On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 6:55 AM Felix Natter via Freedos-devel <freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > hello freedos-devel, > > I would like to develop with freedos like I developed with MS-DOS (and > VESA/DJGPP/NASM with 1024x768x8bit) in the 90s. Hence the questions: > > - is VESA framebuffer even supported by modern GPUs (i.e Intel onboard > HD graphics) or emulated by freedos? If yes, what framebuffer > layout/resolution? > > - Do you recommend to use GCC (like with RHIDE in DJGPP) or shall I port > my code to OpenWatcom1/2 (I saw that nasm is supported)? >
The graphics support will depend entirely on the hardware in your machine. As Eric pointed out, more recent graphics cards tend to have worse VGA compatibility, but I agree the standard modes should be fine like 640x480 or 800x600. But your mileage may vary depending on your hardware. My 'real hardware' where I run FreeDOS are either the Pocket386 that I bought recently, or my 12-year old laptop where I run Linux to do presentations on the go. And the graphics are fine there. But except for the Pocket386, I don't usually run FreeDOS on bare metal; I run FreeDOS on a virtual machine (I use QEMU). I find using a virtual machine is really convenient - I don't have the space in my home office to keep spare hardware in the hopes I might oneday use it. I use OpenWatcom and IA-16 GCC for my C programs, but I use OpenWatcom when I do programming in graphics mode. For example, I used OpenWatcom for my 'programming' videos on the YouTube channel, like this virtual dot matrix printer in graphics mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj8R4UIqBrQ ..or this one to calculate pi by counting pixels in a circle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHC1iLHtUP8 ..or this graphics-mode program to program a retro 'Toy' CPU in machine language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IptoyRCRYFU I usually stick to the standard modes like 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768, but this video shows other video resolutions in an OpenWatcom program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wf-KqsOfnE *And the YouTube channel itself: https://www.youtube.com/@freedosproject Jim _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
