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Confusion regarding some of the options presented in the config (.conf) files

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First post, by Schlage

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First off I'd like to say that I love DOSBox because I love my old games, and I can finally play them again without spending days attempting to figure out why the bloody things won't work.

But, in trying to take full advantage of all of the features presented in DOSBox, I'm a little unclear because I haven't been able to find documentation discussing the various options presented in the configuration files (.conf).

For example, what exactly is fulldouble? It says "Use double buffering in fullscreen." But I really don't know what that means or in what situations that might be useful/desireable.

Another example is output and the difference between surface, overlay, opengl and openglnb. I'm just having a hard time making educated decisions with all of the options available.

Now, I'm not griping, I like all the options... I just don't know what to do with too many of them. 😊

Any help would be appreciated, or direction to where someone has gathered explanations/explorations of those options.

-Schlage

Reply 2 of 6, by Zup

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Oldbie

Fulldouble: Double buffering avoids flickering and "snow" in the games. It uses two screens, one is the one displayed, and the other is the "work screen". When the work screen is updated, the screens are switched so we can work on the other screens. If you always work in one screen, the electron beam can collide with the zone you are working on, causing "snow" to appear. Let this thing active...

Surface, overlay, opengl and opengl are different ways to display the output of the emulator. Explaining this can be a real challenge for a non-english user, but just think that some wideo-cards are faster in some modes, so make some tests and put the fastest mode you can afford.

Reply 3 of 6, by Schlage

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Thanks for the comments and the replies. It's too bad that there's no abstract exploration/explanation of the options available in the .conf file. Mirekluza, your suggestion of searching Vogons is a good one, and something I intended to do anyway - I was just figured I'd pop out a quick question first. 😜

Also, I have been referring to the comments in the .conf file, but I found them just illuminating enough to whet my appetite but not really satisfy. 😁

Also, Zup, thank you for your explanation of Double buffering and the output options. I'll run tests on each game as appropriate and make a selection.

Again, thank you.

Reply 5 of 6, by Schlage

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Rank Newbie
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Umm... that really should have been 'experience' instead of 'suggestion' in that last post. 😊

I was thinking along the lines of my experience and the suggestions received. *sigh* I look like a friggin' noob. 😖

Maybe I should actually take advantage of the preview option...

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