what exact .conf settings do you use in both dosboxes?
(enclose sdl/dosbox/render sections)

What exactly do you mean by "the result is just correct"?

In essence, yes, those are 2 very different algorithms. Moe has done a tremendous job designing a shader version of the HQ algorithm (the OpenGL and D3D versions are not limited to x2 scaling, they will both scale to arbitrary sizes). It is different because of the limitations of the programs that run on the GPU and so the algorithm is optimized for that. So it is not surprising that they will produce different results than the software version. The D3D version is really just a port, so it should look the same as OpenGL-HQ. The software version is (AFAIK) optimized for x2 or x3 scaling (depends if you select hq2x or hq3x) so it does not look as good with different scaling (if you for example run a 320x200 game in fullscreen @1920x1200 then the scaling will be x6)

Thank you 😀 I understand, but it is sad that the wonderfull Moe's work is not included in the official version :'(

I've made some screenshots with zoom to compare the hq2x result quality :

My dosbox 0.74 config :

1[dosbox]
2language=
3machine=svga_s3
4captures=capture
5memsize=16
6
7[sdl]
8fullscreen=true
9fulldouble=false
10fullresolution=1280x800
11windowresolution=original
12output=ddraw
13autolock=true
14sensitivity=100
15waitonerror=true
16priority=higher,normal
17mapperfile=mapper-0.74.map
18usescancodes=true
19
20[render]
21frameskip=0
22aspect=true
23scaler=hq2x

My config in pre-compiled version that includes direct3d.diff (last version => DOSBoxcvs-090704.zip) :

1language=
2machine=svga_s3
3captures=capture
4memsize=16
5
6[sdl]
7fullscreen=1
8fulldouble=1
9fullresolution=1280x800
10windowresolution=true
11output=direct3d
12autolock=true
13sensitivity=100
14waitonerror=true
15priority=higher,normal
16mapperfile=mapper.txt
17pixelshader=HQ2x.fx
18usescancodes=false
19
20[render]
21frameskip=0
22aspect=true
23scaler=hardware3x

With hq3x scaler in 0.74 the result is better, but your prebuild version Gulikoza with Moe and Mtrooper work is still better in quality result as you can sen below (and for speed too) .

So in my opinion that's why if you use dosbox under windows, Guilokza's prebuild version is THE "must have" dosbox version. Maybe that will change with a hq4x or hq5x implementation in the official version (but not for speed).

So for me (a windows vista user) it is strange that the official version, is not the real "good version" 😒

Yes this is quite expected. As I've said, the scaler version only scales x2 or x3. With ddraw output, the result is then bilinearly scaled to fullresolution (if the game is 320x200, hq2x will enlarge it to 640x400, hq3x to 960x600, the result is then bilinearly scaled to 1280x800). The only alternative is to use surface mode, but you will get black bars around the image. This is because the scaler system does not take into account the final size of the image. On the other hand, the D3D and OpenGL versions do know the final size of the image so the scaling occurs in one step from 320x200 directly to 1280x800. The D3D pixelshader is incorrectly named hq2x (the name implies only x2 scaling is possible) but will infact work as hq3x, hq4x...hqNx depending on the final image size.

does it do hqn.nx too? (as you can type any resolution for the window) or it just uses hqnx and then upscales to match window resolution?)

are there any other incorrectly named D3D pixelshaders?

Yes it does arbitrary scaling, going from source to destination size in one step. All D3D shaders work this way, but not all are optimized for every x.x factor. I simply named it hq2x because it has a familiar ring to it 😀

Is there any chance that OpenGL/Direct3D hqNx scaler will be in a future official dosbox version ? 🙄
It is a huge graphic improvement, and the feature already works, so is there any problematic for that ? I don't want to be critical in all cases 😀 I just want to understand the dev problematics about what could be official or what won't.

I would welcome it for OpenGL, not so much for Direct3D, since that is Windows only...