VOGONS

Common searches


Widescreen support?

Topic actions

First post, by icon

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I'm trying to run DOSBox on a widescreen LCD with a native resolution of 1680x1050.

Ideally, I'd like to run in fullscreen (as opposed to windowed) and use the full height of the LCD but maintain a 4:3 aspect ratio. In other words, the sides would be letterboxed.

I've tried various combinations of resolutions, scalers, and output methods, but can only get either (1) a stretched picture that fills the entire screen or (2) a picture that maintains 4:3 but is extremely small.

Does DOSBox offer support for a 4:3 letterboxed display on widescreens, and how can this be done?

Reply 1 of 23, by gidierre

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
icon wrote:

I'm trying to run DOSBox on a widescreen LCD ...

I've tried various combinations of resolutions, scalers, and output methods, but can only get either (1) a stretched picture that fills the entire screen or (2) a picture that maintains 4:3 but is extremely small.

Does DOSBox offer support for a 4:3 letterboxed display on widescreens, and how can this be done?

if I get you right,
it's no Dosbox issue, but a thing fixable in the graphics driver control panel, with digital panel properties and such stuff.
The quickest thing I can think of, by my own experience, is addressing you to an old post of mine, called Distortion on widescreens
Distortion on 16:10 widescreen
where I picked up a couple of hopefully useful hints & workarounds,
hoping it helps

Reply 2 of 23, by ripa

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
icon wrote:

Does DOSBox offer support for a 4:3 letterboxed display on widescreens, and how can this be done?

Set output=ddraw, fullresolution=1680x1050, and aspect=true. Everything except text modes should then have the correct aspect ratio and fill the screen pillarboxed.

output=ddraw enables hardware scaling (so if fullresolution doesn't match the resolution of the game, it gets stretched to fit - output=surface gives you a small picture in the middle)

fullresolution=1680x1050 makes dosbox take care of scaling to the correct aspect ratio - some displays don't have "scale to aspect" and some might not treat 640x400 as 4:3 even if they did have "scale to aspect"

aspect=true means dosbox will correct the aspect of 320x200 and 640x400 to 4:3 - otherwise all pixels are treated as square

Reply 3 of 23, by gidierre

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
ripa wrote:
icon wrote:

Does DOSBox offer support for a 4:3 letterboxed display on widescreens, and how can this be done?

Set output=ddraw, fullresolution=1680x1050, and aspect=true. Everything except text modes should then have the correct aspect ratio and fill the screen pillarboxed.

well I tried and tried and tried to follow suit, except for fullres being set at 1280x800 which would be fitting my actual display native specs,
yet I can't have it go pillarboxed 😕

no way unless I go my own way as I wrote in my previous post, which corresponds (for nVidia cards) to what I had quoted from this

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/ind … Pillarboxing%29

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/ind … d_aspect_nv.jpg

except the nVidia drivers display has changed since, but the song of it rings the same
fixed aspect ratio scaling needed
that is, it has to be done well before you ever think of running any dosbox.conf tweak, otherwise it won't work for me.

I wonder why the aspect trick fails on me 😵
It did last year on a totally different machine, it still does now

------------------------------------------

[Robin Hood comes back from the Crusades]
Maid Marian (Audrey Hepburn) : You never wrote to me.
Robin Hood (Sean Connery) : I don't know how.

R. Lester's Robin and Marian (1976)

Reply 4 of 23, by avatar_58

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Aspect correction doesn't seem to work for a lot of people it seems. I have no idea why this is. I was fighting with it just yesterday. Sometimes games will refuse to scale and do automatic aspect correction with or without the option enabled, other games will stretch no matter what.

It's very very strange. Have you tried setting "fixed aspect scaling" in your ATI/Nvidia control panel? That way you just set dosbox to a smaller 4:3 resolution like 640x480 and it will add the pillarboxing.

Reply 5 of 23, by ADDiCT

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

avatar_58, we're still waiting for your detailed post about your aspect ratio "problems". I mean the one with detailed information about the problem (and by detailed, i mean more information than just "it doesn't work"), the screenshots, and stuff.

Reply 6 of 23, by gidierre

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
avatar_58 wrote:

Have you tried setting "fixed aspect scaling" in your ATI/Nvidia control panel? That way you just set dosbox to a smaller 4:3 resolution like 640x480 and it will add the pillarboxing.

yep, when fixed aspect scaling has been... "fixed" 😉
then I can have it pillarboxed

it's only doing aspect=true etc. per se like Ripa said
that doesn't work for me, unless I am sure to correct things in the driver panel in advance and then the aspect= issue doesn't make any difference.

Reply 7 of 23, by avatar_58

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
ADDiCT wrote:

avatar_58, we're still waiting for your detailed post about your aspect ratio "problems". I mean the one with detailed information about the problem (and by detailed, i mean more information than just "it doesn't work"), the screenshots, and stuff.

I know I know, sorry about that. 😅 I have so much on my mind lately that I forget about such things until I'm back at work - unable to do it. I'll send myself an email, that will force me to do it 😁

Reply 8 of 23, by wd

User metadata
Rank DOSBox Author
Rank
DOSBox Author

fixed aspect scaling

What terminology is that?

it's only doing aspect=true etc. per se

What does that sentence mean exactly and, if it is a "aspect does
not work" one then do you know what it's supposed to do?

Reply 9 of 23, by avatar_58

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
wd wrote:

fixed aspect scaling

What terminology is that?

Sorry? Nvidia offers this - it scales but with a fixed aspect ratio. I didn't use the Nvidia exact wording in case he uses Intel onboard or ATI.

http://www.ldso.net/tronfaq/images/Nvidia_ControlPanel.jpg

Second option is what I'm talking about. Scaling with a fixed aspect ratio. These options seem to have a major effect on dosbox, and is the root cause of all widescreen woes since CRT's do not share this options nor it's issues (being 4:3).

Reply 11 of 23, by avatar_58

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

See the problem is when I want to play....let's say No One Lives Forever. Barring any hacks, the game does NOT support widescreen right? Now I don't care about stretching - I want it fullscreen on my nice bigass 24" monitor.

So I set "Use Nvidia scaling" to ignore all aspect ratios. That way I get no pillarboxing for shooters that do not support widescreen.

Now if I then try to use dosbox I get some odd results.....the aspect correction is ignored. Is it Nvidia's driver attacking dosbox's method and just stretching it? I'm not sure yet, I'm going to screw around with EVERY setting I can find and post about it later. There has to be some minor issue that can be resolved, but it will only affect widescreen users using stretch in their control panels I guess.

I just find it odd that some games will respect aspects and others not, regardless of dosbox's aspect= setting. There has to be a reason.

Reply 12 of 23, by Qbix

User metadata
Rank DOSBox Author
Rank
DOSBox Author

Maybe we should give you build that will list the screen resolution dosbox thinks it needs to match the settings and the resolution it actually got from sdl/directx. then we have hard and concrete numbers.

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 13 of 23, by ripa

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I just find it odd that some games will respect aspects and others not, regardless of dosbox's aspect= setting. There has to be a reason.

aspect=true only affects game resolutions that have a vertical dimension of 200 or 400. If aspect=true, then those are corrected to 4:3. Beyond that, Dosbox assumes square pixels, so if you set Dosbox to output 1680x1050 (or any widescreen resolution) with aspect=true, you will _always_ get black bars on the sides.

If you have aspect=false, then you will get black bars on the sides _unless_ the game uses 320x200 or 640x400 (or 320x400 or 640x200), in which case you will get no black bars on the sides when dosbox is set to output a widescreen resolution, but you will get black bars on the top and bottom if dosbox is set to output a 4:3 resolution.

If you set aspect=true, fullresolution=1680x1050 (or whatever your display's native resolution is), fullscreen=true and output=ddraw then every game (except text mode) should be zoomed correctly (pillarboxed - black bars on the sides) and your driver settings shouldn't have any effect because those (the driver's) settings only affect non-native resolutions.

If you want your dosbox games zoomed without respect to correct aspect (i.e. fill the whole screen), then set aspect=true, fullresolution=original (or any 4:3 resolution), output=ddraw, and set either your drivers or your display to zoom without respect to aspect. Dosbox won't scale your 4:3 games to fill a 16:10 screen* - your drivers or your display will have to do that.

* except text mode and when aspect=false, 320x200 and such just happen to be 16:10.

My advice is to always use aspect=true, except when using fullresolution=original and scaler=none or any 2x scaler.

If my post is incomprehensible, try the suggestion in my third paragraph (fullresolution=1680x1050, fullscreen=true, aspect=true, output=ddraw) and report back which games behave incorrectly (i.e. aren't pillarboxed).

All my info is based on testing (I tried various combinations with Blood, which has plenty of different video modes), not reading (and understanding) the source code.

Maybe we should give you build that will list the screen resolution dosbox thinks it needs to match the settings and the resolution it actually got from sdl/directx. then we have hard and concrete numbers.

It'd be great if dosbox printed the video mode in the console whenever switching modes.

edit: looks like I could just uncomment a bunch of LOG_MSG lines and compile myself.

Reply 14 of 23, by avatar_58

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
ripa wrote:

If you have aspect=false, then you will get black bars on the sides _unless_ the game uses 320x200 or 640x400 (or 320x400 or 640x200), in which case you will get no black bars on the sides when dosbox is set to output a widescreen resolution, but you will get black bars on the top and bottom if dosbox is set to output a 4:3 resolution.

If you set aspect=true, fullresolution=1680x1050 (or whatever your display's native resolution is), fullscreen=true and output=ddraw then every game (except text mode) should be zoomed correctly (pillarboxed - black bars on the sides) and your driver settings shouldn't have any effect because those (the driver's) settings only affect non-native resolutions.

If you want your dosbox games zoomed without respect to correct aspect (i.e. fill the whole screen), then set aspect=true, fullresolution=original (or any 4:3 resolution), output=ddraw, and set either your drivers or your display to zoom without respect to aspect. Dosbox won't scale your 4:3 games to fill a 16:10 screen* - your drivers or your display will have to do that.

Wrong. This is how it SHOULD work, but it doesn't. I have many games which if I do not explicitly enter a resolution like 1024x768 or 1920x1200 the game will not fill my screen. Period. Yet I also have games that no matter what setting the aspect is false/true it will have borders, whether I set my native resolution or not.

But I'll get to that later. I need to keep testing to understand why this is happening and which resolutions cause this odd behavior.

Reply 15 of 23, by ADDiCT

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Stop posting that nonsense, for god's sake! You keep on crying "it doesn't work! it doesn't work!", yet you fail to provide proper information about the alleged problem. Don't you think it's a little bit strange that you are the only user that keeps on harassing VOGONS with this topic? It seems to me that you might be a very, very severe case of PEBKAC.

I say: either post detailed information, or shut the f**k up.

You don't even have to _understand_ what's going on (it's taken so long already that there might be a possiblity that you'll never understand), it would be sufficient, for a start, if you gave details about the games you're having problems with, your exact system and driver config, and so on (screenshots!). Then the devs would have something to work with, and other DOSBox users could possibly verify your "problems", too (as long as they are DOSBox related, that is). Geez.

Last edited by ADDiCT on 2008-03-04, 16:39. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 16 of 23, by avatar_58

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Whats with the attitude? I simply added my two cents and I already told you I *am* working on a writeup. Christ it's like half the users here have pms or something some days.

Reply 17 of 23, by ADDiCT

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

You don't have to add your two cents over and over again. By now, i think we have hundreds of dollars worth of your "problem" on VOGONS, so to say. Just stop the nagging, and start working towards a possible solution. That's how problems are solved.

And btw, i don't think there are too many female users on VOGONS, so it's certainly not PMS. Don't you think some reactions could be triggered by the way certain users are communicating?

Reply 18 of 23, by ripa

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I have many games which if I do not explicitly enter a resolution like 1024x768 or 1920x1200 the game will not fill my screen.

I misunderstood you. I thought you always wanted a correct aspect ratio (i.e. black bars) instead of filling the whole screen. Dosbox will consistently give you a correct aspect ratio with the settings I mentioned*. I do not know how to make Dosbox consistently give you a wrong aspect (fill the whole screen) - you have to rely on your drivers or display for that.

* If you disagree, please post which game and with which config (only interested in output, fullresolution, aspect and scalers) you're using it with so that I can test it myself.

Anyway, it would be really helpful if you told us which games work incorrectly. Posting that information shouldn't take days/weeks.

Perhaps there actually is a bug caused by some random incompatibility, but without any information, it's hard to pinpoint whether the problem is the hardware, the software or the user.

Reply 19 of 23, by avatar_58

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I do have a job and things to do you know 😉 However I was hoping to write up a few strange things I discovered about widescreen monitors and the various output modes - to help understand why I can't get it to work 100% of the time. Don't worry, I'm working on a thread.

You don't have to add your two cents over and over again. By now, i think we have hundreds of dollars worth of your "problem" on VOGONS, so to say. Just stop the nagging, and start working towards a possible solution. That's how problems are solved.

Guy seriously, I'm not nagging. I'm not allowed to post at all until I get my little analysis done is that what you are saying? Honestly now. You act as if I'm bitching when all I'm doing is talking about it. You are the one coming off as hostile right now.

And btw, i don't think there are too many female users on VOGONS, so it's certainly not PMS. Don't you think some reactions could be triggered by the way certain users are communicating?

You need to lighten up, it's a joke.