FINALLY... This is a really basic inventory program, it just has this CGA-light title screen and chart interface, nothing as complicated as a video game, so if your PCI-E card can do the white screen bit, I'm sure it can handle this...

So umm... Jeeze, I'm not familiar at all with the ATI anymore. I'm looking at * this Diamond X1950XT *. Sadly, I can't find a 512MB ATI model in the same price range as this card with the same gen GPU. ($200-$300)

If I can't get solid confirmation from BFG about the CGA support on one of their cards, or get a fix for this through EVGA by Monday afternoon - and no one here as any better ATI cards they'd recommend, I'll return it and go buy that one.

thothie, Could you borrow some other graphic card from a friend or something? It wouldn't be advisable spending your money for nothing.

Nah, I'm saying I'm taking this card back, getting my money back, and buying a new one. If I can't find a suitable one at the place I got it, I can live with my on-board graphics for a few days until I can order a new one someplace else.

I actually started a bit of a poll on the 3dguru threads (over yonder) and it seems there are lots of other PCI-E GeForce7 users who do get basic CGA support. Seems likely to be something unique to the EVGA line (although still not entirely certain - but I know this card in general, is crap). So maybe I won't have to go ATI after all.

That diamond is still tempting though. It has VIVO - I miss VIVO (haven't had it since my FX5600 years and years ago). Still, the only ATI I ever had had HORRIBLE video out on the S3 line.

Meh, effing serial number sticker on the back of it fell off and melted on my CPU heatsink >< (but I still have the SN# on the box) - hopefully that doesn't prevent me from taking it back.

I wish you good luck then.

I just got off the phone with PNY regarding my new geforce 7900GS card because none of my dos games would play that worked previously thanks to dosbox.

I was informed there are no new geforce cards that will support DOS or CGA in either AGP or PCI.

There only suggestion was to try to locate a video card like I had previously and wished me luck with it.

Thanks for the time that dosbox extended my favorite point and shoot games.

Or get an ATi card. 😁

PS - I am not related to ATi in any way.

At risk of necroposting...

I thought I'd mention this for anyone looking for graphics compatibility in a newer graphics card.

Although none of the newer EVGA cards seem to handle this. The 8800GT OC from BFG handles it just fine. It seems to handle more or less every CGA/VGA mode. (...and I just realized the irony that the card with evga in its name couldn't handle evga modes)

So I can say, with some confidence, based on current and previous experience, that if one is looking for a current-gen graphics card with maximum backwards compatibility, BFG is the way to go.

thothie wrote:

Although none of the newer EVGA cards seem to handle this. The 8800GT OC from BFG handles it just fine. It seems to handle more or less every CGA/VGA mode. (...and I just realized the irony that the card with evga in its name couldn't handle evga modes)

Actually, I have a BFG 7950GT which works fine with all of the VGA/VESA modes under DOS, but would not work under the WinXP NTVDM until I modified the WinXP (SP2) VGA.SYS driver. Any NVidia reference video BIOS will work properly for IBM VGA and VESA standard modes at 60 Hz under DOS with the NVidia series 5xxx, 6xxx, 7xxx series video adapters. Once the WinXP (SP2) VGA.SYS is modified the NVidia BIOS works properly under WinXP. Vista is another matter, as even using WinXP video drivers does not make up for the Microsoft deprecated VIDEO_PORT_INT10_INTERFACE api in the Vista builds.

If NVidia ever issues an updated 8xxx series BIOS to their OEM partners which is distributed, then any 8xxx series Nvidia video adapter could be made non-functional under WinXP.

Best of luck,

dvwjr

I was going nuts. I have the same problem with nvidia 6100 on board video.
Here is the story. Two new motherboards, one MSI the other PC Chips. Both have the Nvidia chip sets. WHen tring to run any MS DOs program in a XP window or full screen the NTVDM stops the program and gives you an error that a illegal instruction has been encountered. This happens as soon as a screen 12 command is incountered. What the hell, I means that's a VGA Screen. I know this because two of us worked for a few hours tracking down where the problem was. Myself and the original dos programer of one of the programs I need to use. If anyone has a suggestion for solving this I would be very happy. Thanks Jeff

jemun: Use DOSBox.

I have a pci-e 8800gts and that test works fine for me