• * Downloaded DosBox .72, installed it to D:\Program Files\DosBox.
  * Read http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Basic_Setup_and_In … ation_of_DosBox
  * Modified dosbox.conf to end with:
  Copy code to clipboard

  1MOUNT C D:\games\DOS
  2C:
  

  * Took out my old RR CD and installed it to D:\games\DOS\redneck
  * Ran DosBox and changed directory to REDNECK.
  * Ran SETUP.EXE
  * Under sound setup, I chose "Sound Blaster" and accepted all the defaults. I had no idea what I should put for the various sound config items (e.g. IRQ, DMA, address), so I just used DosBox's default values. I maxed out voices, mixing bits, number of channels, mixing rate.
  * Tested sound, and astonishingly, it worked. I got center, left, and right sound. I got the pig in stereo!
  * Modified Controller setup to my tastes.
  * Modified Screen Setup. It only allowed me to choose "VESA modes (SVGA/VESA 2.0)". Since I have a really really big monitor, I chose 1600x1200 resolution.
  * Chose "Save and launch Redneck Rampage"

And it worked beautifully. I was playing the game, and it was fast and fun. I would call this 100% success.

Now for fine tuning. There were a few issues:

1. No CD music. I bought the original CD, and supposedly there's music in the game. Last time I played this game was ... 1998? 1999? I *THINK* I remember cool music while I played (Reverend Hortton Heat, Mojo Nixon). Wikipedia says there should be, but I don't hear the CD. Maybe it starts later in the game?

2. I have free mouselook right and left, but no free mouselook up and down. I remember having a similar issue with Duke Nukem 3D, but there was some kind of config item I had to put in the config file to get full free mouse look. Presumably it'll be the same here.

3. Graphics suck. Didn't think there would be much to do here, but it turns out I was wrong.

4. Crosshairs would be nice.

Graphics
I started on #3 first. My monitor's native resolution is 1920x1200. When RR was in windowed mode, it actually wasn't so bad. Looked halfway decent. But in fullscreen, it looked like shit - VERY pixelated.

The first thing I tried was playing with the in-game screen size using "shift -". This just made a really badly rendered scene badly rendered and small. Not the answer.

The next thing I tried was to change the game's resolution to 1280x1024. It was definitely better. Still not great, but less pixelated.

So I tried 1024x768. I would daresay call the results were nearly perfect. There was almost no pixelation - it was incredible. However, it still was far from perfect because the animation was no longer smooth. Non-background items (my gun, the guys shooting at me) were blinking; I think I could see them being refreshed. So on one hand, the graphics were so clear that I could see the old pistol man's gray chesthair, he was blinking (along with my gun). Too bad!

Decreased resolution further to 800x600. Hard to say, but I think the graphics looked just as good as then did at 1024x768. If not, then it was awfully close. However, the flickering was completely absent. So far, this is by far the best resolution for me to use.

Decreased the resolution further. Pretty much the same as 800x600, but my perception is that the game is a tad slower.

So it seems clear that 800x600 is the optimal resolution for me to use.

I'll work on the crosshair, mouselook, and music later. I think I want to play a level or two to celebrate getting Redneck Rampage working. I'll post more as I tackle each problem.