yeah I think one of our default mouse modes is wrong for a certain video mode. Most games don't care as they set all parameters themselves

Another game where this happens is "Frederik Pohl's Gateway". That one uses 640x480 16 color mode.

This problem happens to occur to 2 out of 3 games I'm currently playing 😁 Is there something that can be done to work around the issue?

well it never bothered me enough to fix/investigate it

Could you give me some info about what would be needed to fix it? I could take a look at it. I never looked at DOSBox's sources and don't know much about hardware emulation, but still, maybe it's something that I could do.

a list of broken games would be a good start.
then you need to see which videomode they use.
then you would need to see which mouse calls they do.
Combine the 2 above things to determine where it goes wrong.
(probably a different sensitivity setting (in src/ints/mouse.cpp) for a specific videomode.)

Might be a good idea to be sure there's a problem with DOSBox's mouse driver, first. I see the same difference in axial speed with MS Mouse drivers as well in both games.

Legend adventure games, like Gateway, have an XMOUSE parameter to use their internal mouse driver. It has a different feel to it, whether it's better or not is subjective.

Tried that too. Same problem, plus the mouse pointer flickers.

Ultima 8 is calling function 0xf of the mouse driver to change the mickey/pixel ratio to 3 horizontal and 16 vertical. The default ratio is 8 horizontal, so no wonder the speed is off. Using the default ratio gives equal speed on both axes. Maybe there's some issue that causes it to use that ratio, because I don't see a reason; but it does the same thing with MS Mouse drivers.

The attached TSR program will override the strange ratio in Ultima 8.

It works nicely! Thanks.

i'm having the same issue with ultima 8 (and descent, oddly enough).

how do i use this 'tsr program' in windows 7-64?

I've noticed that this happens a lot when 4:3 resolutions are used on widescreen monitors without scaling, which (besides the obvious distortion) is why it really irks me whenever people use resolutions like 1024x768 on their flashy new monitors "because it's easier to read".

The different axial speeds of the mouse in Ultima 8 are the result of the game specifically instructing the mouse driver to handle pointer motion that way. I thought at first it might be a DOSBox issue of some kind, but the code in the game is very straightforward about how it programs the mickey-to-pixel ratios of the mouse driver.

I think the faster horizontal speed serves a purpose. To make The Avatar run, the mouse pointer must be moved almost to the edges of the screen. If the mouse movement speed is the same on both axes, you have to physically move your mouse further to run horizontally than vertically because of the rectangular screen resolution. The faster horizontal speed is probably the game designers' attempt to have the mouse move in a square area while the mouse pointer moves in a rectangular area. It sort of works for moving around, but when you use the mouse to click on items, dialogue choices, and interface elements, the different axial speeds can be difficult to get used to.

If you find the different speeds more annoying then useful, the TSR is an easy way to force the game to use equal speeds on both axes. To use the TSR program, just run it before running the game. It's intended for Ultima 8 only, and probably won't have an effect on other games.

Same problem here. In most games I play with DOSBox, the speed of the mouse pointer horizontally and vertically is different (fullscreen only). 🙁

hey mr_bigmouth_502. what resolutions would you reccomend running on a 16:9 monitor. just a native 16:9 resolution?
....hrm
....this might be a stupid question come to thenk of it, but what the hell.

This is not a 16:9 problem, since I don't have such a monitor.

Anyone else is having this exact problem with Warlords 2 1.02 and Warlords 2 Deluxe? Using hacks such as "mousex" or "mouse2kv" doesn't help. Is there any way to force the mouse sensitivity in dosbox?

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Ultima 8 is calling function 0xf of the mouse driver to change the mickey/pixel ratio to 3 horizontal and 16 vertical. The default ratio is 8 horizontal, so no wonder the speed is off. Using the default ratio gives equal speed on both axes. Maybe there's some issue that causes it to use that ratio, because I don't see a reason; but it does the same thing with MS Mouse drivers.

The attached TSR program will override the strange ratio in Ultima 8.

Gave it a quick disassemble - very cool the way it overrides their override 😀 Also dig the mousex.exe from another post.

Is it possible that games like this called 33h/F because of the way the mouse worked with Mode X in machines of that era?

I'm seeing the same behavior in Warlords 2 in DOS on a newer mobo (not DOSBOX), and the game looks too high res to be MCGA and too low res to be SVGA - that's what made me think this could be the issue.

Even when the pixel ratio is set back to 8, it's still a tiny bit off, but WAY more playable. Thank you!

beastlike wrote:

Gave it a quick disassemble - very cool the way it overrides their override :) Also dig the mousex.exe from another post. […]
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ripsaw8080 wrote:

Ultima 8 is calling function 0xf of the mouse driver to change the mickey/pixel ratio to 3 horizontal and 16 vertical. The default ratio is 8 horizontal, so no wonder the speed is off. Using the default ratio gives equal speed on both axes. Maybe there's some issue that causes it to use that ratio, because I don't see a reason; but it does the same thing with MS Mouse drivers.

The attached TSR program will override the strange ratio in Ultima 8.

Gave it a quick disassemble - very cool the way it overrides their override 😀 Also dig the mousex.exe from another post.

Is it possible that games like this called 33h/F because of the way the mouse worked with Mode X in machines of that era?

I'm seeing the same behavior in Warlords 2 in DOS on a newer mobo (not DOSBOX), and the game looks too high res to be MCGA and too low res to be SVGA - that's what made me think this could be the issue.

Even when the pixel ratio is set back to 8, it's still a tiny bit off, but WAY more playable. Thank you!

Holy necroposting, Batman. 😳 Anyway, from what I can gather the original release of Warlords II uses 16 color VGA, while Warlords II Deluxe adds support for 256 color SVGA. It's possible the original is using some sort of a tweaked VGA mode or even 640x350 EGA, but I'm doubtful about the latter.