posted on 2022-05-04, 10:01

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Hi there!

From what I remember, the VGA driver uses mode 12h and the same 16c palette as EGA.

Here's a Wikipedia entry about the palette.
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_palettes
- Also note the "static" colours. They're 20 in total, if, say, a 256c colour driver is used.

If you like to experiment, there's also the Windows 3.0 VGA driver and the Windows 3.0 MME VGA driver.
The latter one is palettized, ie. the 16c colours can be altered by application.

I've attached it to this reply, hope that's okay to do.
To use it, just copy it into SYSTEM directory and alter SYSTEM.INI to have display.drv=vgapal.drv.

Good luck!

PS: This might also be interesting!
Washed out colors in Windows 3.

Edit: I'm sorry, I was a bit too late. 😅

"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 3 of 6, by mills26

Posted on 2022-05-04, 10:25

mills26 Offline

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Jo22 wrote on 2022-05-04, 10:01:
Hi there! […]
Show full quote

Hi there!

From what I remember, the VGA driver uses mode 12h and the same 16c palette as EGA.

Here's a Wikipedia entry about the palette.
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_palettes
- Also note the "static" colours. They're 20 in total, if, say, a 256c colour driver is used.

If you like to experiment, there's also the Windows 3.0 VGA driver and the Windows 3.0 MME VGA driver.
The latter one is palettized, ie. the 16c colours can be altered by application.

I've attached it to this reply, hope that's okay to do.
To use it, just copy it into SYSTEM directory and alter SYSTEM.INI to have display.drv=vgapal.drv.

Good luck!

PS: This might also be interesting!
Washed out colors in Windows 3.

Edit: I'm sorry, I was a bit too late. 😅

Thanks, I'll try it.

I just discovered the default vga driver sets a palette choosing from the 64 ega colors, I found some neat colors there, much better than the default ones, now I have to edit the drv values again and hope that also works.

The attachment EGA_Pal.png is no longer available

Reply 4 of 6, by Jo22

Posted on 2022-05-04, 21:23

Jo22 Offline

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Cool, good luck! 😎👍

@bakemono Thanks for the tip! 🙂

"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 5 of 6, by mills26

Posted on 2022-05-05, 21:55

mills26 Offline

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Joined: 2012-08-07, 21:26

The generic VGA driver has a table containing the EGA color indexes to be used (from the 64 colors available in EGA), replacing this hex string changes the colors:

1Original: 000c0a0e011523070f241236092D1B3F
2Custom:  00040214193536070F24122609272B3F

You can use these custom 16 color with no problem, but windows won't recognize some of them if it loads .bmp or .ico files created with modern software.
To use images with that palette draw an image with "EGA_Nice_Palette", and set "EGA_Export_Palette" before you save it.

1EGA_Nice_Palette
2#000000 #aa0000 #00aa00 #aa5500 #ffff00 #ff55aa #0055aa #808080 #c0c0c0 #ff0000 #00ff00 #ffaa00 #0000ff #ffaaaa #55aaff #ffffff
3
4EGA_Export_Palette
5#000000 #aa0000 #00aa00 #bfa940 #0c6f8b #820080 #5555aa #808080 #c0c0c0 #ff0000 #00ff00 #ffaa00 #0000ff #ff00ff #55ccff #ffffff

The attachment Sample0.png is no longer available

The attachment Sample1.png is no longer available

The attachment Sample3.png is no longer available

I think it looks awesome for VGA machines stuck in the 16 color mode 😀.

Reply 6 of 6, by Jo22

Posted on 2022-05-12, 14:07

Jo22 Offline

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mills26 wrote on 2022-05-05, 21:55:
The generic VGA driver has a table containing the EGA color indexes to be used (from the 64 colors available in EGA), replacing […]
Show full quote

The generic VGA driver has a table containing the EGA color indexes to be used (from the 64 colors available in EGA), replacing this hex string changes the colors:
1Original: 000c0a0e011523070f241236092D1B3F
2Custom:  00040214193536070F24122609272B3F
You can use these custom 16 color with no problem, but windows won't recognize some of them if it loads .bmp or .ico files created with modern software.
To use images with that palette draw an image with "EGA_Nice_Palette", and set "EGA_Export_Palette" before you save it.
1EGA_Nice_Palette
2#000000 #aa0000 #00aa00 #aa5500 #ffff00 #ff55aa #0055aa #808080 #c0c0c0 #ff0000 #00ff00 #ffaa00 #0000ff #ffaaaa #55aaff #ffffff
3
4EGA_Export_Palette
5#000000 #aa0000 #00aa00 #bfa940 #0c6f8b #820080 #5555aa #808080 #c0c0c0 #ff0000 #00ff00 #ffaa00 #0000ff #ff00ff #55ccff #ffffff
Sample0.png

Sample1.png

Sample3.png

I think it looks awesome for VGA machines stuck in the 16 color mode 😀.

Yay! This looks really, really good! 😀
Congratulations on a job well done! 🙂👍

"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//

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