Do vintage VGA boards require drivers

[Kevin Mooney]

I just recently purchased a Tandy VGM 200 VGA Monitor. And recently purchased a IBM PC XT compatible VGA Card. That has the same pin memory chips as my Tandy 1000 TL. But It did not come with a driver. The seller says it works with dos 3.3. I have dos 3.3. Does Dos 3.3 have a driver in it or deskmate for Tandy VGA . Wich My computer can upgrade to according to the handbook. I basically want to know if the old cards require drivers becuase evan new modern cards will work without drivers. And the games I have support VGA

 

[evildragon]

VGA cards have a ROM on them that contain the required support (BIOS Extensions), that allow them to run without drivers, as long as you don't want to access above 640x480 16 colors, but with that computer, and that video card, I doubt you'll get that anyway..

I think only in Windows were drivers beginning to be required for video. (And you don't need drivers on modern version of windows sometimes, because microsoft "packs" them with it. I won't say those "pack in" drivers are good though, most are crap.)

 

[kb2syd]

There is also a "standard" vga driver included in the deskmate distribution. I think it is on Disk 5 of Deskmate 3.0. I think it supports all "standard" vga modes.