Hi,

I really hope someone can help me with a pixel problem!

I'm new to GOG and Dosbox although not new to Phantasmagoria (loved it as a teenager and downloaded it for nostalgia reasons!)

Although the game installed fine, I'm having huge problems with awful pixelation! The gameplay itself is fine but the FMVs are dire, it's so pixelated you can sometimes not even make out people's faces or see what's going on. I know from playing it a few years back that it did have some pixelation but it was nothing like I'm getting now, it's so bad that it's horrible to play.

Anyway, hopefully someone can help me! I notice from these forums that other users have had pixel issues but managed to resolved them so I tried the fixes that were suggested to them but with no success.

I have tried changing the options in the graphics setup program in the Phantasmagoria directory which makes no difference. I have also tried changing some options in the dosboxPHANT.conf file but getting nowhere! I just can't figure out which combination of resolution / output / aspect / scaler to use!! I've tried loads of combinations and either dosbox won't work with most of them or no difference is made to the game. I'm changing everything as an administrator so I know the settings are saving.

My computer has the following spec:

Pentium 1.86GHz
RAM - 2GB
Graphics card - SIS Mirage 3 Graphics
Running Vista Home Premium

According to the GOG website, this should work fine using the above spec.

If anyone has any suggestions I'd greatly appreciate it - I don't want to carry on playing the game until I can fix it or I just won't have fun playing it.

Thanks a lot in advance!

It's also worth asking whether your rose-tinted glasses are on while you play this game. The FMV was always very low res and blocky. Back in those days it took a ton of CPU power to play fullscreen video so all they could render were uncompressed, low-res formats. The unfortunate result was a game that shipped on a ridiculous 7 CDs with video of a lower resolution than many of Sierra's first games.

Kudos to Minya for such helpful advice. I can't think of much else that would help.

Hi Minya and briandamage, thanks a lot for your responses - I've been away for a few days so only just had chance to visit back here.

Minya - your advice is appreciated and was very helpful, it's certainly given me something to work with and allows me to check my settings. Being new to GOG, it's nice to see that there are some very helpful people on this forum.

briandamage - I think you're right about the rose-tinted glasses! Whilst Minya's advice helped, I think my brain is remembering the game looking far better than this when actually it probably didn't! I have now tried it on a different machine which, when combined with Minya's advice, does improve things, so I think I've probably reached a point where I'm not going to get it much better.

Thanks again, both.

No sweat :) Glad to be of some assistance.
I've got the original game as well as the GoG-version, and they look exactly the same graphic-wise, but nostalgia is strong in this one, any way you view it. :p


Edit; Also; My first soloutionpost!! :D *yay!*