Search for games by legal status

Some shareware games were full versions that requested a donation to register the software if it was found to be useful. Most later shareware games included the first episode in a series, or had less levels or features than the registered version. Freeware games may be former shareware or commercial software, or games that have always been freeware. Public domain games are games that the copyright holder has officially abandoned all rights into the public domain (abandonware). Whenever the legal status of a shareware game is unknown, it is presumed to continue to be shareware.
All shareware games All freeware games Public domain
Full version shareware Former commercial software
Partial game shareware Former shareware
Always freeware

Search for games by video mode

Games are listed by supported video modes. Games that have native support for more than one standard are listed under each supported standard. Video modes that have more than one resolution can be searched by resolution, or all games can be viewed by clicking on the name of the standard.

ASCII refers to games that are text-based; ASCII is not a video mode. Monochrome ASCII games can be played on Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA) or higher graphics cards, and color ASCII games can be played on CGA or higher graphics cards; all newer graphics standards are backwards compatible with these text modes.

Text modes

ASCII
Monochrome text
Mode 2h 40×25×16c text
Mode 3h 80×40×16c text

Graphics modes

Hercules CGA Tandy EGA VGA 8514
720×348 mono 160×100×16c 320×200×16c Mode Dh 320×200×16c Mode 13h 320×200×256c 640×480×256c
Mode 4h 320×200×4c Mode Eh 640×200×16c 320×240×256c 1024×768×256c
Mode 6h 640×200 mono Mode Fh 640×350 mono 640×400×256c
Mode 10h 640×350×16c Mode 11h 640×480 mono
Mode 12h 640×480×16c
Non-standard resolutions

Any graphics modes that exceed the capabilities of a VGA graphics card are called Super VGA or SVGA. VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE) defined 23 graphics and 5 text modes that allowed for higher resolutions and/or color depths. As of the 2.0 specification, no further modes will be defined, allowing software to use any resolution, provided the graphics card is capable of displaying it.

VESA Defined Modes
Mode 100h   640×400×256c
Mode 101h   640×480×256c
Mode 102h   800×600×16c
Mode 103h   800×600×256c
Mode 104h   1024×768×16c
Mode 105h   1024×768×256c
Mode 106h   1280×1024×16c
Mode 107h   1280×1024×256c
Mode 108h   80×60 text
Mode 109h   130×25 text
Mode 10Ah   132×43 text
Mode 10Bh   132×50 text
Mode 10Ch   132×60 text
Mode 10Dh   320×200×15-bit
Mode 10Eh   320×200×16-bit
Mode 10Fh   320×200×24-bit
Mode 110h   640×480×15-bit
Mode 111h   640×480×16-bit
Mode 112h   640×480×24-bit
Mode 113h   800×600×15-bit
Mode 114h   800×600×16-bit
Mode 115h   800×600×24-bit
Mode 116h   1024×768×15-bit
Mode 117h   1024×768×16-bit
Mode 118h   1024×768×24-bit
Mode 119h   1280×1024×15-bit
Mode 11Ah   1280×1024×16-bit
Mode 11Bh   1280×1024×24-bit
Graphics mode 320×200 640×400 640×480 800×600 1024×768 1280×1024
16 color Mode 102h Mode 104h Mode 106h
256 color Mode 100h Mode 101h Mode 103h Mode 105h Mode 107h
15-bit (32k) Mode 10Dh Mode 110h Mode 113h Mode 116h Mode 119h
16-bit (64k) Mode 10Eh Mode 111h Mode 114h Mode 117h Mode 11Ah
24-bit (16M) Mode 10Fh Mode 112h Mode 115h Mode 118h Mode 11Bh

APIs

WinG
Glide
DirectX

Search for games by year

Games are listed by the year in which the first version was released.
1980 1990 2000 2010
1981 1991 2001 2011
1982 1992 2002
1983 1993 2003
1984 1994 2004
1985 1995 2005
1986 1996 2006
1987 1997 2007
1988 1998 2008
1989 1999 2009