Alright, I managed to do the same and everything worked, thank you!
I see .rej and .orig files so locating the problem is quite swift.

Now I can troubleshoot patching future SVN builds myself.

Thank you Yesterplay80 for the compile of DOSBox SVN r3995 PLUS.7z !

The video output using the pixel perfect setting " output=overlaypp " produces really, really good video results.
I also appreciate the PATCHES.TXT inside the archive explaining how to set up the proper entry values for the patches.
I was able to add these entries to Defend Reloaded using --> File --> Program Options --> Profile editor --> Default values, then adding the value to the correct section.

Everything is working great. Now I just have to edit the rest of my config files to the new settings 😀

Just to let you know: I updated the current enhanced build my adding the latest version (Alpha 4) of Ant_222's pixelperfect scaler patch as well as OPLx's / NewRisingSun's patch for correct frequencies with Gameblaster card emulation.

To visualize the differences between the vanilla and the enhanced build, I played around a bit with the graphical elements for the enhanced one, as you can see in the attachment, so don't be confused if your DOSBox might look a little different than before. It's intended! 😉

The download link is always the same and can be found in my signature.

Thanks! She is a beauty!
Always make sure you run the "config -wc" command to update the config file with all the goodies and their explanations.

Would it be possible to also add xBRZ support in your enhanced DOSBox version? The required files I think can be found here. https://sourceforge.net/projects/xbrz/
The creator of xBRZ also has a DOSBox version there with save states and his latest 1.4 xBRZ but I think it uses the ancient 0.74 version and not any current SVN release.

I would do it myself if I knew how to, but I just yesterday learned what compiling actually means hehe. Thank you for your time.

I downloaded his source and compared it to the source of the current SVN. Since his code is so much older, almost every (if not every) file has changed since then. The changes sum up to a diff file with over 300.000 lines! And since I'm no programmer neither I can't say for sure which changes really are necessary for xBRZ filtering and which are not, even though I can rule out many of them. So unless the creator of the xBRZ-DOSBox doesn't come up with a new version based on a current SVN, I'm afraid my knowledge isn't up to the task of adding xBRZ, sorry!

Dude, DOSBox, Nes, Snes, Sega, is all about the pixels, remember how we loved them in the 90s, and still do today.
xBRZ is for children who grew up with flash cellphone games... lame. 😵

Thank you for trying! I shall endeavor to contact the developer as he was active a couple of years ago on vogons. Here is his thread SCALER xBRZ (SDL1)

Maybe he's just waiting for a new release of dosbox or something similar. His scaler is actually really good and from the looks of it produces minimal artifacts if at all so it would be awesome if we could finally use it.

Taiyoumaru wrote:

Would it be possible to also add xBRZ support in your enhanced DOSBox version? The required files I think can be found here. https://sourceforge.net/projects/xbrz/

Yes, but no easitly. xBRz modifes the same code as my patch does, so they will have to be reconciled. If or when my patch is accepted into the trunk, I can volunteer to do it. Edit: Should the author of xBRz agree to reconcile his patch with mine, I will help him. Edit2: We might even merge the patches and take advantage of his skills in parallel programming.

James-F wrote:

Dude, DOSBox, Nes, Snes, Sega, is all about the pixels, remember how we loved them in the 90s, and still do today.
xBRZ is for children who grew up with flash cellphone games... lame. 😵

I truly don't want to be an ass but some would say that such an attitude is the childish one, especially considering how subjective this subject is, beauty is after all in the eye of the beholder as they say. My first ever game that I played was Prince of Persia on a friend's Apple II, followed by my very own Atari 5600, Robocop on the NES, Batman on the Commodore 64, followed by my first PC in '97 with classics such as Red Alert, Hexen 2, Warcraft 2, Tomb Raider and Shadow Warrior, while playing King of Fighters 94 in arcades up until they disappeared from my country, so I did not grow up with cellphone games.

I don't remember any pixels on my consoles since TVs would scanline the crap out of them for starters and while I do remember DOS games being pixelated, nostalgia simply isn't enough to keep me playing these games as they are supposed to look. I do entirely agree that works of art such as games should be primarily played at their maximum intended beauty by the developers, which is one of the reasons I absolutely hate dubbing in TV shows/cartoons/anime since foreign voice actors destroy a lot of the original's feel, however I simply can't get over old games' jaggy pixelated mess, and since I am not only a retro gamer but do in fact enjoy new games as well as old ones, I simply can't agree.

I do place value in games first and foremost in their gameplay and atmosphere but when seeing how absolutely stunning some image scalers can make old games look, I see no reason not to enhance my gaming pleasure, after all, I am using the DOSBox emulator which enables me to enjoy DOS games on modern hardware with its many benefits, which arguably, is better than doing so on the original hardware. DOSBox as an emulator allows me far more freedom in how to consume retro games than a DOS machine could ever do, particularly considering the availability of awesome 3rd party projects such as the munt emulator, pixel perfect scaling or xBRZ.

Truly, if nostalgia is the driving factor in playing DOS games, then surely the objective for people would be the creation/assembly of their own retro machine, and not utilizing DOSBox at all. After all, the truest experience by this logic can only be had by following this objective.

Conversely I'm sure some people on this forum have gotten the itch to play Windows classics such as Battle Realms (max resolution of 1024x768) or the Battle for Middle Earth (1280x1024), examples of games that have trouble making use of, or benefiting from modern hardware, wherein you must rely on fan projects to make them work or look better. Are we to consider such efforts worthless because those games aren't being played at the exact graphical settings they were meant to, especially since the options to do so are still there? Nowadays when you consider how gamers tend to have at least 2 monitors that can reach very high resolutions. We could also say the same about old control schemes. WASD dominates most shooters nowadays but it really wasn't so during the Apogee era. Am I to play with archaic controls that would be more of a disadvantage than anything else simply because they were meant to be played this way? Am I to not try to enable mouselook where possible?

Take for instance the example of arcade games. If you were to run one in an emulator like say, MAME, you wouldn't get the exact experience unless you used a filter or "blitter" I think they're called, that perfectly emulated the scanlines found in the tube monitors in cabinets. Non-filtered arcade games look truly horrible, and even worse when a scanline filter is applied to "emulate" the feel of those cabinet screens since your monitor has long since left that archaic display mode behind.

Naturally there should be a balance with these things. Ideally we would strive for image enhancers that try to the best of their abilities to preserve pixel accuracy while also making them look better for a modern age. I don't particularly think the hqx filter looks good for instance, as opposed to xBRZ which really shines both in preserving detail and enhancing the image to be more palatable.

While I agree on the beauty of XBrz scaler, don't feed the flame baiting troll and keep it off this thread, please.

Dominus wrote:

While I agree on the beauty of XBrz scaler, don't feed the flame baiting troll and keep it off this thread, please.

I neither considered James-F's response a flame bait or trolling, I simply took it as his very big appreciation for retro pixel art. Which is why I responded in such a serious manner in the first place. However I do agree that it was off-topic, so my bad 😁

Taiyoumaru wrote:

I simply can't get over old games' jaggy pixelated mess

This indeed can happen. If the game is upscaled to an exceedingly large size one can't see the image for the pixels, to paraphrase the saw. It is similar to beholding a pointilist picture from too close a distance. When faced with this effect one's first measure should be to limit the angular size of the image, which can be done in two ways:

• Increase the viewing distance by sitting further away from the display. This will also reduce eye strain.
• Limit upscaling to the dimensions of the historical display the game was intended for. I plan to add such a feature to my pixel-perfect patch.

Well with option 1 I can't really use it since my desk and chair configuration have little space for modifications, and as well, it appears my eyes were meant to watch screens from birth as I never experienced eye strain in my life, and I have sat for countless hours, days upon days without sleep at my PC playing games hehe.

Option 2 doesn't sound like fun to me because if there's one thing I hate more then jaggy pixels is black bars on my monitor, I notice them instantly and far more than the actual game, and it's like they eat up the displayed picture itself!

But really, I have tried overlaypp with various games and some consume more of the screen than others. For instance Master of Magic is scaled in such a way that the displayed area consumes around 85% of my screen, thereby reducing the black bars by quite a lot, which is absolutely great! I'm not too sure what its native resolution is since I couldn't find it in the manual and I'm not that good at estimating this stuff, but at least with this title it is certainly great, even if I can't add xBRZ to it, to play it in pixel perfect mode when it uses so much of my screen. My issue isn't really one of not being able to see the forest from the trees as it were, it's simply one that xBRZ'd pixels look far better than any other type.

Taiyoumaru wrote:

But really, I have tried overlaypp with various games and some consume more of the screen than others. For instance Master of Magic is scaled in such a way that the displayed area consumes around 85% of my screen, thereby reducing the black bars by quite a lot, which is absolutely great!

Have you tried overlaynp in the latest, alpha 4, patch? It magnifies the game until it touches either the horizontal or the vertial sides of the display, or both (if you are lucky).

P.S.: I fear this belongs rather to the pixel-perfect patch thread, though...

I have not yet gotten around to sadly, due to difficulties at work but when I do I will definitely post my experiences. Could you please list all the available modes with your latest patch? From what I gather there's overlaypp, overlaynp and overlayhq? And I am correct in assuming that they are incompatible with any sort of scaler?

Taiyoumaru wrote:

ICould you please list all the available modes with your latest patch?

They are listed in the readme file in the archive. Maybe Yesterplay80 should not have abridged it in the instructions for his enhanced build?

From what I gather there's overlaypp, overlaynp and overlayhq? And I am correct in assuming that they are incompatible with any sort of scaler?

They are not indended to work with a scaler, so I have not tested it.

P.S.: Please, post your comments and questions regarding the pixel-perfect patch in its dedicated thread.

Ant_222 wrote:

Maybe Yesterplay80 should not have abridged it in the instructions for his enhanced build?

Did I forget one/some? If so, I'm sorry, I just added your readme to the archive, just to make sure.

Yesterplay80 wrote:

Did I forget one/some?

No, nothing of the sort. It's just that the instructions for my patch in PATCHES.txt are very condensed and I feared it might have misled Taiyoumaru.

If so, I'm sorry, I just added your readme to the archive, just to make sure.

Thank you kindly.

Taiyoumaru, you shall find the latest pixel-perfect patch in the enanced buid by Yesterplay80.

James-F wrote:

Dude, DOSBox, Nes, Snes, Sega, is all about the pixels, remember how we loved them in the 90s, and still do today.
xBRZ is for children who grew up with flash cellphone games... lame. 😵

I was very happy with my Matrox G400 providing bilinear filtering of 320x200 content back then, and continue to be pleased by scaling improvements over the years. I don't appreciate xBRZ that much since, as far as I recall, it drops shader support; but would like to see XBR scaling more widely available. In fact it kind of infuriates me when modern titles like Shovel Knight, Volgarr the Viking, or Odallus fail to provide such options, or try to get away with terrible blurry scanlines.