QfG1 remake's EGA640.DRV

[Pikachu14]

This is cool... I played the Quest for Glory VGA remake, thought it was pretty cool, by the way, and noticed a gfx driver named "EGA640.DRV". So, naturally I tried it out.

Sweet furry funk biscuits! Never thought they'd try that! With a doubled resolution to allow dithering, they actually made one the coolest (IMNSHO) graphic drivers ever!

Then I tried it on Brian's VGA Slideshow Demo thingy, worked fine until the palette changed. And Larry 1 worked fine like that too (except the title screen wouldn't scroll! ) But when it asked my age, it crashed...

Any other strange graphics drivers out there?

On a side note, can one make one's own graphics driver? The name "Ravi" is suddenly burned onto my eyes...

[HWM]

Every SCI11 game got shipped with that driver... Instead of SCI1, where games got shipped in two different versions (and their 16 color versions looked a lot worse)... It's interesting though, that the technique this driver uses, was used with games way before SCI1, like the GameArts games Sierra licensed... So the question is: why didn't they use it in SCI1?

[Chris Cromer]

Actually there is another pretty cool one, I have a black and white driver.

[Steven Melenchuk]

Chris - Where did you get the black and white driver? Sounds cool

* Steven Melenchuk also makes a mental note to grab this EGA640 driver from his copy of QFG1...

[Pikachu14]

You mean VGA320BW.DRV?

[Brian Provinciano]

There were old CGA mono (2 colour) drivers released with early games like SCI0. There's also a hercules (2 colour) driver too that works on my XT. However, new computers don't emulate herc, only CGA.

The reason Sierra wouldn't have done the dither drivers in SCI1 was because they use a 640 EGA resolution while the EGA SCI1 games used 320. Most people who had EGA only wouldn't have had enough video memory for it.

For example, 320 VGA requires  64K, while 320 EGA only needs 32K. However, 640 EGA would require 64K too.

[Pikachu14]

For example, 320 VGA requires  64K, while 320 EGA only needs 32K. However, 640 EGA would require 64K too.

Well thank you so much for telling me that! It all makes sense!

[Chris Cromer]

VGA320BW.DRV

Yes that is the one.

Where did you get the black and white driver?

Well mine came from "The Castle of Doctor Brain". But it is probably included in other games as well.

[Pikachu14]

Well mine came from "The Castle of Doctor Brain". But it is probably included in other games as well.

You kiddin'? Nearly every single SCI game I have has that driver!

[Chris Cromer]

Well I havn't actually checked the other SCI1 games to see which do and don't... all I know is that mine came from The Castle of Doctor Brain.

[Te Rangi]

Would it be possible for someone to make a new interpreter that supports hi-res (1024x768)? I would, but I don't know any high level programming languages. (Maybe time to read 'Learn C++ in 21 days'?)

[Pikachu14]

You mean "driver", right?

[Chris Cromer]

Why would a resolution of that be needed? If you want something that fancy use AGS or something... besides if someone where to write and interpreter with that res it wouldn't be "real" SCI would it?

As for a driver... nope that wouldn't really work because the graphics where designed for a lower resolution so all the driver would be capable of doing is stretching the images/animations to fit that res... ultimately making it look like crap in my opinion.

I say leave SCI as is, no modifications... because then it is not really SCI as we remember it from the good old days.

[Pikachu14]

Which brings us back to the question "is it possible at all?".

Ravi made a sound driver, so I guess yes.
Let's just keep it simple. Let's just think of a driver that does a 320-to-640 with a scanline effect, okay?

[Chris Cromer]

Is it possible?

ANYTHING is possible, but you have to make it.

You can do just about anything if you put your mind to it and know what your doing. I am of course against making a higher res graphics driver... the sound drivers are fine since people have different speakers/audio drivers... and graphic drivers for other machines(mac, linux, etc) are ok in my opinion.