Gemini000: depending on what soundcard you have, then you can maybe try get the soundcard to remove some of the static. My Xfi can remove noise, so maybe there is an option with your soundcard that can help you out there ?

Gemini:

edit: Forgot to mention that I enjoyed the episode. I had never been aware of that game.

My wife worked in and taught theatre lighting and sound design and commented that your new camera's mic does sound noticeably better. I didn't know she was paying any attention 🤣

edit: I also noticed that the graphics seem to have been scaled bad either in DOSBox or when being converted to a streaming video format. The horizontal lines in the game intro are especially noticeable. Any idea what happened there?

I've realized while watching this episode that Microprose must like big manuals, as my Hyperspeed and X-COM manuals are ginormous as well. In fact, it'd be nice to see a review of X-COM because I've been intimidated from trying to play it due to its complexity and huge manual. X-COM is available on Steam; it actually comes bundled with DOSBox 0.72 so you'll probably want to copy the game files out of the Steam folder for use with your normal version of DOSBox.

WolverineDK wrote:

Gemini000: depending on what soundcard you have, then you can maybe try get the soundcard to remove some of the static. My Xfi can remove noise, so maybe there is an option with your soundcard that can help you out there ?

Technically, there is no soundcard on my main system. It's an onboard Realtek chipset that's definitely not made for professional recording. >_>;;;

If my secondary system wasn't lacking its own onboard audio chipset I'd move its SoundBlaster card to my main system. I also kinda drained my excess funds on all the new equipment so I can't really go out and get a new sound card yet, at least, not a really good one. Maybe in a few months.

It's no big deal though. The stereo mic on my new video camera is surprisingly decent, just uni-directional and thus very sensitive to the position of an audible source. My first attempt to use it for audio I had it pointed downwards too far and upon playback there was this really weird, pulsing, bass-heavy static in the background. After listening to it long enough I realized it was my heartbeat! :O

HunterZ wrote:

My wife worked in and taught theatre lighting and sound design and commented that your new camera's mic does sound noticeably better. I didn't know she was paying any attention lol

I've been making module music for over a decade and wear expensive headphones. When I first did the audio for ADG with my lackluster equipment I spent nearly two hours trying to figure out how I could make it better. The process involved noise removal, clip fixing the captured audio, a fairly large bass boost, normalization, running a compressor TWICE, and then finally more normalization. With the mic on my camera, the process is merge from stereo to mono, noise removal, small bass boost and normalization. I don't even have to run the compressor. :)

HunterZ wrote:

edit: I also noticed that the graphics seem to have been scaled bad either in DOSBox or when being converted to a streaming video format. The horizontal lines in the game intro are especially noticeable. Any idea what happened there?

They're only a single pixel tall. Since I'm correcting for the aspect ratio, they don't blend nicely. Not really much I could've done about that, except skip the aspect ratio correction, but then the game would've looked squished vertically.

HunterZ wrote:

I've realized while watching this episode that Microprose must like big manuals, as my Hyperspeed and X-COM manuals are ginormous as well. In fact, it'd be nice to see a review of X-COM because I've been intimidated from trying to play it due to its complexity and huge manual. X-COM is available on Steam; it actually comes bundled with DOSBox 0.72 so you'll probably want to copy the game files out of the Steam folder for use with your normal version of DOSBox.

I'll add it to my requests list. ;)

And yeah, Microprose did huge manuals with most of their games. Wait until I eventually get around to Advanced Tactical Fighter: the manual is so thick they had to ring-bind it! :O

X-Com is not really too complex a game. X-Com Apocalypse is a bit more complex.
Master of Orion on the other hand...
Nice episode Gemini!

Gemini000 wrote:

HunterZ wrote:

edit: I also noticed that the graphics seem to have been scaled bad either in DOSBox or when being converted to a streaming video format. The horizontal lines in the game intro are especially noticeable. Any idea what happened there?

They're only a single pixel tall. Since I'm correcting for the aspect ratio, they don't blend nicely. Not really much I could've done about that, except skip the aspect ratio correction, but then the game would've looked squished vertically.

I think that's one of the things that made me prefer running DOSBox at a high resolution (usually 1920x1200, the native res of my LCDs) with aspect=true and output=opengl (for bilinear filtering). The picture ends up having the correct aspect ratio with no discernible inconsistencies, at the cost of slight fuzziness.

HunterZ wrote:

Gemini000 wrote:

HunterZ wrote:

edit: I also noticed that the graphics seem to have been scaled bad either in DOSBox or when being converted to a streaming video format. The horizontal lines in the game intro are especially noticeable. Any idea what happened there?

They're only a single pixel tall. Since I'm correcting for the aspect ratio, they don't blend nicely. Not really much I could've done about that, except skip the aspect ratio correction, but then the game would've looked squished vertically.

I think that's one of the things that made me prefer running DOSBox at a high resolution (usually 1920x1200, the native res of my LCDs) with aspect=true and output=opengl (for bilinear filtering). The picture ends up having the correct aspect ratio with no discernible inconsistencies, at the cost of slight fuzziness.

Whereas my ADG videos are presented at 640x480 so there's not enough resolution to do that. :P

You're also a little lucky. Having a 16:10 monitor running 1920x1200 stretches 320x200 perfectly. On my 1920x1080 monitor, the vertical multiplier is 5.4 so every set of five pixels vertically blends together. I wanted to get a 1920x1200 monitor, but at the time, the previous monitor had died and in order to get the System Shock episode of ADG out in time I needed a new monitor ASAP, and my only choices were all 1920x1080 or less. :P

But I still like the monitor I ended up with anyways because it has a super-fast response time and even allows it to be set FASTER. (Though with the side effect of making fade ins and outs look flickery.)

Gemini000 wrote:

HunterZ wrote:

Gemini000 wrote:

They're only a single pixel tall. Since I'm correcting for the aspect ratio, they don't blend nicely. Not really much I could've done about that, except skip the aspect ratio correction, but then the game would've looked squished vertically.

I think that's one of the things that made me prefer running DOSBox at a high resolution (usually 1920x1200, the native res of my LCDs) with aspect=true and output=opengl (for bilinear filtering). The picture ends up having the correct aspect ratio with no discernible inconsistencies, at the cost of slight fuzziness.

Whereas my ADG videos are presented at 640x480 so there's not enough resolution to do that. 😜

You're also a little lucky. Having a 16:10 monitor running 1920x1200 stretches 320x200 perfectly.

...except that with aspect=true it doesn't do a perfect integer multiple stretch in both directions because 320x200 is supposed to be displayed as 4:3 instead of 16:10. However, with fullresolution=1920x1200, scaler=none and output=opengl, there are enough pixels for it to stretch and bilinear filter over that I can't see any discrepancies. I would imagine that 1920x1080 would look just about as good, and it might (or might not) downsample better to 640x480.

On my 1920x1080 monitor, the vertical multiplier is 5.4 so every set of five pixels vertically blends together. I wanted to get a 1920x1200 monitor, but at the time, the previous monitor had died and in order to get the System Shock episode of ADG out in time I needed a new monitor ASAP, and my only choices were all 1920x1080 or less. 😜

I know how that goes. My current monitor is a cheap TN panel that I bought to replace a dead IPS panel so that I could keep playing WoW (which I've been free of for over a year now thankfully). The response time is better, but if I slouch at all the top of the picture looks dark 🙁

But I still like the monitor I ended up with anyways because it has a super-fast response time and even allows it to be set FASTER. (Though with the side effect of making fade ins and outs look flickery.)

LCD overdrive? ( http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/06/lcd-overdr … ained-lamented/ )

Well doesn't it stretch to full screen if you're using aspect=false???
If it doesn't check your graphics driver or monitor settings.

Of course it does, but I wouldn't want it to for 99% of games.

HunterZ wrote:

Gemini000 wrote:

But I still like the monitor I ended up with anyways because it has a super-fast response time and even allows it to be set FASTER. (Though with the side effect of making fade ins and outs look flickery.)

LCD overdrive? ( http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/06/lcd-overdr … ained-lamented/ )

Probably. Even at its normal response time setting though it's pretty darn fast. I only turn it up to its even faster settings when playing older games that don't have smooth movement, such as Dark Ages, but I don't leave it set to its faster modes all the time because it screws with gradual colour changes. Even the users guide recommends not leaving it set to higher settings for everything you do.

My Monitor: http://www.samsung.com/ca/consumer/office/mon … type=prd_detail

I like Samsung and own several TV/monitor products from them. They're usually a good value.

Gemini000: great show, but here comes perhaps a weird question (nothing to do with censorship 😉 😀 ), but you speak a fine American English (a compliment that I mean), but how can it be. That I wake up Saturday morning , Danish time , that your show is already up ? since if you are an American. Then it makes me wonder why the shows are up Saturday morning in Denmark, when it is still basically night in USA. Since I actually doubt you live anywhere else, than in America. So is it something to do with your site, and where you are in the world . Whether or not the show pops up , Saturday morning GMT+1 ("Danish time") ? Well, I am just asking, and I am enjoying the show 😀 sorry if the question confuses 😀

Some people stay up till past midnight.

Actually, Canadian. ;)

I generally perform my updates between 10:00 PM and 12:00 AM EST the night before Saturday, though there's the rare time when I'll be late and it will take an additional hour or two past midnight to get it up.

I've noticed a lot of web shows are updated at or around midnight, so I decided to do the same.

And in other news, Ancient DOS Games Episode 31 - Megazeux is online!

I discovered it's kinda hard to cover a GCS in my show because of the sheer amount of stuff you can generally do with one, so I just covered the absolute basics really. If I was to do a detailed episode about Megazeux it would've been several hours long! :O

For those who are curious I did Megazeux first before ZZT because even though I used ZZT first, I used Megazeux for much longer and actually made some memorable games using it. (The first four games in the episode were made by other people, the last four were made by myself over a decade ago.)

One thing I do fondly remember about my Megazeuxing days is when I made the port of Town of ZZT, I had actually managed to get in contact with Tim Sweeney to ask permission to release it and he said it would be OK. :)

Cool episode. I wasn't aware of Megazeux, although I did spend a good chuck of time with ZZT at one point. I actually made two full ZZT games and the start of the third. I actually still have those around somewhere; I think I found them on an old hard drive a year or two ago.

Ancient DOS Games Episode 32 - MechWarrior is online!

Yeah, I doubt Harmony Gold would go after me if I didn't censor the Warhammer on the title screen, but I'm hoping that it comes off more-so as a joke than as being serious considering what happened when those videos of the newest MechWarrior game were posted to IGN awhile back. :P

Other than that, if anyone can figure out why this game is free to download in fully legit places despite no mention anywhere of it being made free by the original developers/publishers, please let me know. This game's legal state is even more ambiguous than Stunts is. >_>;

Dynamix and FASA are both dead a couple times over at the moment. Whoever technically owns the rights to FASA stuff right now probably doesn't even know/care about the old video game adaptions. Of course, that just makes them solidly abandonware and not freeware.

Microsoft had control of much of the FASA stuff for awhile. I think Smith & Tinker has it now, but I'm not 100% certain. Activision still very much cares about its copyrights over the MechWarrior 2 games, but no idea what their stance is on the original MechWarrior. I forget at the moment which company has the rights to the tabletop BattleTech stuff.

They still retain distribution rights, though. Being a ESA member I'm surprised they haven't got that one guy's site with it yet

Ancient DOS Games Episode 33 - EarthSiege is online!

Finally getting used to using my new video camera as a microphone. The audio quality is much better than in the past.

Actually, much to my surprise, this was the first time I had to run an audio waveform compressor on the GAMEPLAY footage. EarthSiege has moments of quietness followed by moments of extreme volume and I needed to balance that out as best as I could if it was going to be playing in the background.

I find the MechWarrior games provide better action than the EarthSiege games, while the EarthSiege games provide a more immersive simulation experience than the MechWarrior games... then StarSiege messed with all that by trying to be more like MechWarrior... then Tribes came along and the HERC component of the universe just sort of got swept to the side. :/

We need another game like EarthSiege 2. That was definitely the high-point for HERCs in the series.