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Ancient DOS Games Webshow

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Reply 2900 of 3343, by Joey_sw

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Gemini000 wrote:

Also, I wasn't actually aware that the red/cyan/white mode didn't work properly without the machine type being set to CGA. Makes sense, really, just didn't know it. :B

Now that you mention it, i just try them on Nvidia GT620, and indeed the cyan/red doesn't works with that stuff it just shows the usual cyan/magenta instead.
Bades on my memory, I can only sure that it was working on pre-svga vga, at least on Realtek (256KB DRAM).
I never try that mode again during SVGA times.

-fffuuu

Reply 2901 of 3343, by Gemini000

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Joey_sw wrote:
Now that you mention it, i just try them on Nvidia GT620, and indeed the cyan/red doesn't works with that stuff it just shows th […]
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Gemini000 wrote:

Also, I wasn't actually aware that the red/cyan/white mode didn't work properly without the machine type being set to CGA. Makes sense, really, just didn't know it. :B

Now that you mention it, i just try them on Nvidia GT620, and indeed the cyan/red doesn't works with that stuff it just shows the usual cyan/magenta instead.
Bades on my memory, I can only sure that it was working on pre-svga vga, at least on Realtek (256KB DRAM).
I never try that mode again during SVGA times.

Your video card shouldn't have an effect on that. The machine type determines what features DOSBox emulates, so a machine type of CGA should make the red/cyan/white show up with PopCorn while most any other machine type won't. I imagine Tandy machine type would still work. Actually... lemme test that...

*does so*

...yup, also works with the Tandy machine setting! :)

EDIT: Oh wait, you meant on real hardware. Yeah, a lot of CGA tricks don't work on most actual graphics cards, such as the 160x100 16 colour mode since it's technically a hacked text mode. ;)

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2902 of 3343, by Joey_sw

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Gemini000 wrote:

EDIT: Oh wait, you meant on real hardware. Yeah, a lot of CGA tricks don't work on most actual graphics cards, such as the 160x100 16 colour mode since it's technically a hacked text mode. 😉

Yeah, i tried on on real hardware using bootable usb (freedos, with microsoft QBasic program included in it).

-fffuuu

Reply 2903 of 3343, by Gemini000

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Ancient DOS Games Episode 223 - Street Fighter II is online!

I haven't had a decent sleep in two days now so... I'm gonna go do that. Enjoy this extra long and atypical ADG video, everyone! :)

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2904 of 3343, by switchblade

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If you ever get the chance, will you be able to review Super Street Fighter II Turbo for DOS? Because it's far superior to both SF2 and SSF2 for DOS.

The only real issue the SSF2T port for DOS has is bigger sprites compared to the background graphics, and some missing frames of animation on some of the fighters. Apart from that, it's a very good port.

Reply 2905 of 3343, by F2bnp

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Pretty much what switchblade said. SSF2 for DOS is not a bad port, but it actually came out after SSF2T which was released in 1995 and is pretty close to arcade perfect, where as SSF2 is a port from the SNES.

Reply 2907 of 3343, by Gemini000

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Ancient DOS Games Episode 224 - Mortal Kombat is FINALLY online! ^_^;

Yes, I know it's been a month since the last ADG. I ended up getting sick TWICE, which kinda derailed a lot of stuff. It was supposed to be two weeks off (since September had 5 Saturdays this year) and then the next ep, but it didn't work out that way, and I actually really wanted to change things up a little with this video, so there was no way I could put this video out while still ill. :P

But yeah, since there's very little I could say about Mortal Kombat which hasn't been said about a zillion times, I decided to try and make the video a little more interesting by adding in totally unnecessary visual humour. Normally, humour's not one of my strong suits, but I was kinda inspired recently by watching other content creators and noticing that, even though you can make fun of bad things, it's still very much possible to make fun of GOOD things, or things which are just things... I dunno if I['m explaining this right, but basically, my approach to this video was, "OK, I'm talking about this thing, is there anything about it which I can be sarcastic about?"

Anywhoo, let me know how these changes turned out! :)

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2908 of 3343, by Expack3

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Gemini000 wrote:
Ancient DOS Games Episode 224 - Mortal Kombat is FINALLY online! ^_^; […]
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Ancient DOS Games Episode 224 - Mortal Kombat is FINALLY online! 😅

Yes, I know it's been a month since the last ADG. I ended up getting sick TWICE, which kinda derailed a lot of stuff. It was supposed to be two weeks off (since September had 5 Saturdays this year) and then the next ep, but it didn't work out that way, and I actually really wanted to change things up a little with this video, so there was no way I could put this video out while still ill. 😜

But yeah, since there's very little I could say about Mortal Kombat which hasn't been said about a zillion times, I decided to try and make the video a little more interesting by adding in totally unnecessary visual humour. Normally, humour's not one of my strong suits, but I was kinda inspired recently by watching other content creators and noticing that, even though you can make fun of bad things, it's still very much possible to make fun of GOOD things, or things which are just things... I dunno if I['m explaining this right, but basically, my approach to this video was, "OK, I'm talking about this thing, is there anything about it which I can be sarcastic about?"

Anywhoo, let me know how these changes turned out! 😀

Some of the new stuff I'm biased on as it runs exactly with my personal brand of humor ("mistaken for SF2 = emphasizing explosions" for example), while others were unexpectedly clever. In particular, the part where you play with the game's reputation for its excessive violence, only to demonstrate that, on closer inspection, the game isn't all that bloody - even providing the likely technical reason why the blood was intentionally limited as it was.

There was some stuff which fell flat, like the "no, not that 'Blood'"...but that was the only bad bit which stood out.

I would say that, much like in Shovelware Diggers where transitions between segments are achieved by a DOS-style palette "corruption", I think it would be better to avoid the cliche "giant white text" and go with something more original...like maybe giant, period-colored DOS text (which, conveniently, comes in TrueType format these days) instead.

Oh...and the summation of the game's AI by way of Star Trek: Elite Force's implementation of the Borg was well worth the effort IMO.

Also, stupid question from a DOS noob: how common were fighting pads (e.g. controllers with >4 buttons) in the DOS days?

Reply 2909 of 3343, by Gemini000

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Expack3 wrote:

Some of the new stuff I'm biased on as it runs exactly with my personal brand of humor ("mistaken for SF2 = emphasizing explosions" for example), while others were unexpectedly clever. In particular, the part where you play with the game's reputation for its excessive violence, only to demonstrate that, on closer inspection, the game isn't all that bloody - even providing the likely technical reason why the blood was intentionally limited as it was.

There was some stuff which fell flat, like the "no, not that 'Blood'"...but that was the only bad bit which stood out.

The running theme I'm seeing in comments is that most people are liking the changes but disliked one or two different things just because of personal taste, so I think that means I'm doing something right now. ;)

Expack3 wrote:

I would say that, much like in Shovelware Diggers where transitions between segments are achieved by a DOS-style palette "corruption", I think it would be better to avoid the cliche "giant white text" and go with something more original...like maybe giant, period-colored DOS text (which, conveniently, comes in TrueType format these days) instead.

I actually avoid using DOS-styled text on purpose when making ADG. It makes more sense to do so from a style perspective, but can create a conflict to the eyes if that same kind of text is appearing in the game at the same time. So yes, it's uglier to have a non-DOS-related font when dealing with DOS game footage, but it's easier for the brain to process it that way. :P

Expack3 wrote:

Also, stupid question from a DOS noob: how common were fighting pads (e.g. controllers with >4 buttons) in the DOS days?

Not very. The problem is that the gameport standard in use couldn't support more than four buttons per stick and could only support two sticks. Capcom's gamepad got around this by mapping two of the buttons to the second player, which meant if anyone was using that gamepad in the later revisions of Street Fighter II which supported it, the other player was FORCED to use a keyboard. Other controllers which had more than four buttons got around the issue by including a passthrough of some sort to allow the device to treat certain buttons on the joystick as keyboard keys, one of the ones I want to get my hands on someday is the Gravis Phoenix, but such joysticks were typically a lot more pricy because of the need to do more interfacing.

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2910 of 3343, by schlang

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mortal kombat works pretty decent with the gravis gamepad, it maps 5 buttons to 4 by changing high punch = low punch + move forward

PC#1: K6-III+ 400 | 512MB | Geforce4 | Voodoo1 | SB Live | AWE64 | GUS PNP Pro
PC#2: 486DX2-66 | 64MB | Riva128 | AWE64 | GUS PNP | PAS16
PC#3: 386DX-40 | 32MB | CL-GD5434 | SB Pro | GUS MAX | PAS16

Think you know your games music? Show us: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=37532

Reply 2911 of 3343, by Gemini000

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Ancient DOS Games Episode 225 - Hugo's House of Horrors is online!

Since the small updates to my style in the Mortal Kombat video seemed to go over well, they shall continue! :D

In any case, this game ended up being way shorter than I was expecting, so if not for those extra bits this episode would've been even shorter than it already is. It's also not nearly as difficult as a typical Sierra AGI game... although that man fishing at the underground lake is probably the worst thing in the game by far. :P

Actually, every issue I ran into was minor so hopefully the point came across well enough that even though the game has its quirks it's still worth playing all the same! :)

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2912 of 3343, by Gemini000

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Ancient DOS Games Filler #64 - Final Weeks of 2017 is online!

This is just a quick update video to let everyone know what's going on with everything. There's a few things I forgot to mention in the video itself too so I point them out in the video description. ;)

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2913 of 3343, by Expack3

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I would've said this in the YouTube comments, but YouTube has decided to disable comment boxes for me. 😠

After taking a look at DxWnd, it's really quite impressive - it's a nice little suite not just for those games where the GPU is the problem, but when the CPU and/or OS calls are issues as well. Plus, the time warp feature, if I understand it correctly, acts as a built-in framerate limiter/maximizer - which is nice for those games which are arbitrarily locked to a certain FPS, and other games which break above a certain frame rate.

Of course, dgVoodoo2 has a leg up on DxWnd in one key area: it can emulate how specific graphics cards work. For example, so long as the real host GPU, irregardless of vendor, is DX10.1-compatible, it's able to emulate the GPU quirk which allowed GeForce 4 users to experience the original Splinter Cell's full lighting engine. (Fun fact: the original emulation was too good - the light shafts were softer than on actual hardware.)

TL;DR: As much as I love dgVoodoo2, DxWnd definitely has its place.

Reply 2914 of 3343, by Gemini000

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Expack3 wrote:

TL;DR: As much as I love dgVoodoo2, DxWnd definitely has its place.

I didn't know about dgVoodoo2... Gonna have to look into that one a bit more! :o

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2915 of 3343, by Expack3

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Gemini000 wrote:
Expack3 wrote:

TL;DR: As much as I love dgVoodoo2, DxWnd definitely has its place.

I didn't know about dgVoodoo2... Gonna have to look into that one a bit more! 😮

If you do decide to take a look at dgVoodoo2, and you end up discovering a bug, please be sure to post it to the official dgVoodoo2 subforum on this very site. In my experience, dgVoodoo2's creator, dege, is usually prompt in responding; also in my experience, the more info you can give him, including crash dumps, images/videos of the problem, and a detailed description of what happened, the more dege will have for his diagnosis.

Reply 2916 of 3343, by Gemini000

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Ancient DOS Games Filler #65 - Descent 3 is online!

It's kinda sad that D3's been shoved aside as much as it has been, given that the source was never released thus making fan support of the game extremely difficult, because this really was the sequel Descent fans wanted, in so many ways, but getting it working on modern hardware is really freaking hard. x_x;

The first half of this video is dedicated to talking about the game while the second half goes into configurations for modern computers, one using a combination of OpenGL rendering with DXWnd if you just want to play the game, and one using DXWnd AND dgVoodoo2 in tandem to get Glide support working in a way that allows for software recording of game footage.

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2917 of 3343, by Expack3

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Since it seems like you were overwhelmed with all the options dgVoodoo2 has to offer, let me share my experience using it:

First, unlike its predecessor, dgVoodoo2 can handle both Glide and DirectX games, with Glide support going from 1.x to 3.x, and DirectX support going from DX1 all the way to DX8.1.

Also, this is one of those applications where reading the included HMTL-based readme is pretty much required reading. (Sadly, it only comes with the stable versions; WIP versions only have a changelog.) Coincidentally, the creator also includes separate technical readmes for both the DirectX and Glide wrappers and how they work. I imagine you'd find it interesting reading, and may give you some insight when the wrapper doesn't behave like you'd expect it to.

The fullscreen resolution changes you mentioned could've easily been resolved using dgVoodoo2 by itself. You probably noticed the "Resolution" section in both the Glide and DirectX sections of the dgVoodoo2 config program - those are for forcing a particular resolution no matter what. For example, say a Glide-based game runs at 1600x1200, but the cinematics and so on don't. Force the resolution to the game's native setting, set the scaling mode to "Aspect Ratio" if "Unspecified" doesn't work and you've confirmed the GPU is overriding any aspect ratio stuff, and boom - you get a consistent resolution no matter what.

You can also do the reverse: say a DirectX game only supports a maximum of 640x480, but you want to scale it up to as close to 4K as is possible on your monitor (or your GPU doesn't support that low a resolution). Select "Max ISF" (Integer Scaling Factor) instead of your native resolution, set the aspect ratio if need be, and now you're running the game at a significantly-higher resolution than normally-supported and in the correct aspect to boot! Note that it scales both the polygons and the 2D elements, so the proportions of everything is kept; also, this may break certain games, like say Splinter Cell, or just cause them to crash. The best you can do is just try it out. Same goes for forcing AA, which uses Microsoft's reference AA technique (which either makes games look amazing or super-blurry depending on your tastes).

The dgVoodoo2 DLLs have built-in default settings, so using the config utility is optional unless the defaults don't work for a given game. Furthermore, you don't need to copy all the DLLs over into a game's directory unless 1) the game supports multiple 3D APIs and 2) you want to try out all the possible options. For Glide games, unless you know which generation the game uses (e.g. 1.x, 2.x, or 3.x), you just need to copy over the 3 Glide DLLs; otherwise, you just need the appropriate one for the game in question. For DirectX stuff, D3DImm and DDraw are the only DLLs you need for DX1-7; for DX8/8.1, just get the D3D8 DLL.

Hope this was helpful, and I hope my intro wasn't condescending.... 😐

Also, if I may be so bold, please feel free to PM me with any questions getting games set-up for dgVoodoo2. I've been using it on-and-off for 3 years now, and have tinkered with making it work on a variety of games.

Reply 2918 of 3343, by Gemini000

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Expack3 wrote:

The fullscreen resolution changes you mentioned could've easily been resolved using dgVoodoo2 by itself. You probably noticed the "Resolution" section in both the Glide and DirectX sections of the dgVoodoo2 config program - those are for forcing a particular resolution no matter what. For example, say a Glide-based game runs at 1600x1200, but the cinematics and so on don't. Force the resolution to the game's native setting, set the scaling mode to "Aspect Ratio" if "Unspecified" doesn't work and you've confirmed the GPU is overriding any aspect ratio stuff, and boom - you get a consistent resolution no matter what.

It still didn't stop switches between fullscreen and windowed though. x_x;

Expack3 wrote:

Hope this was helpful, and I hope my intro wasn't condescending.... :neutral:

Nah, but I was already aware of a lot what you said. I tinkered with NUMEROUS settings and found that unless I had DXWnd going too I wasn't able to prevent fullscreen/windowed switching upon resolution changes. When you're recording with a software solution, switching between windowed and fullscreen is absolutely out of the question. :P

DXWnd alone with OpenGL support works MUCH better and more stable for just playing the game, but attempting to record this way produced all kinds of texture artifacts and replaced all the font characters with squares in the menus. >_>;

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2919 of 3343, by Expack3

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Gemini000 wrote:
Expack3 wrote:

The fullscreen resolution changes you mentioned could've easily been resolved using dgVoodoo2 by itself. You probably noticed the "Resolution" section in both the Glide and DirectX sections of the dgVoodoo2 config program - those are for forcing a particular resolution no matter what. For example, say a Glide-based game runs at 1600x1200, but the cinematics and so on don't. Force the resolution to the game's native setting, set the scaling mode to "Aspect Ratio" if "Unspecified" doesn't work and you've confirmed the GPU is overriding any aspect ratio stuff, and boom - you get a consistent resolution no matter what.

It still didn't stop switches between fullscreen and windowed though. x_x;

You may have already done this, but have you tried running Descent 3 via its DirectX renderer? dgVoodoo2 has an option for DirectX which is supposed to nullify any application requests to switch between fullscreen and windowed modes. The option is appropriately called "Application controlled fullscreen/windowed state" under the DirectX tab. Do keep in mind when this is unchecked, what state the game will now be locked into (supposed to be, anyways) is controlled via "Full Screen" and "Windowed" option in the General tab's Appearance section.