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General discussionWhy does DOSBOX always stuff up in-game replays?(17 posts)(17 posts)
(17 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted January 17, 2021
Picture this:

You've just survived the wildest battle of your life. Bullets flying everywhere, bombs falling from the sky, ships swerving desperately to avoid the explosions. Your game, like quite a lot of its type from the early/mid 90s, has a replay option, so you can watch your mission back. Maybe even edit it into an exciting action film perhaps.

The only problem is, when you play that replay, Dosbox plays it at about a million miles an hour. A ten minute fight is reduced to about 20 seconds.

This has been my experience in the X-Wing series games by Lucasarts, and it looks to be the same in 1942 The Pacific Air War. Gameplay runs at a normal speed, it's just the replay that messes up. Do the Dosbox cycles have to be adjusted every time a replay editor is brought up? What happens if Ctrl+F11/12 adjust CPU percentage instead of cycles? And what's causing this error in the first place?
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Posted January 17, 2021
Does the replay editor in the X Wing games show everything in cockpit as you "experienced it", or does the replay editor only show 3d person view of your spaceship/airplane manuveuring around & shooting?
Posted January 17, 2021
I've just checked the DosBox configuration for the 1994 version of Star Wars X-Wing. CPU cycles is listed as 'max' (described as "will allocate as much cycles as your computer is able to handle").

I haven't played the game yet, but replay mode might measure time using clock cycles, rather than something like refresh rate/real time clock that normal play uses. If this is the case, then max will try to process the replay frames as fast as possible, leading to the behaviour you encountered.

Wing Commander 3 has a similar problem - the default max setting causes the FMV to stutter. The solution in that case was to replace

cycles=max
with
cycles=fixed 100000

The file to modify is dosbox_gamename.conf. In my case it is dosbox_xwingcd.conf, located within the game's install directory..

This emulates a 100MHz processor. You might find a different number works best for the games you are playing. A starting point is to look at the year of release and see the typical clock speeds of processors released close to that date.
Post edited January 17, 2021 by Mortius1
Posted January 17, 2021
Consider using OBS instead! You may also consider using Reshade to apply some filters to make it actually look good.
Post edited January 17, 2021 by Mori_Yuki
Posted January 17, 2021
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Mortius1: cycles=fixed 100000
You beat me to it by three hours!

I'd add - also make sure the graphics output is set to something like opengl rather than the defaults. Changing the graphics output doesn't fix overspeed, but it does fix things like very variable performance in video sequences. I'd also recommend installing a MIDI device like Virtual Midi Synth to get the best audio (assuming OP doesn't have access to a Roland CM-32)
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Mori_Yuki: Consider using OBS instead! You may also consider using Reshade to apply some filters to make it actually look good.
I think "good" is a matter of opinion. Personally, I prefer the original graphics (even though I think that X-Wing could do with a doubling of resolution to 640x480.

As for reshade, I'm sure it does some nice things, but the majority of stuff on this list from their website are in my graphical hates in games list:

"Add advanced depth-edge-detection-driven SMAA antialiasing, screen space ambient occlusion, depth of field effects, chromatic aberration, dynamic film grain, automatic saturation and color correction, cross processing, multi-pass blurring"

- Depth of Field
- Chromatic aberration
- Dynamic Film Grain
- Multi-pass blurring

Yeuck.
Posted January 17, 2021
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Mortius1: cycles=fixed 100000
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pds41: You beat me to it by three hours!

I'd add - also make sure the graphics output is set to something like opengl rather than the defaults. Changing the graphics output doesn't fix overspeed, but it does fix things like very variable performance in video sequences. I'd also recommend installing a MIDI device like Virtual Midi Synth to get the best audio (assuming OP doesn't have access to a Roland CM-32)
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Mori_Yuki: Consider using OBS instead! You may also consider using Reshade to apply some filters to make it actually look good.
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pds41: I think "good" is a matter of opinion. Personally, I prefer the original graphics (even though I think that X-Wing could do with a doubling of resolution to 640x480.

As for reshade, I'm sure it does some nice things, but the majority of stuff on this list from their website are in my graphical hates in games list:

"Add advanced depth-edge-detection-driven SMAA antialiasing, screen space ambient occlusion, depth of field effects, chromatic aberration, dynamic film grain, automatic saturation and color correction, cross processing, multi-pass blurring"

- Depth of Field
- Chromatic aberration
- Dynamic Film Grain
- Multi-pass blurring

Yeuck.
Yes, of course, good lies in the eye of the observer. :) The reason why I was suggesting it was that you got more control over the looks versus the shader files provided by DOSBox. Some filters really makes it look ugly, where for me this is Comic, EagleFX and the like.
Posted January 17, 2021
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pds41: You beat me to it by three hours!

I'd add - also make sure the graphics output is set to something like opengl rather than the defaults. Changing the graphics output doesn't fix overspeed, but it does fix things like very variable performance in video sequences. I'd also recommend installing a MIDI device like Virtual Midi Synth to get the best audio (assuming OP doesn't have access to a Roland CM-32)

I think "good" is a matter of opinion. Personally, I prefer the original graphics (even though I think that X-Wing could do with a doubling of resolution to 640x480.

As for reshade, I'm sure it does some nice things, but the majority of stuff on this list from their website are in my graphical hates in games list:

"Add advanced depth-edge-detection-driven SMAA antialiasing, screen space ambient occlusion, depth of field effects, chromatic aberration, dynamic film grain, automatic saturation and color correction, cross processing, multi-pass blurring"

- Depth of Field
- Chromatic aberration
- Dynamic Film Grain
- Multi-pass blurring

Yeuck.
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Mori_Yuki: Yes, of course, good lies in the eye of the observer. :) The reason why I was suggesting it was that you got more control over the looks versus the shader files provided by DOSBox. Some filters really makes it look ugly, where for me this is Comic, EagleFX and the like.
To be fair, I might give it a go and see what it does. Apart from the options listed above of course ;)
Posted January 19, 2021
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Mortius1: The solution in that case was to replace

cycles=max
with
cycles=fixed 100000

The file to modify is dosbox_gamename.conf. In my case it is dosbox_xwingcd.conf, located within the game's install directory..
Thankyou, I'll give this a go. In the past Dosbox always displayed cycles numbers rather than max cpu. I'll see what this change does.
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morrowslant: Does the replay editor in the X Wing games show everything in cockpit as you "experienced it", or does the replay editor only show 3d person view of your spaceship/airplane manuveuring around & shooting?
Both of these games remember and show the player view as it was recorded as well as offering external views, I think.
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Mori_Yuki: Consider using OBS instead! You may also consider using Reshade to apply some filters to make it actually look good.
My issue is with the way Dosbox is running, not with the recording software. I can't make anything look good if it runs a million miles an hour.
Post edited January 19, 2021 by YaGramps
Posted January 19, 2021
There's an option in the DOSBox config file called fulldouble (with options false and true), which is Double Buffer. It's usually set to false. I think it locks the frame rate to 30.
You should try changing it to true, it might keep things from speeding up during replays.
Posted January 19, 2021
You can also change the CPU cycles on the fly. I think its ctrl-+ and ctrl-- (control plus and
control minus).
Posted January 19, 2021
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YaGramps: My issue is with the way Dosbox is running, not with the recording software. I can't make anything look good if it runs a million miles an hour.
Here is how I understood your problem: Movie capture is recording and upon playback video runs at insane speed. If that is the case it is either a DOSBox setting or ZMBV or whatever CoDec is used. Using OBS or whatever external recording software you'd rather prefer, will save you time and trouble in that you don't have to go out of the way trying to find settings working for one game but not for another. There is also the possibility of frame-drops which can crop up when using movie capture leading to an inconsistent recording.

Suggesting ReShade really got nothing to do with your problem. I just thought that quality is always also an issues in one way or another so seemed worth mentioning it also while typing up a reply.
Post edited January 19, 2021 by Mori_Yuki
Posted January 19, 2021
If you like to be experimental, another if rather odd suggestion There is Dosbox Staging which aims to drag DOSbox kicking and screaming into the modern age.

(See tables on the manifest.)
Posted January 21, 2021
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Mori_Yuki: Here is how I understood your problem: Movie capture is recording and upon playback video runs at insane speed.
No. See, this issue here has nothing to do with capturing video. It is the game itself where the problem lies.

Just to make it even more confusing, I have gone and recorded a video of the problem itself. This problem plays exactly the same in the game whether video recording software is in use or not.

https://youtu.be/nmyCduEOaCI

As you can see, once the timeskip happens 5 seconds in (until then it ran at normal speed) everything suddenly becomes lightning fast. A minutes-long dogfight unfolds in just a few seconds. In the X-Wing series of games, replays are simply lightning fast all the time.

I've tried setting cycles to fixed 100000 as Mortius1 suggested, and also on Kobi-K's advice I've changed fulldouble to equal true. The problem seems to still be there after these changes, though it has made joystick calibration easier, at least. 1995 cpus had about 100 MHz clock speeds, so I left it at 100000 as Mortius1 recommended, but so far the issue remains.



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Darvond: If you like to be experimental, another if rather odd suggestion There is Dosbox Staging which aims to drag DOSbox kicking and screaming into the modern age.

(See tables on the manifest.)
Oh god- to be honest I can't even begin to understand what GitHub is or how it works. I wouldn't even know where to start in getting something from there and figuring out how to make it run :(
Post edited January 21, 2021 by YaGramps
Posted January 21, 2021
Is there a reason you are using that high of a cycle count for this game?
Have you tried using normal core?
Posted January 21, 2021
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DosFreak: Is there a reason you are using that high of a cycle count for this game?
Have you tried using normal core?
I was told 100000 is equivalent to a 100MHz processor, which is about the standard back when the game released. Come to think of it though- I've seen early 90s DOS games running pretty well at between 5000-20000 cycles, so maybe I should be trying that?

I'm not sure what normal core is- would that be useful in this situation?
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Community
General discussionWhy does DOSBOX always stuff up in-game replays?(17 posts)(17 posts)
(17 posts)