From: scotts@cpqhou.compaq.com (Scott Shaffer @ Compaq Computer Corp.)
Subject: Re: Is it good to have a new kind of video card?
Organization: Compaq Computer Corp
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 21:13:00 GMT

in article <1992Nov16.032617.27545@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca>, y70q@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (LAM) says:
> 
> Seeing that there are a lot of audio card out here for games, I keep
> wondered: is it possible to have a video card for games? There are
> video cards out here specialized for Windows. Some of these card even
> slow down video speed of DOS to favour Windows. So, maybe someone can

Well, I think this discussion is going along and nobody has really hit the
nail on the head when it comes to video cards and games.  The real reason
we don't have faster/higher resolution boards that get game support is the
lack of a STANDARD.

IBM had the reigns in the mid 80s and was able to develop what became the
standards for things like MDA, CGA, EGA, VGA, and XT, and AT architecture.
However, once Compaq came out with the 80386 *prior* to IBM, a new standard
for PC architecture came into being.  Once some of the video board clone
companies came out with SuperEGA (800x600 mostly) they created thier own
standard.  Luckily for us, the SuperEGA cards never really took off, since
IBM's VGA came out right after that.  Unfortunately, that was the last
standard for video.  Now, we have hundreds of different video cards and
standards for accessing those cards (even IBM now has XGA).  The upside for
the consumer is that so much competition keeps the prices low (I just saw
a ATI XL24 board for $249 for example, and it does 24-bit color at 640x480).
The downside is that software developers don't have consitent way of developing
for the mass market.  Say you are a software developer, and you have 9 months
to write a game.  Of that, you alot 1 month to develop graphics support.  Now,
you would like to support 640x480x256 colors, but since there isn't a standard
and all the video cards don't support this mode in the same way (or at all) you
must develop for the lowest common denominator (like 320x200x256 or 640x480x16).
You just can't spend the resource dollars any other way.

That is the bad news.  The good news is that a group of video card mfg. formed
a standards committe to develop a standard.  They called this standard VESA.
But, as often happens when competing companies try to standardize, they have
been late with the standard and what they have is *less* than functional.
They just published a workable spec, and its called VESA 1.2 (I think).  The
new games from 360 (Theatre of War and V4Victor) plus Links386 use this
standard (implemented most often as a driver, but not necessarily) to
access 640x400x256 colors (why 640x400?  Because that fits in the 512KB most
of the early SuperVGA cards had).  But there is a snag even here, you see the
VESA people decided all they needed was a standard that defined how to put
the cards into that mode (and where video memory is).  They were very short
sighted, because Microsoft came in and designed a video spec for Windows that
defines how to talk to the display in more realistic terms.  They saw right
away that they were going to do a lot of line drawing, fills, and other
basic operations.  They decided they should provide support for (what was
then high-end) CAD video boards that included graphics coprocessors.  Since
Windows has become incredibly popular (for better or worse) the graphics
coprocessor is now almost standard equipment on video boards.  When you
hear about S3 or ET4000 video people are refering to the coprocessor on the
video board.  Why not just standardize on the Windows video driver system?
I have no idea, it sounds good to me.  If there is a technical reason why
it would be a bad idea I'm not aware of it.  The windows model has the
side benefit of abstracting hardware-dependent issues away from the
program.  The guy you mentioned the video double buffering problem
sees this, and its not that Windows ignores this, it just doesn't have to
deal with it since these details are handled at the driver level.  This
puts some pressure on the card mfg. to develop a driver, but this is the
way it SHOULD be.  They make the card, they should make the driver.  Sierra
shouldn't have to support all the cards, the cards should support Sierra!

There is one last reason that you (in your fictional company) would be
hesitant to develop a game for high-res video boards.  Even if a nice
standard existed for the different modes (VESA tries), you would have to 
get hard market data that leaving out the lower end of the market would
still net you enough to keep the company going.  Developing a game to
run on 320x200 and 640x480 is not always feasible.  Just think of all
the artwork in a game like RexNebular that would have to be DUPLICATED in
both screen resolutions.  Then think of how many disks it would take to
ship ALL the data to the users.

This is why we see so many "creative" marketing ideas in the computer store
these days.  Some companies have no problem shipping SVGA only games (like
360).  Some ship seperate boxes for SVGA,VGA and EGA (to save on disk costs).
But most, especially the small companies, just can't afford to alienate part
of the potential market.

Is there hope?  Sure.  Eventually some standard will emerge that will enable
everybody to use high-res boards.  Eventually that standard will be antiquated
and we'll go through the same thing when everybody complains ("How come there
aren't any 2048x2048x24bit games out there?")  

Hopefully, the video market will go the way of the sound-card market and find
an acceptible standard quickly.  Whether you like it or not, the SoundBlaster
is a good base standard to go by.  The board is cheap (<$100) and easy to
program to.  Sure the Roland MT-32 is a better system, but it costs >$500!

Whew, I'm really going on here.  Enough out of me.
I'm just trying to shed some light on a confusing subject.

Scott

+ Scott Shaffer @ Systems Div. @ Compaq Computer Corp.       +
+ scotts@cpqhou.se.eng.compaq.com + "Flee to me remote elf!" +
-- 
+ Scott Shaffer @ Systems Div. @ Compaq Computer Corp.       +
+ scotts@cpqhou.se.eng.compaq.com + "Flee to me remote elf!" +
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games