Graphics mode findings

[DOSGuy]

The discussion of graphics modes in this thread led to my using the DOSBox debugger to determine the graphics modes of games on the site, whereas I had always used resolution and color depth in the past. The previous approach led to a few accidental errors, but it also revealed that a lot of games that appeared to be using Mode 13h were not actually using Mode 13h. Mode 13h is a planar memory mode that was introduced with MCGA. VGA supports "unchaining" the video memory, which allowed for resolutions other than those permitted by Mode 13h and the other BIOS modes. I had assumed that any game using 320x200x256c graphics was in Mode 13 because... why not use Mode 13h if you want 320x200x256c graphics? The answer is that unchaining the memory allows for faster fills -- potentially speeding up drawing by 4x -- and allows for things like double and triple buffering, which greatly reduce flicker and tearing in games that have a lot of action. That being the case, a lot of games unchained the video memory even if they retained Mode 13h's 320x200 resolution (known as "Mode Y").

Using the debugger to determine video mode also ended up being useful for text mode games. It turns out that you can't assume that any 40 column ASCII game is using Mode 0 if there's no color or Mode 1 if there is, or that any 80 column ASCII game is using Mode 2 if there's no color and Mode 3 if there is; some games were using Mode 1/3 and just not using any colors, and Mode 0/2 games will display color if you have a color monitor and grayscale if you have an analog monitor. Additionally, I had no way of knowing if a monochrome 80 column ASCII game was in Mode 2 or Mode 7 -- other than the fact that Mode 7 isn't available if you're running an emulator in CGA mode. I used the debugger to determine the correct mode of each ASCII game on the site. There are a few games that don't set any video mode, which means that they can be played with any video card, whereas any game that sets a video mode other than 7 cannot be played under MDA/Hercules, and any game that sets Mode 7 cannot be played under CGA/MCGA. I felt that there should be a list of games that don't set a video mode. You can technically set any video mode you want before running these games but, for the purposes of screenshots for the site, I used the default video mode for each standard (7 for MDA, 3 for all others).

After all that work was done, I realized that while it was now possible to search for ASCII games by their exact BIOS mode, I realized that searching for a CGA graphics game that uses Mode 4/5 tells only a quarter and half of the story, respectively. Mode 4 has two different palettes, and both Mode 4 and 5 can be set to high or low intensity, so different Mode 4/5 games can look very different each other. Additionally, the background color can be changed from the default black to any of the 16 CGA colors, though few games chose to do so. I decided against allowing Mode 4/5 games to be searchable by palette and intensity, but I did want to have a record of it somewhere.

So, I'm creating this thread to make a list of the palette, intensity, and background color of all Mode 4/5 games, and also to compile a list of VGA games that have 320x200x256c graphics but don't use Mode 13h. Why bother with a list of unchained 320x200 VGA games? Most people don't bother to make a distinction between MCGA and VGA, but they're different. MCGA doesn't support VGA Mode 12h but, more importantly, it probably doesn't support unchained memory, so all of those games that I erroneously listed as Mode 13h probably won't work under MCGA!

So, below is a list of my findings for CGA Mode 4/5 games, the actual BIOS mode of all 320x200x256c VGA games (games that use unchained memory change to Mode 0Dh instead of 13h), and games that don't set a video mode.

ASCII

Games that don't set a video mode

DND
Dungeons of the Necromancer's Domain
Mines

CGA

Mode 4 games

Adventure Fun-Pak (Raiders of the Forbidden Mine)	Palette 1	Low intensity	Black
Alive Sharks	Palette 1	High intensity	Black
Arcade Volleyball	Palette 1	Low intensity	Black
Arctic Adventure	Palette 1	Low intensity	Black
Banyon Wars	Palette 1	High intensity	Black
BassTour	Palette 0	High intensity	Black
Catacomb	Palette 1	High intensity	Black
Chopper Commando (day missions)	Palette 0	Low intensity	Black
Chopper Commando (night missions)	Palette 1	Low intensity	Black
Crates	Palette 0	High intensity	Black
Crazy Shuffle	Palette 1	Low intensity	Black
Dangerous Dave	Palette 1	High intensity	Black
Galacta	Palette 1	High intensity	Black
Googol Math Games	Palette 0	High intensity	Blue
Googol Review	Palette 0	High intensity	Blue
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	Palette 1	High intensity	Black
Jill of the Jungle	Palette 0	High intensity	Blue
Loom	Palette 1	High intensity	Black
Magic Pockets	Palette 1	High intensity	Black
Monuments of Mars	Palette 0	Low intensity	Black
Moraff's Entrap	Palette 0	Low intensity	Black
Moraff's Revenge	Palette 0	Low intensity	Black
Overkill	Palette 0	High intensity	Black
Paganitzu	Palette 0	Low intensity	Black
PC-Jigsaw	Palette 0	Low intensity	Black
Pharaoh's Tomb	Palette 0	Low intensity	Black
Prince of Persia	Palette 1	High intensity	Black
Puzzle Fun-Pak (Maze Machine)	Both	Both	Black
Robomaze II	Palette 1	High intensity	Black
Secret of Monkey Island, The	Palette 1	Low intensity	Black
Sink'em	Palette 1	Low intensity	Black
Talking ABC's: A Day At The Beach	Palette 1	High intensity	Black
Telengard	Palette 1	Low intensity	Black
Turbo	Palette 0	High intensity	Black
Word Gallery	Palette 0	High intensity	Blue

Mode 5 games

Cisco Heat	High intensity	Black
Lemmings	High intensity	Black

VGA

320x200x256c games

1993 Holiday Lemmings	D
Abuse	13
Adventure Math	13
Adventures of Robbo	13
Alien Carnage	13
Alien Rampage	13
Alone in the Dark	13
Alone in the Dark 2	?
Amazing Learning Games With Rayman	13
Aquanoid	13
Arcy 2	13
Argo Checkers	13
Aspetra	13
Astro3D	?
Atomic Tetris	13
Block Man 2	?
Blood	13
Body Blows	13
Boppin'	13
Brix	13
Bubble Pop	13
Cargo Bay	13
Catch, If You Can!	13
Charlie II	?
Charlie the Duck	13
Cisco Heat	13
Color Wizard, The	?
Command & Conquer	?
Cool Spot	13
Cybersphere	13
Cybersphere Plus	13
CyClones	?
D/Generation	13
Dangerous Dave	13
Death Rally	13
Descent II	?
Detroit	13
Disney's Aladdin	13
Disney's Beauty and the Beast	13
Doom	13
Duke Nukem II	D
Electranoid	13
Epic Baseball	13
Evasive Maneuvers	13
Flight of the Amazon Queen	13
Framed	D
Fuzzy's World of Miniature Space Golf	13
Galacta	13
Galactix	13
Gobliiins	13
Gobliins 2: The Prince Buffoon	13
Goblins Quest 3	?
GobMan	13
Heartlight PC	13
Heroes	13
Hexen: Beyond Heretic	13
Hexxagon	13
Hocus Pocus	13
Holiday Lemmings 1994	D
Hubie	13
Hyper 3D Pinball	?
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis	13
Inner Worlds	?
Iron Blood	?
Jetpack Christmas Special!	?
Jill of the Jungle	?
Jumpman Lives!	13
Kiloblaster	13
Lion King, The	13
Lemmings	D
Magic Pockets	D
Mega Man X	13
Mortal Kombat II	?
Mystic Towers	?
NASCAR Racing	?
Need for Speed, The	?
NHL Hockey	?
Night Raid	?
Nitemare-3D	?
One Must Fall 2097	?
Out of This World	D
Pinball Dreams	?
Prince of Persia	13
Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame	13
Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon	?
Putt-Putt Joins the Parade	?
Quadnet	13
Raptor: Call of the Shadows	13
Rayman	?
Rings of the Magi	13
Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon	?
Sam & Max Hit the Road	13
Sango Fighter	13
Scubaman’s Quest	?
Shadow Warrior	?
ShadowCaster	?
Shooting Gallery	?
Skunny	?
Skunny Kart	13
Skunny: Save Our Pizzas	?
SkyNET	?
SkyRoads	13
Snake (IM)	13
SnowWhite’s Voyage	?
Spit Wad Willy	?
Squarez Deluxe!	?
Star Wars: Dark Forces	?
Star Wars: TIE Fighter	?
Strife	13
Super Angelo	?
Super Ball!	?
Super Street Fighter II Turbo	?
Super Worms	?
Tank Wars	?
Teenagent	?
Terminator: Future Shock, The	13
TerraFire	13
Thor’s Hammer	?
Three	?
Tomb Raider	?
Tube	?
Tubes	13
Tubular Worlds	13
Tyrian 2000	?
Ultimate Body Blows	13
Tube	?
VGA Concentrate	13
VGA Jigsaw	?
VGA Sharks	?
VGATetris	13
Vinyl Goddess From Mars	13
Wacky Wheels	13
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans	13
Wolfenstein 3D	13
Word Gallery	?
World Rally Fever	13
Worms	13
Xatax	?
Xerix	?
Xmas Lemmings: 1991 Christmas Edition	D
Xmas Lemmings: 1992 Holiday Edition	D
Z	13
Zorro	?

[Malvineous]

Because I love throwing spanners in plans, what would you classify the games in the Learning Fun One series? They are all CGA games from 1986-1988 and they come with a handy-dandy utility to change the CGA palette so the games can be played with your preferred colours:



If you're going to be classifying a lot of games, I wonder whether it might be worth grabbing the DOSBox source and sticking a few 'print' statements in various places, so you can run your games without having to worry about using the debugger? Although if using the debugger isn't too much hassle it might not be so necessary.

[DOSGuy]

That's pretty neat! I see the three palette options at the top of the screen. Can you also set the intensity or change the background color? Between Mode 4 and 5, there are only six palette/intensity options, but with the background color there are a total of 96 ways you can set up the color. Of the games on this site, so far only 6 have been used. Mode 4 games use only black or blue backgrounds, and there are no Mode 5 games that use low intensity or change the background from black. Since the background color can be changed at any time, there are apparently commercial games that changed it often so that the game would have more than four colors -- just never more than four at a time. Swapping colors in and out of the palette was common in old video game consoles that could only display 16 or 64 simultaneous colors from a larger palette, and some emulators (such as Meka) let you see the current palette. You have to cover most of the screen with the three foreground colors and use the "empty" space wisely if you're going to do that with CGA, since only one color can be swapped, but CGA is more versatile than people think.

A former high school teacher of mine, who is still a friend, noticed that whenever I would look at an old computer, I would figure out what was the fastest CPU it could take, how much RAM, how good a graphics card, etc. I was all about pushing old computers to their limits and making them as good as they could possibly be. I'm the same with software, now. I love when people make games like Paku Paku and make a "graphical" CGA game that uses all 16 colors at the same time. When I was working on the Chopper Commando code this summer -- and ultimately released v2.57 -- I did try setting it to Mode 5, but I didn't think it was an improvement. I just like to think about "what can this game do that it doesn't do?" I like that there's a series of games out that there lets you play with the options.

[Malvineous]

Those are all the options you get. I'm not sure whether the third palette is mode 5, or whether it stays in mode 4 and toggles the colour-burst bit, but I guess doing that is effectively the same as mode 5 anyway. You can't change the background colour but there are situations in the game where the screen flashes brightly so it wouldn't surprise me if that's a palette effect.

It's funny you mention maxing out old computers to be the best the hardware can handle - I do the same thing. I have a bunch of old DOS computers (not that old, Pentium II era) so it's always about putting the most RAM in, or the best sound card in (but not so new you need special drivers to emulate an older standard) so you end up with the best possible computer within the available limitations. I think working within those limitations is the fun part, just like modding DOS games where you try to do something new and unique the original game didn't do, but working within the same limitations that existed at the time.

[DOSGuy]

Neat game. I tried it out in the debugger, and it does indeed switch to Mode 5.