can anyone explain to me what "VGA mode" in windows xp is?

[Chau]

it's an option on the F8 bootup screen...

thanks

 

[Freejack2]

If I recall correctly it doesn't use your video card drivers.
So if you screwed up your driver installation or you slapped on a new monitor that can't handle your current refresh rate or resolution, you can boot into vga mode and fix it.
Moo!

Edit: Come to think of it, this thread really belonged in video...

 

[Chau]

thanks

heh yeah i know, but i knew i'd get more views/quicker replies here

 

[kherman]

VGA = 640x480. I think it does 320x??? too.

Basically, it's kind of like a floppy drive. When you boot in safe mode, that's VGA! DOS uses VGA. When you install windows off of a DOS boot disk, that's VGA. When you install any OS (I think) that's VGA.

 

[jhu]

you young whipper-snappers asking about vga? back in my day, we only had 4-color cga, and we liked it! we didn't have no fancy 1600x1200 full-screen anti-aliasing 3d accelerated 128mb 32-bits per pixel crap. we had 320x200 2 bits per pixel cga cards that had 16kb of memory. and we liked it!

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: jhu
you young whipper-snappers asking about vga? back in my day, we only had 4-color cga, and we liked it! we didn't have no fancy 1600x1200 full-screen anti-aliasing 3d accelerated 128mb 32-bits per pixel crap. we had 320x200 2 bits per pixel cga cards that had 16kb of memory. and we liked it!

my company still has a monochrome video card in use!

 

[dman]

Blah Blah Blah...

VGA Was <= 640x480x16colors...Doesn't require any special drivers because it is a "standard". Only 16colors though at 640x480. To get 256 you have to drop back to 320x200 resolution VGA.

SVGA (as a rule of thumb) would be 640x480x256Colors (or above). There are probably some other modes, like 320x400 and 512x384 and such that are considered SVGA too. SVGA requires drivers for each video card manuf (at least for peak performance). Thus, in safe mode you want to limit drivers to the bare minimum, and VGA is the minimum.

I'm fairly sure that XP doesn't allow 320x200 resolution for desktop use. Win95 you could hack to run in that mode... not sure if you can still do it w/ w98. It is/was quite useless for doing anything but laughing at how huge the icons are.

...Blah Blah Blah.

 

[UNCjigga]

Win95 you could hack to run in that mode... not sure if you can still do it w/ w98. It is/was quite useless for doing anything but laughing at how huge the icons are.

I'm worried cuz I'm thinking that you've actually done this...

 

[dman]

Originally posted by: uncJIGGA

Win95 you could hack to run in that mode... not sure if you can still do it w/ w98. It is/was quite useless for doing anything but laughing at how huge the icons are.

I'm worried cuz I'm thinking that you've actually done this...

Back in the day I used to work as a tech in a PC Shop and I remember one time being bored and having heard it could be done. IIRC it wasn't anything complicated, something simple like swap a .drv file and change a line in the system.ini maybe. Didn't actually do anything in windows once it came up I knew right away it was useless, but, interesting to see it run like that.

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: dman6666
Blah Blah Blah...

VGA Was <= 640x480x16colors...Doesn't require any special drivers because it is a "standard". Only 16colors though at 640x480. To get 256 you have to drop back to 320x200 resolution VGA.

SVGA (as a rule of thumb) would be 640x480x256Colors (or above). There are probably some other modes, like 320x400 and 512x384 and such that are considered SVGA too. SVGA requires drivers for each video card manuf (at least for peak performance). Thus, in safe mode you want to limit drivers to the bare minimum, and VGA is the minimum.

I'm fairly sure that XP doesn't allow 320x200 resolution for desktop use. Win95 you could hack to run in that mode... not sure if you can still do it w/ w98. It is/was quite useless for doing anything but laughing at how huge the icons are.

...Blah Blah Blah.

EGA is 16 colors, VGA is 256 colors

 

[dman]

EGA = 16c true,but, vga is not always = to 256c, ie the case of 640x480.

640x480x16c is VGA and there is no official 640x480x256c. 640x480x256c would be a start of SVGA.

Here's a nice article on the subject: link

and here's a definition.


and here's a nice guide.

 

[NogginBoink]

In NT4, vga mode used vga.sys as the video driver.

Under XP, I believe the OS still uses your video driver, but goes to 640x480x???.