7F20 wrote on 2020-10-20, 23:21:

Is it supposed to work this way?

That depends on what the output/render settings are, which you didn't mention at all.

For CRT monitors it's best to use fullresolution=original and aspect=false, as it'll send proper-enough video modes for the CRT to work with.

jmarsh wrote on 2020-10-21, 00:17:

That depends on what the output/render settings are, which you didn't mention at all.

Right. I should have done so.

I tried Surface, Overlay and OpenGl; vgaonly and svga_s3; Aspect=true, Aspect=false.

All possible permutations of those options, plus:

I started with a baseline of Resolution=Original and then I went and tried the resolutions 640x400 and 320x400, which I determined Dark Forces should be roughly 320x200 line-doubled.

leileilol wrote on 2020-10-21, 01:02:

For CRT monitors it's best to use fullresolution=original and aspect=false, as it'll send proper-enough video modes for the CRT to work with.

That's absolutely what I started off with. No-go at all.

I suppose it could be Dosbox not playing well with my particular monitor, but it seem far-fetched. The monitor is an early 2000's Sony computer monitor at 1600x1200.

7F20 wrote on 2020-10-21, 04:04:

Right. I should have done so. […]
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Right. I should have done so.

I tried Surface, Overlay and OpenGl; vgaonly and svga_s3; Aspect=true, Aspect=false.

All possible permutations of those options, plus:

I started with a baseline of Resolution=Original and then I went and tried the resolutions 640x400 and 320x400, which I determined Dark Forces should be roughly 320x200 line-doubled.

Assuming you know you have to restart DOSBox for any changes to the output and fullresolution settings to take effect...

If you set fullresolution to original or something low (below 640x480) and the video being sent to the monitor doesn't match that, it's because the OS doesn't allow that video mode to be used (unsupported by the monitor and/or graphics card); there's nothing DOSBox can do about this. It will use the closest available mode instead which will result in letterboxing if the dimensions are larger. Using scaler=normal2x can sometimes help reduce the unused space without reducing quality.

It's easier to just use output=opengl, fullresolution=the highest res your machine supports, aspect=true, scaler=none and glshader=sharp.

You don't mention which OS your running. For instance with Linux using Wayland (which is the default for most modern Linux distributions), there is no way for a program to change resolution. So fullscreen=original will not work. When you look at the list of available resolutions when you run something like xrandr, you only see one listed, which will be your current desktop resolution.

Are you using an older config ?

jmarsh wrote on 2020-10-21, 04:36:

If you set fullresolution to original or something low (below 640x480) and the video being sent to the monitor doesn't match that, it's because the OS doesn't allow that video mode to be used (unsupported by the monitor and/or graphics card); there's nothing DOSBox can do about this. It will use the closest available mode instead which will result in letterboxing if the dimensions are larger.

So, I mentioned that Zdoom has absolutely no issues whatsoever pushing 320x200 or 640x400 to my monitor. Hexen looks perfect in all available original resolutions. So does Quake in Darkplaces.

This is an issue I only get when using Dosbox.

Is there some huge limitation that Dosbox has as compared to a program like Zdoom when it comes to resolution output? Like Zdoom (and Darkplaces) is creating it's own video modes and hijacking the hardware from the OS, but Dosbox can't or doesn't?

Akuma wrote on 2020-10-21, 07:33:

Are you using an older config ?

_Rob wrote on 2020-10-21, 06:17:

You don't mention which OS your running.

I'm using windows 7 (32 bit). I'm using the config generated by this version of Dosbox.

Hi,
Even on newer CRT monitors there must be an OSD where you can see the parameters of the current display mode. Contrary to modern LCD monitors it's usually never the actual resolution but the current horizontal and vertical scan rates (in kHz and Hz respectively). This should help to determine/debug what your problem really is. E.g. If you see that Zdoom 640x480 uses different scan rates than DosBox 640x480 then your problem is definitely video mode related. Else your problem is just software scaling/aspect ratio correction related.

Falcosoft wrote on 2020-10-21, 16:30:

Even on newer CRT monitors there must be an OSD where you can see the parameters of the current display mode.

Hi!

I thought of that actually, but I couldn't find it. There is a fairly extensive OSD with many deep controls, but none of them seem to reveal the current mode or scan rate. It appears to me that it is actually displaying the modes correctly as per Zdoom and Quake. The scanlines are extraordinarily thick, as one would expect on a monitor with such a high PPI.

For example, in Zdoom, the 320x200 mode is obviously line-doubled VGA. All these choices work flawlessly in any game it can run:

Same game in Dosbox displays as what appears to be 320x200 vertically centered in an 320x240 box in a pre-rendered frame-buffer. Or possibly just 320x200 with enormous vertical blanking periods?

It's got to be the way Dosbox handles creating a video mode for a game. Windows 7 probably doesn't have any of these resolutions, so something weird is happening. It's possible that figuring out a way to update the graphics driver would help, but the laptop might be too old at this point. I think I'm going to give up on it and try a different laptop.