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CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards
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	CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-6-23 @ 06:07 pm
5u3 Oldbie Joined: 2005-09-06 Posts: 1280 Location: Vienna, Austria	Here is a table of test results conducted with the CGA Compatibility Tester on various VGA chipsets. Generally, VGA cards emulate CGA well enough to be considered compatible, but some older games show graphical glitches or just plainly won't work with VGA cards. Some VGAs are better in emulating CGA as others, this table should help you to find one that works well with old games: Code: Chipset: Trident W. Digital Tseng ATI Cirrus Logic generic generic DOSBox TVGA8900C WD90C30-LR ET4000AX VGA WonderXL GD510+520 VGA EGA [] 0.74 Utility: SVM89.EXE VGAPLUS.EXE VMODE.COM VINSTALL.EXE DIP Switches none none machine=cga v1.20 (TSR) v1.0 v2.0 set to CGA ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Color Select Register Border/Overscan: ok [1] ok fail ok ok fail fail fail Med-Res. background: ok ok ok ok ok fail fail ok Hi-Res. foreground: ok ok ok ok ok fail fail ok Med-Res. palettes: ok ok fail [2] ok ok fail fail [7] ok Textmode Manipulation 40-column display: ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok Hicolor backgrounds: ok ok ok ok ok fail fail [8] ok Cursor control: fail [3] ok fail [3] ok ok fail fail fail [3] 8x8 font display: ok [4] ok [4] ok [4] ok [4] ok fail ok ok M6845 Compatibility Vertical retrace: ok fail ok fail fail [6] fail ok ok Horizontal retrace: ok ok ok ok ok fail fail ok Textmode row reprog: ok ok ok ok ok fail fail ok Textmode row/col reprog: ok fail ok fail ok fail fail ok Display positioning: ok fail ok fail ok fail fail fail Start Address reprog: fail [5] ok fail [5] fail [5] ok fail [5] fail [5] ok ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [] Results from ATI EGA Wonder 800 and Paradise PEGA 1A [1] Only cycles through lower 8 colors [2] Works except for cyan/red/white palettes [3] Dual-line and strikethrough cursor missing [4] Minor differences from IBM CGA font [5] Corrupt/missing screens at end of vertical scroller [6] Probably ok with 15 KHz CGA monitor [7] Cyan/magenta/white palette only [8] High-intensity colors only [Edit 2011-09-20] Updated results: ATI VGA Wonder XL (tested by MaxWar) [Edit 2011-10-01] Updated results: ATI EGA Wonder 800 and Paradise PEGA 1A (tested by DonutKing), Cirrus Logic GD510+520 (tested by Vlask) [Edit 2012-01-11] Updated results: Cirrus Logic GD510+520 (tested by retro games 100) [Edit 2012-01-12] Minor corrections: Cirrus Logic GD510+520, Tseng ET4000AX [Edit 2012-02-01] Minor corrections: Cirrus Logic GD510+520 (tested by sprcorreia), added DOSBox results ---------- Below is the text of my original post. ---------- Recently I stumbled upon Trixter's CGA Compatibility Tester, a program which tests CGA cards for compatibility issues and shows off some neat CGA register tricks. This made me wonder: How good are VGA cards at emulating CGA? After running the CGA Compatibility Tester on a couple of random VGA cards, it soon became apparent that they really suck at this: All cards failed the same tests in exactly the same manner. I didn't expect any VGA card to be 100% register-compatible with CGA, but these results were rather disappointing. However, I remembered that some old ISA cards could be switched into a special CGA emulation mode by running an utility or setting some DIP switches. Further researching on the net and rummaging in my old hardware box scared up three such VGA cards, along with the utilities to activate their CGA emulation! The table above lists the test results for my cards in CGA emulation mode. The last column (generic VGA) represents the results without activating the CGA emulation. Note that I left out some of the tests (Video RAM Speed Benchmarks, CGA "Snow" visibility, Monitor Calibration and Interlaced video mode) in order to keep things manageable. So, is there a card capable of passing all these tests? Let's find out: If you have a VGA card with better CGA compatibility than a generic VGA, please post your cgacomp test results here! These are the utilities I used for the tests: Last edited by 5u3 on 2012-2-01 @ 10:34 pm; edited 7 times in total vmodetsg.zip (9.72kB) - Downloaded 441 Time(s) VMODE.COM v2.0 - video mode switching utility for Tseng ET4000 cards vgaplus.exe (14.88kB) - Downloaded 471 Time(s) VGAPLUS.EXE v1.0 - video mode switching utility for WD Paradise WD90C30 cards SVM89.EXE (24.24kB) - Downloaded 549 Time(s) SVM89.EXE v1.20 - video mode switching utility for Trident 8900 cards

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-6-23 @ 06:45 pm
retro games 100 I've just flashed my brain! Joined: 2008-05-03 Posts: 4476	Good post! You may be interested in this webpage. It's a wiki vintage computer page about VGA backwards compatibility. The footnote area on this page is curious. It says that the Tseng ET4000 chipset has no compatibility mode. Perhaps this "plain vanilla" ET4000 differs from the AX variant?

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-6-23 @ 07:33 pm
h-a-l-9000 DOSBox Author Joined: 2005-02-23 Posts: 4087	Would also be interesting if the configuration program is a TSR. If it is it most likely uses the NMI to trap hardware accesses, which can mess up timing. _________________ 1+1=10

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-6-23 @ 09:34 pm
sliderider l33t Joined: 2010-06-25 Posts: 3322	Someone needs to sticky topics like this one. Too many of them get shuffled to the bottom of the queue and then you have to hunt for them later. _________________ A computer once beat me at chess but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-6-24 @ 06:44 am
eL_PuSHeR Moderator Joined: 2003-06-20 Posts: 6131	I have changed topic to "Important"...

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-6-24 @ 06:49 am
retro games 100 I've just flashed my brain! Joined: 2008-05-03 Posts: 4476	IMHO, I think that having just one sticky at the top of Marvin called "the best of Marvin" thread is a worthy idea. If you have too many stickies at the top of Marvin, it pushes all new threads (however good they may be) down the page in to "second place". Inside the "best of Marvin" top sticky thread, you could have a summary and link to each of these great threads.

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-6-24 @ 09:51 am
5u3 Oldbie Joined: 2005-09-06 Posts: 1280 Location: Vienna, Austria	Thanks for your comments! retro games 100 wrote: Good post! You may be interested in this webpage. It's a wiki vintage computer page about VGA backwards compatibility. The footnote area on this page is curious. It says that the Tseng ET4000 chipset has no compatibility mode. Perhaps this "plain vanilla" ET4000 differs from the AX variant? Yeah, I came across this wiki page too, the entry about ET4000 is probably just an oversight. Also, the compatibility mode doesn't work with all ET4000 cards. I've tried the VMODE.COM utility with a PCI ET4000/W32, and it doesn't offer the CGA compatibility mode as with the ISA ET4000AX. h-a-l-9000 wrote: Would also be interesting if the configuration program is a TSR. If it is it most likely uses the NMI to trap hardware accesses, which can mess up timing. Good point, I haven't thought about that. Turns out that the SVM89.EXE utility for the Trident 8900 cards is indeed a TSR. I'll change the table accordingly. This explains why the Trident doesn't stay in CGA compatibility mode during a reset, while the other two cards keep it up until power is cut or the emulation is switched back to VGA. About making this thread sticky: I like RG100's idea about having a "best of" thread, as the thread listing is already becoming cluttered with stickied threads. Is there someone willing to manage a "best of" topic? For those of you with a Trident 8900, WD Paradise 90C30 or Tseng ET4000, I've attached the utilities at the first post.

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-6-25 @ 08:13 am
h-a-l-9000 DOSBox Author Joined: 2005-02-23 Posts: 4087	Unfortunately I don't have the utilities for my old-ish VGA cards... _________________ 1+1=10

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-7-05 @ 02:34 pm
VileRancour Hawklord Joined: 2003-05-14 Posts: 852 Location: B800:0000	has someone been able to test this utility on an ATI VGA-Wonder? curious about this one in particular, because it can drive a CGA (or mono) monitor too.

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-9-13 @ 04:17 pm
MaxWar Oldbie Joined: 2011-04-12 Posts: 631 Location: Canada	Funny that you talk about the VGA-wonder. Im am restoring a 486 system and it has the VGA wonder XL in it. When im done setting this all up, i could try the test with my card.

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-9-13 @ 06:33 pm
5u3 Oldbie Joined: 2005-09-06 Posts: 1280 Location: Vienna, Austria	MaxWar wrote: Im am restoring a 486 system and it has the VGA wonder XL in it. When im done setting this all up, i could try the test with my card. Please do! We need more CGAcomp test results!

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-9-19 @ 04:02 am
MaxWar Oldbie Joined: 2011-04-12 Posts: 631 Location: Canada	Ok, i managed to track down the original disk images for my ati vga wonder xl ! http://ibm-pc.org/manuals/other/ati/vga...wonder.htm I made the test after setting display mode to cga using the utility vinstall.exe and here are the results: Color Select Register : --all pass Textmode Manipulation : -- Cursor control fails, see no cursor at all. Its actually better in vga as only Dual-line and strikethrough cursor missing thenEdit : pass after tweak -- 8x8 font display: ok , looks like the fat font but some minor differences on a few characters (apparently same result as other cards, no big deal) M6845 Compatibility : --Vertical retrace: fail , 70 hz instead of 60 hz. Im actualy happy about this as i hate 60hz. 60hz = can see the screen flashing, gives headaches and drives nuts. So this one fails at failing = win --Textmode row reprog: not sure about this one, It appears to do some row reprog but im not sure if it does it properly, looks a bit weird, i would say its fail until otherwise proved. Edit : pass after tweak --Textmode row/col reprog: fail : I do not get a garbled display like in vga but it does not reprogram text res. --Display positioning: Fail, should i see the screen moving ? --Start Address reprog: fail [5] ( vertical corrupt , horizontal ok) *All the tests not mentioned are 100% pass. I wonder if results would be different if i was using an actual CGA monitor, as this card does have a cga connector on it! Too bad i dont have one, i would gladly trade one of my VGA monitors for a CGA one Apparently the biggest issue with the emulation if i was to use it with actual cga games would likely be with text mode reprogramming. I think im gonna try to find one of the games mentioned in the compatibility tester and see how this performs in the field ! Edit: tried a few cga game that use text mode reprogramming and they are not displaying properly, all of them. Looking at you previous results, the trident card seem to be the best one. I also have a trident isa card i think. hmmm. Last edited by MaxWar on 2011-9-20 @ 04:13 am; edited 1 time in total

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-9-19 @ 06:44 pm
VileRancour Hawklord Joined: 2003-05-14 Posts: 852 Location: B800:0000	nice! can you tell if the vinstall.exe utility is a TSR (like the Trident's)? [EDIT] - checked the manual from that link, seems like it's no TSR. Looks like this card has some fun options to play with (such as faking MDA/Hercules on any monitor in green, amber or grey) _________________ Software gets slower more rapidly than hardware gets faster. Believe it, comrade.

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-9-19 @ 09:29 pm
MaxWar Oldbie Joined: 2011-04-12 Posts: 631 Location: Canada	Yes the card has cool features but it does not perform as well as i would have liked in the cga emulation . Some more tests could be done such as trying with the two other versions of Vinstall, and also trying with cga monitor. Also there is the fact that its arguably pointless to try to play cga games on this machine as my overdriven 486 usually plays cga games about one order of magnitude too fast, even with turbo at off.

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-9-19 @ 11:51 pm
DonutKing Oldbie Joined: 2008-01-03 Posts: 1383	Quote: Also there is the fact that its arguably pointless to try to play cga games on this machine as my overdriven 486 usually plays cga games about one order of magnitude too fast, even with turbo at off. You can try this... ICE enables the L1 and L2 cache while ICD disables it. Requires a 486 processor. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9151127/icdice.zip By using these in conjunction with the turbo switch you can usually get the games down to a playable speed. _________________ If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-9-20 @ 12:11 am
MaxWar Oldbie Joined: 2011-04-12 Posts: 631 Location: Canada	I tried playing diggers, with turbo its only a screen blur. Without turbo you can see a bit whats going on, i tried to play it but at this speed its really hard. Would be a nice training for jedi apprentices. Maybe ill try it without cache just for lulz, but id rather get my hand on a 286

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-9-20 @ 01:07 am
VileRancour Hawklord Joined: 2003-05-14 Posts: 852 Location: B800:0000	The best slowdown utility I remember trying is bremze, used to brake my old PII ultra smoothly down to down to XT speeds... but yeah, a 8088/286 rig would be far nicer for those. best not to keep on derailing this thread, though _________________ Software gets slower more rapidly than hardware gets faster. Believe it, comrade.

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-9-20 @ 01:41 am
MaxWar Oldbie Joined: 2011-04-12 Posts: 631 Location: Canada	Returning to the subject, i was making a bit of research on a cirrus logic vlb board i have when i stumbled on this bit of information : "CL-GD510 + 520 - ISA SVGA "Eagle II" chipset, known for 100% CGA emulation. (1988)" from wiki, references: http://books.google.com/books?id=kDoEAA...mp;f=false and http://www.oldskool.org/guides/oldonnew/video Looks like the CL-GD510/520 chipset might be a winner Anybody got one of those ??

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-9-20 @ 01:56 am
VileRancour Hawklord Joined: 2003-05-14 Posts: 852 Location: B800:0000	Since Trixter wrote that guide in the 2nd link, as well as the test utility, perhaps he'd have the results for this card? by the way, that page also seems to have info on fixing text-mode reprogramming games on the ATI VGA Wonder (see the info on grptxt.bat which uses vinstall) maybe you can try that and rerun that specific test on your ATI? _________________ Software gets slower more rapidly than hardware gets faster. Believe it, comrade.

	Re: CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards :: 2011-9-20 @ 02:14 am
MaxWar Oldbie Joined: 2011-04-12 Posts: 631 Location: Canada	My bad! You are totally right, i had not made the connection. Then he says himself that the card is known for 100% cga compatibility, that probably means he tested it with his own tester? He also writes about how to tweak Vinstall to get some cga games to display properly with the ati wonder! Maybe this ati still has some surprises to give? This topic makes me feel like im doing archeology, its pretty cool! Edit : i tried the bat files with the vinstall commands in it and it fixes the textmode row reprogramming test as well as the cursor control test and makes the games mentioned in the exemple display properly! Really this is great. It is all written on the readme.gam file on the floppy but i overlooked it at first. BTW Round 42 is a kickass invaders like game, i can see how cool it actually is now that it displays properly.

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