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General discussionDosbox issue I cant fix.(20 posts)(20 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted December 03, 2015
I have used alot of dosbox over the years. But this new integrated graphics setup for galaxy is really throwing me off. I used to be able to enter resolutions to get a window that was just right, in the middle i could place the bar at the top of my screen, and the bottom edge would be sitting at the bottom in 4:3 mode, making it easy to alt tab to do other things.

That being said. I am having a terrible issue getting this working with the new graphic thing. ddraw makes it look fuzzy, so thats out. direct3d works well in windowed, but makes it tiny no matter what i have the window resolution set to. opengl does the same for windowed. Overlay is the only one that i can play in windowed, but only for normal3x, the hq3x makes it much much smaller. And i cant play stonekeep in fullscreen because it seems to slow down dosbox quite a bit also.

I just want to be able to play in windowed for best performance, and still be able to use settings that make the game look presentable. Overlay at normal3x is terrible. But that is the only thing i can use in windowed mode and still have a window i can play on. Everything else is too small, and fullscreen does not function well or causes the screen to bee off center and cut off.

Does anyone have more experience with this that can give me some advice?
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Posted December 03, 2015
While I can't comment on your specific issue, you do know that Galaxy is optional, right? You don't have to play your games through Galaxy. As far as I know, Galaxy is still quite buggy (as can be expected of a beta), which is also why I haven't used it yet. So if you had no problems with your DOS games before you started to use Galaxy, why not just stop using Galaxy again, at least for DOS games?
Posted December 03, 2015
I have no idea what is this "new graphics thing" in Galaxy that is causing you problems with DOSBox games, because rest of your message just discusses about generic DOSBox settings problems. Or are you referring a GOG graphics setting utility that comes also with Galaxy-free GOG installer games, and gives only reduced options to change DOSbox settings? I never use those, I directly edit the dosbox.conf files inside each GOG game directory.

If you have already used the GOG graphics setting utility, it seems to use unix-like linefeeds for the dosbox.conf file, which may make the config file unreadable in Windows Notepad, showing everything in one line. In that case first open the config file with WordPad, save the config file right away (Ctrl-S) and exit WordPad, and reload it with Notepad (or I guess you could also edit with WordPad, but I prefer using Notepad). WordPad seems to recognize the unix-like linefeeds and formatting, but use Windows linefeeds when saving the file.
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Magic_Of_Light: Overlay is the only one that i can play in windowed, but only for normal3x, the hq3x makes it much much smaller. And i cant play stonekeep in fullscreen because it seems to slow down dosbox quite a bit also.
I understood you wanted to run the window in a certain resolution, right? Why then are you using the scaler at all? Shouldn't scaler be set to none, in case you set the window resolution to some specific resolution?

This is what I use with DOSBox for running the games in a window (my laptop's native resolution is 1600x900, so I have set the DOSBox window resolution to be a bit less than that vertically so that I can see also the window borders;1152x864 is a good 4:3 resolution for me on the 1600x900 desktop resolution). I've bolded the most relevant settings:

[sdl]
fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=0x0
windowresolution=1152x864
output=overlay
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper.txt
usescancodes=true

[render]
frameskip=0
aspect=true
scaler=none

output=ddraw also works for me, but as you say, it makes the graphics a bit "mushy", as if edge antialiasing is always applied on all the graphics, even if I don't necessarily want it. Maybe this comes from the graphics driver settings directly? In a way it makes the graphics smoother, but I prefer sharper, if blockier, graphics, which overlay seems to offer better.
Post edited December 03, 2015 by timppu
Posted December 03, 2015
Indeed, I to have not heard of this " integrated graphics setup for galaxy", what is this new hell?
Just don't do it!
Posted December 03, 2015
never heard/used that integrated graphics setup feature in galaxy. Hope to try it out tonight or tomorrow and then hopefully i'll be able to offer some useful input. Timppu already gave a valid solution though
Posted December 03, 2015
Ok so, the issue is that I cannot use the hq3x instead of the normal3x without the window changing resolution. The video intro plays great for hq3x. But when it loads up the game it goes back to a tiny window. Only normal3x or none makes the window the size i need it to be, but the quality is awful.

After more fiddling with combinations of Graphic Mode and Scaling options in the graphics settings. Only Overlay, and ddraw keep the window from being really tiny. And only Normal 3x makes the window the size I need it. Im unsure why, but either i have to play it in terrible quality in windowed, or kinda laggy in fullscreen. I did not have this problem before when I installed it and edited the config file, before the galaxy graphic setup for dosbox. It seems the graphic mode/scaling change the resolution of the window instead of leaving it at what you set the window resolution to in the options.
Ok after more fiddling. The only Graphic modes I can use for windowed is Overlay and ddraw, everything else makes the window much smaller than my set window resolution. Also, for the scaling options im only able to use normal3x. Everything else makes the window small also. Its like its ignoring my settings with certain changes. I also am unsure why the game is kind of laggy in fullscreen mode. I never had this problem before with my dosbox games on gog.
Post edited December 03, 2015 by Magic_Of_Light
Posted December 03, 2015
do you have a shortcut to the game rather than through galaxy, and if so have you tried enabling/disabling the various compatibility options? There's a few recently i've used to make Starcraft recently work properly whereas before the 256 colors would regularly get f**ked up.

XP compatibility, Disable Visual Themes, and Desktop Composition, and Disable display scaling on high DPI settings being the four i'd consider.

Also i'd avoid the hq options, as they love to try and enhance graphical output (and succeed to some degree although often looks ugly) while hugely hitting on performance.

Hmmm... If you HAVE to run in windowed mode, i'd suggest lowering your resolution to try and match the resolution of the game or for normal2x. That might help a bit.
Posted December 03, 2015
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Magic_Of_Light: snip.
I've found DOSBox has always behaved like that with window sizing.

The high quality scalers (hq, sai, eagle) will completely ignore your window size setting in most output modes. For example, 2xhq or 2xsai with a 320x200 game will always give you a window size of 640x400 in opengl mode. I've found certain combinations with ddraw seem to be an exception to this, ddraw + supereagle or ddraw + 2xsai seems to work with whatever window size you want.

Another issue can be the size of window you're setting, it should be a multiple of the game's original resolution. Most old dos games are 320x200, so you'd want to scale to a resolution that's the same ratio. If you have Aspect = True and use a window size that isn't the same ratio you can get it shrinking the window to a size it thinks is appropriate.
Post edited December 03, 2015 by MikeMaximus
Posted December 04, 2015
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Magic_Of_Light: snip.
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MikeMaximus: I've found DOSBox has always behaved like that with window sizing.

The high quality scalers (hq, sai, eagle) will completely ignore your window size setting in most output modes. For example, 2xhq or 2xsai with a 320x200 game will always give you a window size of 640x400 in opengl mode. I've found certain combinations with ddraw seem to be an exception to this, ddraw + supereagle or ddraw + 2xsai seems to work with whatever window size you want.

Another issue can be the size of window you're setting, it should be a multiple of the game's original resolution. Most old dos games are 320x200, so you'd want to scale to a resolution that's the same ratio. If you have Aspect = True and use a window size that isn't the same ratio you can get it shrinking the window to a size it thinks is appropriate.
I do have the aspect on actually. I will try setting it to off and trying hq3x. I played this game growing up, and the normal scaler looks TERRIBLE compared to the original game. The hq scaler is the only one that makes it look like the original game that i remember. IDK if its just me, but the normal one makes the game looks dark, and unclear.

I have a shortcut, and also have galaxy installed, but the settings through galaxy are the same as editing the config file.
Posted December 04, 2015
Ok after more fiddling. Overlay seems to work fine fullscreen, but I would still rather play in windowed mode. Normal scaling looks terrible to me, and hq even with keep aspect ratio on in fullscreen still puts black bars around the game itself. I am at my wits end here. I played stonekeep before when we had to edit config files manually, and I was able to play in a window perfectly, changing the scaling engine should scale still, it doesnt seem to be doing it.


The only way im able to play in windowed mode, is with none as scaling, or normal scaling, everything else is wonky and decides to play the intro in the window i want, and the game not, or not for both. Or fullscreen have terrible borders and laggy gameplay. Im really getting ticked about this. It used to work fine.
Post edited December 04, 2015 by Magic_Of_Light
Posted December 04, 2015
The thing that is making this so hard, and I have like no choice but to edit the config file here it seems, is that the dosbox config files are no longer easy, they are a wall of text, making you strain your eyes to keep track of things and find the things you need to edit. I understand GOG wants to make it easy for people to setup, but right now, it just isnt working correctly it seems to me.

After more testing with the Galaxy graphics settings that edit the config. ddraw is the only one that can play hq scaling in the window size that you set. So if anyone wants to play windowed on a 1080p monitor, thats what they have to use, fuzziness and all...what a shame.

Ok after more fiddling. DDraw is the only graphic option you can use to play windowed and have it actually use the window size you set it to in windowed mode. Im going to set some CCC options and try to remove the antialiasing. Hope this thread helps somebody.
Post edited December 04, 2015 by Magic_Of_Light
Posted December 04, 2015
I made a post about my findings. DDraw, with advinterp2x with 1680x1050, and keep aspect ratio is the best for windowed mode. advinterp2x cleans up alot of the DDraw fuzziness without making the text look ridiculous. I made a post about my findings, it may not work for everyone, but at least when people google perhaps they will find my settings.
Posted December 04, 2015
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Magic_Of_Light: The thing that is making this so hard, and I have like no choice but to edit the config file here it seems, is that the dosbox config files are no longer easy, they are a wall of text, making you strain your eyes to keep track of things and find the things you need to edit.
Wordpad, Notepad++, etc.
Posted December 04, 2015
If you want to force a scaler, do this:

scaler=advinterp2x forced

and this only works with ddraw.
Posted December 04, 2015
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timppu: output=ddraw also works for me, but as you say, it makes the graphics a bit "mushy", as if edge antialiasing is always applied on all the graphics, even if I don't necessarily want it. Maybe this comes from the graphics driver settings directly? In a way it makes the graphics smoother, but I prefer sharper, if blockier, graphics, which overlay seems to offer better.
Try ddraw with normal3x as the scaler. The scaler is applied first, so a 320x240 game becomes 960x720 and is then scaled up the rest of the way with the bilinear filtering you're complaining about. Very different from just going straight from 320x240 to 1152x864 with bilinear filtering.
If you go straight from 320x240 to 1152x864 with no filtering whatsoever like you suggest, it will result in weird rows and columns of misshapen pixels because 1152x864 is not an integer multiple of 320x240. The normal3x filter takes it to the nearest integer multiple that fits in your chosen resolution and then the bilinear filtering just takes it from there so that the pixels are even.
I like my pixels sharp, but I'm really sensitive to the rounding error distortion that causes the rows and columns of misshapen pixels, so I find my method a nice compromise.
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General discussionDosbox issue I cant fix.(20 posts)(20 posts)
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