When I try to play any of the old Scumm games in Dosbox (Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island 1 & 2), the cursor is flashing rapidly. I tried to decrease cycles, with no effect. Is there a way to play these games properly?
Btw. I know I could just use ScummVM but I like Dosbox better. Thanks for any suggestions.
Please tell us which dosbox version you're using. If not the latest (0.74), try it. If already that version, try one of the svn builds. If that doesn't help, try fiddling with different cycles, cpu types, emulated video card, video memory sizes...
Yes, I'm using Dosbox 0.74. I'll try some of the SVN builds, thanks. Apart of that, I think I tried every possible combination with cycles and CPU types, without effect. Maybe there's something I overlooked?
What is your basis for thinking the flashing isn't correct?
The mouse pointer in Monkey Island should pulse, that is certain, but I'm not sure about the flickering. With cycles down to 1 it's easier to see what's going on. The pointer is being constantly drawn and erased (background restored) with a pattern of 8 times in intense white, 4 times in white, and 4 times in gray. The pattern of colors produces the pulsing, but it's all the erasing that causes the flicker. If the pointer was only erased when the mouse moves, there would be no flicker.
Tried playing with vsync in ykhwong's build, but it doesn't seem to eliminate or even reduce the flickering.
because of how it looks in ScummVM
That's no reference.
I guess that color CRT monitors around the time the games were released didn't have particularly slow phosphors, but it seems reasonable that higher persistence would tend to reduce perception of the flashing/flickering.
wrote:I think the flashing of the cursor isn't correct because of how it looks in ScummVM (you can see that here).
The game is fully playable of course, but it's rather annoying.
ScummVM is an interpreter of the SCUMM (and many other) game engines. Therefore many things aren't authentic and often improved. for example the mouse movement is smoother and it supports more save games (and many other features).
For comparison you can have a look at a VGA capture from my 486 machine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao6IgHh4wqI
Go to 16:00 for Monkey Island and you will see a few seconds of the mouse cursor.
Still, be aware that capturing video footage doesn't show you 100% what's going on. A real DOS machine has a higher refresh rate (I believe it's 70, 72 or 75Hz).
Things like scrolling are really hard to emulate. For example smooth PC game scrolling is pretty much impossible to emulate. It's an issue with any emulator, doesn't matter if it's for the console, PC or Arcade.
I just tried the Game with the latest DOSBox and I get the same behavior.
It definitely flashes more compared to the "real thing". Especially when the scene is scrolling or your character is moving (without scrolling).
If you prefer how ScummVM looks just play the game in ScummVM.
However what I recommend is you purchase the special edition from Steam. IMO the best version of all of them 😁
This is just my personal recommendation however.
Thanks for response.
Well, if it can't be fixed (since it was happening even on old machines), I'll live with it. Pity. ScummVm does a great job of interpreting the game, but I don't like it's scaling features (1x, 2x or 3x). It never looks as good as in Dosbox.
By the way I finished special edition od the game and even though I liked it, I still prefer the original. Nostalgia I guess. Thanks again.
since it was happening even on old machines
That's exactly what dosbox is supposed to do, behave like an old machine.
wrote:Thanks for response.
Well, if it can't be fixed (since it was happening even on old machines), I'll live with it. Pity.
I have to check on my 486 to see what it looks like for real. Currently I don't have access, so I can't help you at the moment 😀
My stomach tells me that the real machine didn't flash as much as I saw in DOSBox, but you know, old age and loss of memory, who knows 🤣
There is a beta code (sorry for the lack of term) version of ScummVM which has decent full screen scaling. So you might try that.
The other option is to use the built-in driver scaling of your Intel, AMD and Nvidia drivers.
Full-screen scaling? Does it mean it will also look correct on widescreen monitors?
wrote:Full-screen scaling? Does it mean it will also look correct on widescreen monitors?
As long as you don't stretch it to cover the whole screen 😀
You have to respect the aspect ratio.
wrote:Full-screen scaling? Does it mean it will also look correct on widescreen monitors?
Yup! This feature should make its way into a future version at some point.
At the moment I just play in window mode (3x scaling) and that works fine for ScummVM.
wrote:There is a beta code (sorry for the lack of term) version of ScummVM which has decent full screen scaling. So you might try that.
I'll try that, thanks!
EDIT: Well, it's not bad, but Dosbox is still much better.
hey it's been over 10 years and i'm still getting this bug when trying to play monkey island! is there a new developer who can look into this? i cannot use scummvm since it does not allow direct native recording (and if i use OBS i get curved corners since my laptop is a macbook). can you find out what it was in the old hardware that caused the cursor to blink less? maybe there was something which took a few seconds on old hardware that is being done instantly with dosbox?
