Star Wars Tie Fighter (1995) Tweak Guide

This is a Tweak Guide video for Star Wars: Tie Fighter Collector's CD from 1995. I will be covering the following:

- Fullscreen resolution
- Window resolution
- Output modes
- Scaler
- Aspect ratio for correct 4:3 image
- CPU cycles to avoid turrets not firing issue
- Sample rate for better quality Sound Blaster
- Configuring a MIDI Synth
- Soundfonts
- Changing the game to output General MIDI
- Joystick tweaks for hat and throttle
- DOSBox key mapper
- Using the GOG files to create an installation CD
- Installing and playing the game with the created installation CD

Link for VirtualMIDISynth: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth

Link to Soundfonts: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth#soundfonts

Hello everyone!

I finally got around to doing a Tweak Guide for Strike Commander!

Video: Strike Commander Tweak Guide GOG


♦I am covering the following tweaks♦

- Graphics: Nice full-screen 4:3 aspect ratio correct image

- Sound: Higher sample rate for better sound quality

- Music: Setting up and configuring General MIDI

- Joystick: Thrustmaster Flight Control System, Configuring POV hat and Rudder

- Playing on DOS Gaming PC: Burning an original installation CD


♦Download links♦

Virtual MIDI Synth: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth#download

SoundFonts: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth#soundfonts

Incoming Tweak Guide

Wow, what a great game, but what a poor GOG release. This game simply does not work well out of the box. Really questioning why they chose to release it.

On modern AMD cards, the game will not even launch. And on Nvidia and Intel cards, there is corrupted graphics on the HUD / user interface elements.

In this Tweak Guide I am showing you how to:

- Increase the resolution to 1024 x 768
- Configure display scaling settings for a proper 4:3 aspect ratio correct image
- Fix the game not launching with AMD cards
- Fix the corrupt graphics with Nvidia and Intel cards
- My recommendations for input controls for this game

♦Downloads♦

atiumdag.dll file for fixing AMD: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=34931&start=940#p433982

Work in progress version of dgVoodo 2: http://dege.fw.hu/temp/dgVoodooWIP9.zip

Quake: The Offering Tweak Guide

In this video I am showing you how to get the most out of Quake: The Offering, a recent release from GOG.com.

I will be using a modern Quake engine, Quakspasm, show you how extract the audio files from the CD images, how to de-emphasise the Quake audio files (this is not needed for the mission packs) and where to place the audio files so that the game has working music.

♦Downloads and links♦

Quakespasm: http://quakespasm.sourceforge.net/

SoX - Sound eXchange: http://sox.sourceforge.net/

DAEMON Tools Lite 10: https://www.daemon-tools.cc/products/dtLite

♦deemph.bat batch file for de-emphasising♦

sox "01 Track 1.wav" "track02.wav" deemph
sox "02 Track 2.wav" "track03.wav" deemph
sox "03 Track 3.wav" "track04.wav" deemph
sox "04 Track 4.wav" "track05.wav" deemph
sox "05 Track 5.wav" "track06.wav" deemph
sox "06 Track 6.wav" "track07.wav" deemph
sox "07 Track 7.wav" "track08.wav" deemph
sox "08 Track 8.wav" "track09.wav" deemph
sox "09 Track 9.wav" "track10.wav" deemph
sox "10 Track 10.wav" "track11.wav" deemph

Doom Tweak Guide

In this video I am showing you how to tweak the GOG.com release of Ultimate Doom, Doom II and Final Doom.

This is a great release, with GOG providing the latest versions and included all SETUP files.

These old games can be played in DOSBox for an authentic experience or through a source engine offering widescreen resolutions, better graphics and surround sound.

I am showing you how to tweak both, and also how to use General MIDI SoundFont with these games.

♦Downloads and links♦

novert.com: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/utils/misc/novert.zip

VirtualMIDISynth: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth#download

SoundFonts: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth#soundfonts

♦Source ports♦

ZDoom: http://zdoom.org/Download

GZDoom: http://forum.drdteam.org/viewforum.php?f=23

GZDoom (beta-latest versions): http://devbuilds.drdteam.org/gzdoom/

Chocolate Doom: http://www.chocolate-doom.org/wiki/index.php/Chocolate_Doom

Nice.
When you were playing Doom in ZDoom did you see the walls falling over as they do in the video? I prefer the idea of DOOM running in a source port version over DOS, so it is more portable, but wonder if Chocolate Doom performs any better. Or if it was a problem caught by your video recording software.

I will do. :)
Thank-you for the brilliant videos. +1

Thank you :D

This is a great idea. Amazing work!

One of the things I would like to see is emulation of the CRT look. Old games look a bit ugly on modern monitors. At least the look less pretty than I remember them. Scaling algorithms do little in this regard.

Also, I noticed that, for example, Master of Magic (1994) ran very slow on my EEEPC, while X-COM Apocalypse (1997) was just fine. I did not manage to fix that. I just played X-COM. Any idea of what was taxing the emulator?

I can do a video on that. Or a whole series covering more aspects of DOSBox.

The issue with the EEEPC, could be a high cycle speed for one of the games, that's too much for the little machine.

I wouldn't want to dictate what you work on, but that would be greatly appreciated. The best thing would be that some of the tweaks you mention on game X could be useful to me on game Y, but I don't know about them because I don't play game X.

Are those cycles some sort of idle waiting to emulate a lower-powered machine speed (to adjust, say, animation timing)? If I change those would I affect the sound or music, for example?

I also though that GOG had carefully tuned the DOSBox settings for each game it sells.

Thanks a lot. I will check your channel once in a while.

And saved to my favorite topics. :)

There are two approaches I could take. Sorry if this is going to be a bit long-winded LOL

1. Tweaking GOG games that come with DOSBox is quite easy. All the shortcuts are done, the config files have been created. It's just a matter of me running the game, checking the shortcuts, the config file, is there a link to SETUP for changing sound cards and so on.

So this approach is easy.

2. Learning straight up DOSBox from scratch. Personally, and as much as I love DOSBox, it is NOT user friendly. A lot of manual typing, creating config files, shortcuts. It's something I would not recommend to be honest.

I would rather go with D-Fend reloaded, which has a nice user interface and does the same thing. So you can focus on the configuration, rather than fighting with typing commands into the command prompt.

Both ideas have flaws. 1. is great for people who buy from GOG, but useless for anyone who has, let's say a CD of Descent, and wants to install and play that.

2. is great for people who have originals on floppy, CD, or like to download "abandonware". But the information is overkill for someone who "just" wants to tweak GOG DOSBox games.

So I really don't know which way to go :(

I did have a a series of videos, must have 15 or so, and used DOSBox games to explain settings in the config file. I hardly got any views and that was a bit of a let-down considering it was quite a lot of work to put together. So I'm leaning towards one, very long, video instead, if I ever do it again.

To answer the question about the cycles, it basically changes the speed of the computer it's emulating. A cycle speed of 6000 for example gives you ~ a 386DX. 12000 ~ a 486DX and so on. But it does depend on the game and the machine you are running, but I ALWAYS prefer fixed cycle speeds over auto or max, because that can often cause glitches.

Thanks :D

Will you make a tweak guide video for :

Blood: One Unit Whole Blood
Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition
Redneck Rampage Collection
Rise of the Triad: Dark War

?