SCI Render Modes

OmerMor · Post by **OmerMor** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 2:35 pm

I wanted to know if and when you're going to implement other render modes for SCI games, e.g. 640*480*16 (hi-res ega) for VGA games and 320*200*4 (cga) for EGA games.
And in the same spirit I'd also like to know about composite cga mode and hercules for AGI games.

m_kiewitz · Post by **m_kiewitz** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 2:52 pm

our sci engine already is capable of upscaling 320x200 screens. This is only done, when it's actually required. Like for example the japanese PC98 sierra games. Or King's Quest 6 windows version. Or Gabriel Knight 1 windows version.

If you want to upscale regular games, just use a 2x/3x ScummVM scaler.

For CGA I don't see any real usage. The official EGA versions of VGA games already don't look any good anymore. Changing those to CGA would look even worse.

OmerMor · Post by **OmerMor** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:53 pm

You're talking about graphic modes.
I'm talking about the render modes, that will emulate the real way the games looked e.g with EGA640.DRV for vga games (interpolated hi-res ega).

MusicallyInspired · Post by **MusicallyInspired** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 5:34 pm

I personally think that it's a matter of nostalgia. People play these games in ScummVM because they remember them and want to play them the way they were when they first played them. I can see many people being interested in the same render modes that were available with Sierra's drivers. EGA640, for instance, was used for SCI1.1 games that upscaled the graphics to 640x400 and dithered all the graphics in 16 colours. There are similar drivers for CGA and Hercules Monochrome for SCI0, SCI0.1, and the EGA versions of SCI1.0 games.

All that said, it's not a very high priority list item, I admit, but down the road after SCI is officially bug-lessly integrated it'd be nice to see these additions, seeing as they were already done for SCUMM games as well.

OmerMor · Post by **OmerMor** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 6:19 pm

Couldn't have said it better.

MusicallyInspired · Post by **MusicallyInspired** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 7:25 pm

The only thing I'm thinking is that they wouldn't really be able to be replicated unless you disassemble the Sierra drivers or something. It would be an approximation rather than exactly the same. But then maybe this is exactly how the SCUMM render modes were made. I have no idea.