Square-pixel SVGA Games
This is a chronological list of the most technically notable computer games on IBM PC MS-DOS that were coded to display in and take advantage of SVGA, which is an IBM-originated graphics mode that supports square-pixel 4:3 aspect ratio 256-color 640x480 as opposed to 16-color 640x400 VGA and 640x350 EGA.
Warlords of 1989 for IBM PC is a notable early example of a computer game that features a 16-color 640x400 viewport, but this article is only concerned with square-pixel 640x480.
SVGA 640x480 was not just about 4:3 square-pixel resolution in 256 colors from a palette of 256K. It was also about hardware cursors, increased clockspeed and increased display memory (256 KB for VGA, 1-4 MB for SVGA). Line-draws, square-fills and poly-fills -- they were 30 times faster in SVGA.
Note that IBM's Professional Graphics Controller of 1984 supported 640x480 and could display 256 colors from a palette of 4096. However, it was not employed for computer games (PGC was a workstation graphics controller).
Some of the following IBM PC MS-DOS games support SVGA-standardized resolutions beyond 640x480, such as 800x600, 1024x768 and 1280x1024. These are marked with asterisks [*].
Reminder that these are MS-DOS games, not Windows games. DirectX Windows games are square-pixel.
Populous 2 IBM PC 1993 Bullfrog
Populous 2 technically runs in 16-color 640x480 but its viewport is only 640x400. Still, I can tell you that it was like magic playing Populous in hi-res in 1993. And in Populous who needs more than 16 colors?
Empire Deluxe IBM PC 1993 White Wolf
SimCity 2000 IBM PC 1993 Maxis
Panzer General IBM PC 1994 SSI
NASCAR Racing (1994, Papyrus Design Group)
IndyCar Racing 2 (1995, Papyrus Design Group)
Need for Speed (1995, Electronic Arts Studios)
MechWarrior 2 (1995, Activision Studios)
Steel Panthers 1-3 (1995-97, Strategic Simulations)
WarCraft 2 (1995, Blizzard Entertainment)
Mortal Kombat 3 (1995, Midway Games Inc.)
Crusader: No Remorse / Regret (1995-96, Origin Systems)
Shattered Steel (1996, BioWare)
Grand Prix 2 (1996, MicroProse)
NASCAR Racing 2 (1996, Papyrus Design Group)
Quake 1 (1996, id Software) [*]
F-22 Lightning 2 (1996, NovaLogic)
Settlers 2 (1996, Blue Byte)
Z strategy game (1996, Bitmap Brothers)
Fallout 1 (1997, Interplay)
X-COM: Apocalypse (1997, Mythos Games)
Grand Theft Auto (1997, DMA Design)
Grand Prix Legends (1998, Papyrus Design Group) [*]
Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999, DMA Design)
cf.
- Non-standard Square-pixel VGA Games on IBM PC MS-DOS
- EGA IBM PC Games
- EGA 640x350 IBM PC Games
- Screen-scrolling in Computer Games
- The First Texture-mapped Computer Games
- The First Flat-shaded Computer Games
- History of 1990 Computer Games
- Computer Games Listed in Chronological Order
- Computer Game Reviews
- cRPG Blog (Master Index)
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