CGA Commander Keen is unplayable on CGA-tier hardware, so it's little more than a tech demo that was created because Apogee demanded it.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-09-08, 20:59:

CGA Commander Keen is unplayable on CGA-tier hardware, so it's little more than a tech demo that was created because Apogee demanded it.

It couldn't have been just Apogee because Keen Dreams also has a CGA version and Apogee had absolutely nothing to do with that one. Sure, Softdisk catered to an even lower common denominator so having Gamer's Edge support CGA was standard for the time, but as the TED5 engine was originally built for EGA mixed results could be expected. Your point that none of those games are worth trying to play on any IBM 5150-tier system is correct, but there has to be more to the story of why the CGA editions exist (and as a fellow fan I am interested in learning it).

As nearly as I can tell, Keen Dreams CGA postdated Keen 4 and 5 CGA. The technology would then have been incorporated back into Keen Dreams for Softdisk. Apparently the first Dreams CGA release was 1993: https://keenwiki.shikadi.net/wiki/Keen_Dreams_Versions

The "more to the story" is rather boring, it's just that marketing guys don't understand technology or their target market so they insist on things like CGA versions of EGA games that look so bad and run so badly that no one buys them. And indeed the CGA versions sold very poorly, because everyone with two brain cells to rub together immediately understood that it was a waste of money.

If I'm not mistaken, CGA Keen runs even worse on an XT-class system than EGA Keen does on the same system with an EGA card.

Define "CGA era hardware" here...

I distinctly remember setting up Commander Keen on a 386-16 (Wyse SBC with ISA backplane jobbie), with an EGA card. I remember it ran just fine. (It was for my then very little nephew, since I had cobbled said computer together from cast off parts for my newly married older sister, who desperately wanted a computer. I set it up to run win3.11 for her.)

I would not consider CGA Era to be XT class machines, but would include 286s. I'd call "CGA Era" to be 286 and early 386. (With EGA being late 386 to early 486, and VGA being late 486 to pentium and newer. XTs are more Monochrome era, IMO. )

I've never tried running commander keen on a 286.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-09-08, 21:46:

If I'm not mistaken, CGA Keen runs even worse on an XT-class system than EGA Keen does on the same system with an EGA card.

But that's the catch, I think. Outside the US, EGA systems maybe weren’t that widespread.
Here in Germany, there was CGA, Hercules and S/VGA.
Plain EGA systems didn't really exist in the mainstream, as far as I know, EGA was rather being skipped in the greater picture.

I mean, sure, there *were* EGA systems. Two come to my mind.
The Amstrad/Schneider PC1640 and the Schneider Tower AT with the Super EGA chip (800x600).
But the matching monitors were rare, I think. Either Hercules or CGA were in common use, limiting the EGA graphics chip.
(Edit: Multisync monitors could display EGA among other things, but were professional equipment.)

Just upgrading to VGA made much more sense, even on a Turbo XT.
VGA cards and matching monitors were readily available, full EGA in 640x350 16c was possible.
Windows 3.0 could be run in 640x480 256c and up with manufacturers drivers.

And last but not least, text-mode.. proper, beautiful VGA text-mode that was on par with MDa/Hercules!
That alone was worth an upgrade to VGA at the time. 🙂

Edit: What also comes to mind:
a) there had been markets with outdated PC hardware
b) CGA was useful as a lowest common denominator (Hercules users via SIMCGA, supported by PC emulators etc)
c) DOS palmtop users (NEC V50 based and 640x200 or 640x400 CGA screen)

Well yes, VGA was the real target, after all, the engine runs at the VGA vertical refresh rate, which the music tickrate is also a multiple of.

The EGA compatibility was the real nod to low end systems.

CGA is really an afterthought of an afterthought, yet another reason why it shouldn't have existed.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-09-08, 22:10:

CGA is really an afterthought of an afterthought, yet another reason why it shouldn't have existed.

What slightly depresses me is that IBM CGA didn't feature 640x200 in 4c. 😟
Plantronics could do it, but not even CompuShow 2000 supports the 4c mode.

So sad, considering how many Atari/Commodore PCs could do it in the 1980s.
I still wonder how pretty CGA text/graphics adventure games could have been in 80 characters.

wierd_w wrote on 2025-09-08, 21:54:

Define "CGA era hardware" here...

XT. What people could afford is different from what ought to be in the system, what it was designed for, what the software written for it was designed for, etc.

wierd_w wrote on 2025-09-08, 21:54:

I distinctly remember setting up Commander Keen on a 386-16 (Wyse SBC with ISA backplane jobbie), with an EGA card. I remember it ran just fine. (It was for my then very little nephew, since I had cobbled said computer together from cast off parts for my newly married older sister, who desperately wanted a computer. I set it up to run win3.11 for her.)

wierd_w wrote on 2025-09-08, 21:54:

I've never tried running commander keen on a 286.

Minimum specs for Keen to run at a consistent smooth 35 fps is a 16MHz 286 class CPU with a fast 16-bit ISA VGA card. I'm guessing that 386-16 you built was an SX, which is basically the same thing as a 286-16.

(Keep in mind that you can run Keen on a 6 MHz 286 with EGA, but the framerate will be lower, and you will experience slowdowns in areas with lots of animated tiles or sprites, and you will probably have to turn off the scorebox.)

And if you have a 16 MHz 286, and you put a CGA card in it, what are you even doing? You would do that if it's 1989 and you really can't afford anything more, but then you have a very unbalanced system as far as games are concerned, and 2 years later you will be upgrading to a 386 with VGA, which you will play Commander Keen on.

Just look through this edition of PCMag from 1989: https://archive.org/details/PCMAG/PC-Mag-1989-12-26

Yeah, the ultra-budget computers had CGA (or monochrome!), but VGA (or EGA as a mid-level option, sometimes) was almost universal by this point.

This would be like making a cutting edge video game in the modern day and saying "it MUST run on integrated Intel graphics."

Also, left out of this discussion is the fact that CGA Keen cannot do smooth scrolling because CGA doesn't support that, so it "scrolls" the screen in chunks.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-09-08, 22:47:

Just look through this edition of PCMag from 1989: https://archive.org/details/PCMAG/PC-Mag-1989-12-26

Yeah, the ultra-budget computers had CGA (or monochrome!), but VGA (or EGA as a mid-level option, sometimes) was almost universal by this point.

I second that. VGA was special in so far, because it took the PC platform by storm. It wasn't *just* another standard.

In the world of the users, VGA *finally* brought everything together.:
Good compatibility, the colour capabilities of EGA, the high resolution graphics (text/bitmap) of Hercules.

That's why many Enhanced EGA clones sooner or later had featured support for VGA BIOS mode 12h (640x480pels 14c) as early as mid/late 1987 (!).

Applications worked fine as long as they stuck to default EGA/VGA palette.
It's comparable to how pure mode 13h games can work on both MCGA and VGA systems.

Edit: What CGA made useful, I think, was its Composite connector.
A normal video monitor or household TV could be used as a display.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-09-08, 22:10:

Well yes, VGA was the real target, after all, the engine runs at the VGA vertical refresh rate, which the music tickrate is also a multiple of.

The EGA compatibility was the real nod to low end systems.

CGA is really an afterthought of an afterthought, yet another reason why it shouldn't have existed.

Having lived in that era with a semi obsolete machine, I was thankful that coders continued to support older standards for a while.

I was lucky enough to only encounter software that had either automatic detection or allowed me to select my setup. (I don’t remember ever encountering a program that required a CGA version separately, but do remember paying extra for 256 colors)

You need to remember that CGA mono was still sold brand new in current laptops through 1992+.

My neighbor had a Compaq 286 laptop with 5mb and CGA mono, his other machine was a PCJr .

My machine was a 1000RLX base, even though I had vga I only had 512k so some software could only run in CGA mode.

Allowing people to run the software on most any configuration pc increased the market for the program as nearly everyone back then never upgraded.

You need to remember that CGA mono was still sold brand new in current laptops through 1992+.

My neighbor had a Compaq 286 laptop with 5mb and CGA mono, his other machine was a PCJr .

If they had 400 lines LCD, chances were good it was an enhanced CGA of some sort.
The AT&T/Olivetti or Toshiba graphics mode was 640x400 monochrome.
Good enough for Windows 3.x, GEM and say, Turbo Pascal 4/QuickBASIC 4.5.

Allowing people to run the software on most any configuration pc increased the market for the program as nearly everyone back then never upgraded.

That's true. But by 1990, the 80286 CPU and EGA/VGA graphics was considered the new baseline setup.
I often thought of CGA as a fallback at the time, in case of compatibility issues.

At the time, there were already games that made VGA look dated.
Flight simulators and chess games, for example.
800x600 pixel 16c and 640x480 pixel 256c were such enhanced modes.

VBE mode 100h in 640x400p 256c sadly didn't saw as much use as it had deserved.
It was exactly double 320x200 and could work with 256KB of VGA RAM.

I'm still a bit sad it didn't catch on. Graphics in 640x400 are gorgeous.
The PC-98 and the enhanced Macintosh games show how higher-than 320x200 graphics can look like.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-09-08, 20:59:

CGA Commander Keen is unplayable on CGA-tier hardware, so it's little more than a tech demo that was created because Apogee demanded it.

I don't agree with this I played a lot of keen 4 on CGA-tier hardware - it's very slow, but it's not unplayable.

CGA Keens on XT were feasible because the cheapest PC to buy new in 1990 was still a Turbo XT with ASIC CGA or EGA card.

Typically they were paired with MDA screen, monitor type that possibly outproduced RGBI screens 20:1 or more. And was very cheap by then.

Such 10 MHz computer could yield 2.5x FPS of original PC XT + IBM CGA in Keen games.

It is still not a fluid framerate if the screen redraws get busy, but it is serviceable. Sort of a cutting edge game of the day, but still usable on very low budget platform still being sold.

wierd_w wrote on 2025-09-08, 21:54:

Define "CGA era hardware" here...

I distinctly remember setting up Commander Keen on a 386-16 (Wyse SBC with ISA backplane jobbie), with an EGA card. I remember it ran just fine. (It was for my then very little nephew, since I had cobbled said computer together from cast off parts for my newly married older sister, who desperately wanted a computer. I set it up to run win3.11 for her.)

I would not consider CGA Era to be XT class machines, but would include 286s. I'd call "CGA Era" to be 286 and early 386. (With EGA being late 386 to early 486, and VGA being late 486 to pentium and newer. XTs are more Monochrome era, IMO. )

286:
I would only expect the early ones to come with a CGA - like the genuine IBM 5170/5162.
In 1987, 286 PS/2 machines already had integrated VGA.
Generic 286 clones seemed to default to Hercules - but this indeed meant running CGA versions of games...

386:
In the 80s, they were the very high end, deserving the best graphics available!
I would expect EGA *only* in the pre-VGA Compaq Deskpro 386.
386 PS/2s - VGA already integrated, of course.
If you were building a PC off some random second-hand parts, then sure - everything was possible.
But I don't believe in brand new 386es being sold with anything below VGA!

486:
In theory, first chips came in 1989, in practice - it was already the 90s when they appeared en masse.
Even the early ones were 100% SVGA, later on there came VLB and PCI, with GUI acceleration and true-color by default.
Windows 3.x was everywhere - which required at least 640 x 480 for full functionality!

In short:
CGA era = XT + low-end 286.
Though CGA games were also relevant for later 286 boxes with Hercules.

This is the bigger market picture I see: as of 1991 Apogee still supported CGA not just as a matter of principle; their catalog for that year still included Kroz and the FAST engine games while, as I already mentioned, Softdisk's subscription model accommodated an even lower common denominator. Come to notice it, Goodbye, Galaxy! was the last Apogee game to support CGA, and only in that special edition (not unlike how MicroProse released special editions of F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0 & Gunship 2000 that same year for those who still only had EGA capability). Invasion of the Vorticons and Todd Replogle's games based on id technology (Dark Ages & Duke Nukem) required EGA, so I can buy Apogee considered potential sales lost for users of lower-end systems. Yet John Carmack did the work, as confirmed by how impressed he was by the composite CGA conversion a few years ago, and he's not a man known for engaging in afterthought projects - such projects existed for id, but typically got farmed out to Jason Blochowiak instead of involving the main team.

It's true that John Carmack did the work for the CGA Keens, but I was under the impression that that was not so much because it was a priority for the Id team, but more because he considered it an interesting technical challenge and because he was the only one who had enough intimate familiarity with the graphics subsystem to make it work.

I also forgot to mention earlier that Keen 1-3 runs acceptably on a Turbo XT, and even somewhat acceptably on a regular XT, but never offered a CGA version (because Carmack hadn't figured it out yet!)

Grzyb wrote on 2025-09-09, 06:59:

486:
In theory, first chips came in 1989, in practice - it was already the 90s when they appeared en masse.
Even the early ones were 100% SVGA,

Early “budget” 486sx systems did not come by default with more than 256k vram. (Budget + 486 <1993 was still expensive)

My friends mom bought a budget Packard Bell 486sx-25, she opted for 4mb of ram, dual floppy and a 120mb hard drive (base model was 486sx20-2m/80mb)

While the very janky onboard Oak video chip technically could display SVGA it only had 256k by default and had compatibility issues with many 256 color games including monkey island.
He had to default to EGA on many games while my lowly 1000rlx would run most 256 color games, he thought my system was better because the audio and video was more enjoyable on many games, even though technically it was a far inferior machine.

Grzyb wrote on 2025-09-09, 06:59:

But I don't believe in brand new 386es being sold with anything below VGA!

Hi! Here in my country, Herkules (Hercules misspelled) was overly popular in the 1980s, I think.
On business PCs, I mean, not consumer PCs. But not because it was lower tech, but because it had superb graphics.
Just saw an ad in DOS Extra Magazine of 1988 that featured an 80386 with Hercules.

By contrast, hobbyists PCs such as homebrew c't-86 of 1984 had CGA
or simple ASCII text-generator because it used ordinary video monitor.

But again, properly a national phenomenon.
I don’t have enough experience here. PC/XT era was a bit before my time.

Some computer users over here were stuck deeply in the past.
They still used C64 and XTs and green monitors when normal users had run Windows 3.1 or 95, for example.
Such people always must exist somewhere, I suppose. 🤷‍♂️

Anyway. Hercules was kind of cool, because in plain MDA mode it could be used for debuggers such as SoftICE.
So TTL mono monitors still had a purpose among professionals even years after VGA took over.
Because the VGA and MDA can co-exist just fine. Makes for a fine dual-monitor setup.

Grzyb wrote on 2025-09-09, 06:59:

In short:
CGA era = XT + low-end 286.
Though CGA games were also relevant for later 286 boxes with Hercules.

In long: True, but by ~1990, VGA apparently also found it's way to more and more Turbo XTs.
Just saw an 1989 advertisement by CompuAdd that has a 10 MHz V20 PC with colour VGA.

PS: I don’t mean to disagree in any way. It's just that I'm sort of pro/contra person.
I believe that exceptions prove the rules, so to say. Hope you don't mind. 🙂

Edited.

Jo22 wrote on Yesterday, 23:23:

Hi! Here in my country, Herkules (Hercules misspelled) was overly popular in the 1980s, I think.
On business PCs, I mean, not consumer PCs. But not because it was lower tech, but because it had superb graphics.

In my country, it even lasted into early 90s, as long as the 286.
But it wasn't superb - it was cheap, and good enough for office work.
Who needed color graphics, when the final result was supposed to be a black-on-white printout?

Just saw an ad in DOS Extra Magazine of 1988 that featured an 80386 with Hercules.

Oh dear, that Marlow brand must've been really cheap...

"640 KB RAM (256 KB bestückt)" - does it mean that there was actually only 256, and the rest was optional???
286 with 512 KB RAM? In 1988? Seriously??? What a beautiful machine for the brand-new OS/2 1.1, with Presentation Manager! 🤣
HDD only included in the 386 model???
Even such a luxury as the serial port only included in the 386 !!! 🤣 🤣 🤣

Well, at least they named themselves appropriately - MarLOW, not MarHIGH 🤣

BTW: the price on the cover is in three currencies - DM, Ös, sfr - so, the DACH common market did function already in the Cold War era, only without East Germany...