Subj : Re: Lemmings game for DOS
To   : Nightfox
From : hollowone
Date : Wed Nov 01 2023 10:24:23

 Ni> I remember EGA offering 16 colors and VGA offering up to 256 colors.  At

256 colors in VGA were available only in so called MCGA mode (Mode 13h in the assembly, if you were a coder). That was 320x200 and if the video card registers were hacked then up to 380x240 or something similar (so called ModeX). Last were extensively used by Quake in the late 90s, not commonly used in commercial games before. Most games to achieve maximum color and compatibilities in the DOS era used VGA's low-res mode I described above.

SVGA came with higher resolutions and colors but that wasn't heavily adopted until Windows games came in.

HiRes in VGA (640x480) was 16 colors too as maximum and I remember all the menus in Lemmings used this mode. I don't remember if game was hi-res VGA or low-res VGA though. if low-rest then technically it offered 256 colors which would be superior to Amiga up until Amiga 1200 with AGA chipset that offered the same. All Amigas with ECS/OCS chipset for graphics (Amiga 500, 600, most commonly used for gaming in Europe) had 32 colors as max in standard modes and 4092 simultaneously in modes that were mode dedicated to still graphics rather dynamic/real time animation and sprites.

There was much more possibility to hack Amigas dedicated chipset to play or simulate more colors and that's why every Amigan between 1986 and 1994 laughed at PC, basically speaking.

Not that I'd now.. history showed that dedicated chipsets had no chance vs open architecture of PC, significantly lowering prices in the 90s. It killed Atari, C=, Almost killed Apple... so yeah.. who's laughing now..

But still yeah, there was a moment of history that Amiga had an architecture that PC started having as mainstream maybe in 98+

-h1

.... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a mere copy.

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