640 x 400 x 256 is already SVGA - and that's exactly the mode used by Links 386 Pro.
And SVGA is SVGA no matter what API you use - VESA, or vendor-specific INT 10h calls.

Windows is a problem indeed, as it aims to be device-independent...
A Windows game designed for 640 x 480 x 256 mode - and refusing to run in 16-color mode, therefore breaking the device-independence rule! - may still work on a plain VGA if the 320 x 200 x 256 driver is installed.

Aha that’s interesting since I learned here that you can achieve 640x400x256 under windows 3.0 with certain drivers with 256kb mem (Paradise cards)

Yes, it's very important:

A card doesn't need more than 256 KB of RAM to be SVGA.
A card that does all VGA modes, and at least one mode unavailable on VGA, is already SVGA.

640 x 400 x 256
800 x 600 x 16
1152 x 864 x 4
1600 x 1200 x 2

All the above are possible with 256 KB, but neither on a vanilla VGA.

Hi again, thanks for all this information so far.
I vaguely remember that my father had used 800x600 mode on a 386 PC with a Trident 8900 card once.
Monitor was a 20" model with BNC connectors (Matsushita?, Mitsubishi?). It wasn't multi-sync, though. Changing resolutions required manual adjustments.
When I played a bit with this monitor years later, I got SkyGlobe running with it in SVGA mode (Skyglobe S).
Again, had to adjust the knobs to get a stable image.

About 640x400 256c.. I'm not much of a gamer, I'm afraid.
But I remember at least two games using it.
First one is called "Die Höhlenwelt Saga" and is some sort of point&click game.
The other one is a jump&run game. "Shakii the Wolf", I believe.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/19435/die-hohl … tende-kristall/

https://www.mobygames.com/game/6846/shakii-the-wolf/

Not sure if they will run on a 286, though.
Many game boxes say 386 or even 486, because of performance reasons rather than instruction set compatibility.

Edit: I may remember it incorrectly, but I believe I once read that 800x600 resolution was more of a compromise and not really being wanted.

IBM itself had favored 1024x768 256c, which it did support for 8514/A with the earliest PS/2 and VGA monitors.

800x600 also isn't a multiple of 320x200 or 640x480, so it doesn't fit in.
The next best resolution would have been 1280x960 here - which exists in some modified form as 1280x1024.

So all in all, 800x600 is a little bit of an oddball. It looks nice, though. As numbers, too.
It's a bit close to maximum PAL resolution, too: 768x576 (digital res, anamorphic).

Thanks. I checked Die Höhlenwelt Saga. 1994 and 4mb RAM looks like Dos Extender

Jo22 wrote on 2024-04-30, 12:41:

Monitor was a 20" model with BNC connectors (Matsushita?, Mitsubishi?). It wasn't multi-sync, though. Changing resolutions requi […]
Show full quote

Monitor was a 20" model with BNC connectors (Matsushita?, Mitsubishi?). It wasn't multi-sync, though. Changing resolutions required manual adjustments.
When I played a bit with this monitor years later, I got SkyGlobe running with it in SVGA mode (Skyglobe S).
Again, had to adjust the knobs to get a stable image.

Edit: I may remember it incorrectly, but I believe I once read that 800x600 resolution was more of a compromise and not really being wanted.

800x600 also isn't a multiple of 320x200 or 640x480, so it doesn't fit in.

So all in all, 800x600 is a little bit of an oddball. It looks nice, though. As numbers, too.
It's a bit close to maximum PAL resolution, too: 768x576 (digital res, anamorphic).

I had a similar 1984 era 20” Mitsubishi that had manual sync dials, someone modified it by soldering in a vga cable internally.

It originally was used at a powerplant and I never could get 800x600 to work because it required a very low refresh rate (or 87hz interlaced) which none of my video cards supported out of the box.

When I was trying to find out when 800x600 was invented or what was the first software to use it I found some very old fixed frequency screens and.
Something strange is that all the old first generation multisynce monitors would list 800x560 as the maximum resolution right in the manual, my circa 1985 NEC 1401 had that text, but oddly it worked fine at 800x600. I also remember some of the very old screens having strange commentary about up to 1080 horizontal lines for 120x25 column text right next to saying 800x560 was the max resolution. My guess is that it could do more horizontal lines at the expense of vertical?
Like 1080x350 or 800x560, always found that strange .

Besides 120 column text in dos or terminal modes I could find no indication of what made higher resolutions like 800x600 a standard.
800x560 was a weird artifact of trying to overdrive standard vga equipment in the same memory bandwidth but 800x600 must have just become a thing because some ancient fixed frequency equipment used it for reasons unknown.

43hz 800x600 was some sort of fixed frequency standard very early and a couple early SVGA cards supported it but 56hz Monitors I never understood
(several of my favorite monitors looked abysmal if you used 60hz@800x600, only 56hz allowed you to have a bright full screen image)

I suspect that 800x600 was a side effect of the 8514/A.
IBM 8514 monitor had 35.5 kHz HSYNC, which was enough for 1024x768, but... interlaced!
I guess users weren't happy with interlace, so somebody reused that monitor design, only without interlace - and that was enough for 800x600 at 56 Hz.

Edit:
At the same time, the VGA card design got reused - they just added a faster pixel clock!

It's amazing how it all adds up:
overclocked VGA card + uninterlaced 8514 monitor = SVGA

I checked on SimCity Enhanced. According to back in the days tests it requires 386sx but only 2mb Ram. Thus no dos extender and therefor a good candidate when extending the question to 386sx. In that same category also Pirates Gold can be mentioned.

Again thanks to all for the good discussions

Interesting. I myself, prefer to pair SVGA with a 386 or 486, though.

How good are the SVGA games in 286? I mean performance-wise?

One more important thing to understand why there's so few SVGA games for 286, or without a 32-bit extender in general...

Plain VGA games usually use the 13h mode, ie. 320 x 200 x 8bpp = 64000 Bytes
and that fits in the 16-bit segment size - a 16-bit program can easily process data structures of such size

256-color SVGA, however, was 4 or 5 times heavier!
640 x 400 x 8bpp = 256000 Bytes
640 x 480 x 8bpp = 307200 Bytes
To work with such amounts of data, one needs 4..5 times more CPU power, 4..5 times more memory, and... 32-bit code is VERY recommended.

That's why PC gaming was stuck with 320 x 200 for so long...
we had to wait until 1992 for the strategy genre to go SVGA (Links 386 Pro), and until 1995/96 for the action genre to catch up (Witchaven, Quake).

We can only wonder how it would've been if the 400 x 300 and 512 x 384 modes got standardized earlier...

Yes makes sense. And thx - links is also non dos extender.

Marco wrote on 2024-05-03, 10:05:

links is also non dos extender.

Links: The Challenge of Golf (1990) doesn't use any extender, but doesn't use SVGA either.

Links 386 Pro (1992), however...

1$ strings links386.exe | grep -i extender
2bytes for 386|DOS-Extender code and data
3pages needed for 386|DOS-Extender system data
4off this other program in order to use 386|DOS-Extender to run in 
5386|DOS-Extender 
6Under DPMI 0.9 with nested 386|DOS-Extenders,
7unable to use 'parent' 386|DOS-Extender to initialize
8DPMI host error initializing LDT descriptor contents for 386|DOS-Extender
9There is already a DOS extender running in this
10virtual machine, and this DPMI 0.9 host only allows one extender in a VM.Use -NESTDPMI to force running if this host supports nested DOS extenders.
11Phar Lap 286|DOS-Extender present
12Phar Lap 386|DOS-Extender present
13Borland 16-bit DOS extender present
14Unknown DOS extender present
15Using services of another 386|DOS-Extender to initialize in DPMI VM

Yes indeed I was referring to Links 386 Pro.

But. Aha. Interesting. One of the only games requiring a 386 dos extender but less than 4mb ram. Here 2mb if the power play review is correct. But as they also strongly recommend 4mb maybe it uses „internal dos extender swapping“ tech.

286-16 with SVGA was actually a very common configuration where I live.

Grzyb wrote on 2024-05-03, 09:02:

One more important thing to understand why there's so few SVGA games for 286, or without a 32-bit extender in general... […]
Show full quote

One more important thing to understand why there's so few SVGA games for 286, or without a 32-bit extender in general...

Plain VGA games usually use the 13h mode, ie. 320 x 200 x 8bpp = 64000 Bytes
and that fits in the 16-bit segment size - a 16-bit program can easily process data structures of such size

256-color SVGA, however, was 4 or 5 times heavier!
640 x 400 x 8bpp = 256000 Bytes
640 x 480 x 8bpp = 307200 Bytes
To work with such amounts of data, one needs 4..5 times more CPU power, 4..5 times more memory, and... 32-bit code is VERY recommended.

That's why PC gaming was stuck with 320 x 200 for so long...
we had to wait until 1992 for the strategy genre to go SVGA (Links 386 Pro), and until 1995/96 for the action genre to catch up (Witchaven, Quake).

We can only wonder how it would've been if the 400 x 300 and 512 x 384 modes got standardized earlier...

Action games never were so good on a 286, anyway.
What I'm wondering though, is, as to why point&click games were stuck to mode 13h all the time.
320x200 is such a pixelated resolution, it doesn't do justice to the capabilities of the artists.
640x400 would have been so much better here.

I mean, visual novels on MSX 2, Sharp x68000 and PC-98 did make good use of higher resolutions and colour depths, too.

640x400 16c was the defacto default resolutions fir visual novels on PC-98 platform (English language DOS ports for western PCs use 640x480 16c, mode 12h).

Imagine if 640x400 256c would have been used more often.
Games like Sam&Max, SOMI or Rise of the Dragon or Beneath a Steel Sky would have been looked so much more detailed.

A fast 286, 12 MHz onwards would have made those games playable, at least, even if performance wasn't great.
I mean, many gamers did buy their 486s with VLB graphics as soon as possible, anyway.
No matter if the games were using mode 13h (VGA) or 100h (VBE).

I mean, let's just try playing back higher-res Flick files (FLC) on a 286 using PV or AAPLAY/AAPLAY for Windows.
A 12 MHz 286 *can* handle it. Not perfectly, but it can.

With techniques like dirty-rectangle, video performance can be improved a bit further, even.
Windows does that with its Standard VGA driver, for example.
It merely updates parts of the screen (framebuffer) that have changed.
So it wouldn't be necessary to copy a whole 640x400 256c image every time something changes.

Jo22 wrote on 2024-05-03, 15:00:

What I'm wondering though, is, as to why point&click games were stuck to mode 13h all the time.
320x200 is such a pixelated resolution, it doesn't do justice to the capabilities of the artists.
640x400 would have been so much better here.

i'd agree but think that developers aimed for safe middle ground of its likely customers, maybe vga 13h and ega but no need to develop for this with high capabilities

it's also more complex to draw over many pixels (well, if there is more detail anyway) and potentially more data to store - but mostly i think it was just playing safe / maximising market reach

appiah4 wrote on 2024-05-03, 14:45:

286-16 with SVGA was actually a very common configuration where I live.

OK, but what SVGA? 256 KB or 512 KB? Color monitor, or monochrome?

In my bubble, 286 PCs were office workhorses - their users didn't care about games or multimedia.
VGA was rather common, but it was basic 256 KB cards - probably also capable of 800 x 600 x 16, therefore SVGA in theory! - but coupled with cheap monochrome monitors that wouldn't go above 640 x 480.
Another factor hindering the adoption of SVGA was that it required installation of card-specific drivers for every program - in effect, even those who had SVGA, were often lazy and using it as plain VGA.

Grzyb wrote on 2024-05-03, 15:40:

OK, but what SVGA? 256 KB or 512 KB? Color monitor, or monochrome? […]
Show full quote

appiah4 wrote on 2024-05-03, 14:45:

286-16 with SVGA was actually a very common configuration where I live.

OK, but what SVGA? 256 KB or 512 KB? Color monitor, or monochrome?

In my bubble, 286 PCs were office workhorses - their users didn't care about games or multimedia.
[..]

Well, yes and no - I'd say they were straight in the middle. Which is part of the issue.

For once, 286 machines could handle Windows 3.1 and sound cards, already.

The original MPC 1.0 specification mentioned a 286, the revised MPC 1.0 specification a 386SX.
The Tandy VIS multimedia system had used an 12 MHz 80286, too.

Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extension 1.0 was fully functional on a 286 already (for example, the supplied SB16 drivers of some OEM versions of 3.0 MME were 286 compatible, still) .
Most Windows 3.0 software didn't require a 386 yet.

On the other hand, with Windows 3.1, things slowly had changed (last stand for 286).
Add-ons like WinG, DCI and Win32s pretty much required 386 Enhanced-Mode.

With Windows for Workgroups 3.11, it was all about 32-Bit computing.
By that time, many programs had used VXDs as DLLs already. Mod4Win comes to mind here.

So it's really difficult to categorize the 286 platform, I think.
Past their glory, 286 systems had been used as low-cost disk-less PCs in networks, for example.
Or as cash registers. Or as embedded systems (heart of logic analyzers etc).

On the desktop, the 386SX quickly had replaced full-fledged 286 PCs.

The Amstrad Mega PC is such an example, maybe.
It has specs of a low-end 286 PC (256KB VGA, low RAM), but a 386SX processor.

The good thing about this is that intelligent 80286 chipsets stayed a little bit longer on the scene.
Especially hardware EMS support was typical for good 286 chipsets.
Only a few 386/486 chipsets bothered to implement "clean" EMS in hardware.

Users of more modern chipsets had to use EMM386 and other V86 memory managers,
which had reduced compatibility or performance (VME was needed for fast V86).

Relatively seen, at least. Going from a 386SX-25 w/ hardware EMS to a 486DX-66 wo hardware EMS was still an upgrade to most users.

Edit: Really, it's hard to say. You're getting different answers depending on who you ask.
Random 80286 PCs were seldomly upgraded, past 1990, I suppose.
Private people rather exchanged their 286 mainboards for something more recent and kept the rest.
On the other hand, quality 286 workstations likely saw some upgrades, still.
I mean, from a pure rational point of view, performance of many 286 PCs was sufficient to run Windows 3.
RAM expansion was all it needed, due to lack of fast HDDs and lack of virtual memory.
2MB was minimum for Standard Mode, I'd say.

Jo22 wrote on 2024-05-03, 15:00:

I mean, visual novels on MSX 2, Sharp x68000 and PC-98 did make good use of higher resolutions and colour depths, too.

No 64 KB segment size limit in the 68000.
And weren't 32-bit extenders common on the PC-98 long before they appeared in the standard PC software as well?

Also, before VESA BIOS Extensions got common, it was simply impossible to write an SVGA program and expect it to work on all SVGA cards.
I guess x68000 and PC-98 were more uniform, and no such problems, right?

Grzyb wrote on 2024-05-03, 16:09:

Jo22 wrote on 2024-05-03, 15:00:

I mean, visual novels on MSX 2, Sharp x68000 and PC-98 did make good use of higher resolutions and colour depths, too.

No 64 KB segment size limit in the 68000.
And weren't 32-bit extenders common on the PC-98 long before they appeared in the standard PC software as well?

Not sure, I'll have to check. Some earlier PC-98 models were based around 8086 (or V30) and 80286 processors.
There's a technological difference between PC-9801 and PC-9821 line, essentially.
The latter is from the 90s and more modern.

Later models had used extenders, I suppose. The Windows 3.0 Enhanced-Mode kernal was being used as some EMM386 replacement, at some point.
Or do I'm mixing things up here? Hm. I'll have to check. My memory is a bit sketchy here. 😅

Grzyb wrote on 2024-05-03, 16:09:

Also, before VESA BIOS Extensions got common, it was simply impossible to write an SVGA program and expect it to work on all SVGA cards.
I guess x68000 and PC-98 were more uniform, and no such problems, right?

Well, there was SVGA.BGI for Borland languages, which covered most known ISA VGAs of the time.

But in terms of direct SVGA support, 800x600 16c was about the only "universal" mode.

The Paradise/WD, V7 VEGA and ET-4000 (ET-3000 too?) VGA mode numbers were kind of popular, I suppose.

Supporting those should have covered quite some PCs among users, albeit not all of them.

The VBE specification essentially was meant to standardize 800x600 16c mode, initially.

But by 1990 onwards, many if not all ISA VGAs had shipped with VBE TSRs on the supplied diskettes. The manufacturers weren't unaware about the market situation, after all.
So the technology was "there". 640x400 256c was even more monitor friendly than 800x600.

Windows 2.x drivers (800x600 16c and 640x400 256c) for the Paradise PVGA were dated 1988, if I'm not mistaken.

Anyway, the lack of VBE support directly in VGA BIOS surely was a problem of the time.
Many PC owners apparently didn't have the diskettes with the utilities that were bundled with the VGA cards.

But it's also understandable that VGA BIOSes didn't have VBE support yet.
The specification was pretty "beta" and still changing, so manufacturers did opt for VBE TSRs, rather.

Which in turn hindered VBE support in the DOS compatibility box of OS/2 1.x.
VBE TSRs don't work there. *sigh*

Edit: Quote fixed. Sorry about that.

Edit:

Grzyb wrote on 2024-05-03, 16:09:

I guess x68000 and PC-98 were more uniform, and no such problems, right?

Using an X68000 required a multisync monitor, essentially. The supplied original monitor of the X68000 could do 24 KHz, I think.
The platform was pretty arcade-ish all in all.

Edit: The X68k platform was trisync, essentially - 15/24/31 KHz.
https://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:x68000_monitors

PC-98/PC-9801 was on par with EGA or VGA, visually.
In their heyday, graphics adventures/visual novels had used 640x400 with 16c, by default.

The used graphics hardware was standardized, like VGA was.
Later models had supported 640x400 256c, even.

More information here:
https://www.target-earth.net/wiki/doku.php?id … og:pc98_devcode

What I meant was that "we" had 640x400 resolution available at the very beginning of the VGA era. In 256 colour depth, even!

So it would have been possible for western games to be on par with those Japanese games, graphically.

We also had 640x480 16c (mode 12h), with changing palette, but..

Western artists didn't like to work with 16 colours.
Most of our game designers loved 256 colours, which the fixation to mode 13h (320x200 256c) pretty much had proven.

So 640x400 256c would have been the only reasonable upgrade path to them, likely.

Standard VGA in 640x480 16c (mode 12h) wasn't bad by any means, but our game designers simply had an aversion against it for whatever reason.

It was rarely been used past simulations and sophisticated text-adventures with graphics.
Sadly. Because freeware, shareware and public domain games using it didn't look bad at all.
Windows 3 desktop games looked ok, often.