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First post, by videogamer555

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Currently it only works in graphics modes, not text modes, but I want it to work in text mode too.

Remember, ALL monitors that existed back in the old days, when DOS was THE operating system, were CRT monitors, and they all had a 4:3 aspect ratio. The result is that all video modes (both text and graphics modes) were stretched vertically. The in-computer image data representing a screen full of text was designed to represent pixels in an 8:5 aspect ratio, but monitors of course were all using a 4:3 aspect ratio. As a result, text characters looked tall, compared to if the monitors' aspect ratios were the same as the computer's video signal. As a result, these tall characters looked normal, but when seen on a screen which accurately shows the aspect ratio (such as in DOS Box, or the Windows command prompt) the characters end up looking "fat".

I remember back when I was about 5 years old. My family had this old IBM-compatible computer. It was a Leading Edge computer (I believe with an Intel 286 CPU), and it had one of those green or orange monochrome monitors. I remember what the characters looked like. Eventually eventually the family computer got replace with a slightly newer PC. This one was a Gateway computer (which I believe it had an Intel 386 CPU), which still ran DOS. This one had a color monitor though, so the DOS text now was gray instead of orange or green, but the text still had the same shape. Then eventually we got Windows 3.0 for the computer, and it had the ability to call up a DOS prompt, but now the text was different. It looked "fat" (just like it does in DOS Box). I didn't know it at the time, but this was actually the correct pixel-for-pixel representation of the text. Apparently, Windows had its own graphics driver that compensated for the difference between the 4:3 aspect ratio of the monitor and the 8:5 aspect ratio of the actual video signal that represented the pixels of the text characters. So now the text showed correctly on the screen, but at the time I thought that Windows had changed the shape of the text characters to the "wrong" shape.

Over time I got used to the new shape of the text characters, but for the sake of nostalgia, I would LOVE to see DOS Box have a forced 4:3 aspect ratio option that I could turn on, that would force ALL video modes to display with a 4:3 aspect ratio (not just the graphic modes), just as if running on an old CRT monitor. That way I can "go down memory lane" and see the way text used to look in the "good old days" of DOS computers.

Reply 2 of 9, by videogamer555

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leileilol wrote:

Works in text mode for me? I get a 4:3 720x480

Are you using one of the mods like the Daum one? I'm using Vanilla.

And by the way, 640x480 is 4:3, so no, it isn't giving you a 4:3 ratio text mode if you are getting 720x480 in text mode.

Reply 3 of 9, by Azarien

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As a result, these tall characters looked normal, but when seen on a screen which accurately shows the aspect ratio (such as in DOS Box, or the Windows command prompt) the characters end up looking "fat".

I'd say they looked tall, and only looked normal when actual 16:10 LCD screens (like 1280x800) started showing up.

Those non-square-pixel resolutions, like 320x200 or 640x400 were an abomination.

Reply 5 of 9, by videogamer555

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ripsaw8080 wrote:

Text modes are aspect-corrected in SVN.

I just tested it now, and I see that it does now work in text modes. However, I also notice that in order to do so it has to duplicate some lines, and it does so with pure duplication of the lines. This makes some of the letters look glitchy. Maybe you guys could add some sort of linear-interpolation or antialiasing to the aspect ratio correction, to smooth that out a bit.

Reply 7 of 9, by dugan

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DosBox SVN's aspect-ratio-corrected, no-scaler-applied text-mode resolution is 640x400, is it not? And is that not correct?

Otherwise, I'm not sure what videogamer555 is talking about. Screenshots would help.

Last edited by dugan on 2016-02-16, 23:20. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 9 of 9, by ripsaw8080

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Again, it's already implemented. Standard text modes are corrected to 1.2 (1.35 for vgaonly) pixel aspect ratio: 640x400 becomes 640x480, and 720x400 becomes 720x540 with machine=vgaonly. The thread starter commented that the aspect-corrected text isn't smoothly filtered, probably due to using output=surface.