In what way does it look horrible? Do you mean it's running too slowly?

It could be that video from games released back then just looks horrible compared to the video available in current games. 😉 Are you familiar with what the game looks like on real hardware?

Set your Win 98 display to high color.

I did some research and found out that apparently VPC uses an s3 trio video card, and it only has 8mb of ram. EW!

is there anyway to 'hack' this code? (i dont know if hack is the correct code... i basically mean 'manipulate' a .conf setting) to change it so it could load a new driver?

from what im gathering its impossible to update the VPC driver.

I am thinking about buying a gaming pc for about 600 bucks.

There is a setting in the .vmc file (which you can edit with a text editor as it's standard XML). Find

1<vram_size type="integer">8</vram_size>

.
The only other setting that I've found works is 16 (32 won't work).

If you just install the virtual pc addons won't it just install it's own special videocard driver that pretty much replaces the s3 one when your in windows, that does the mouse integration. Although either way 8mb should be more than enough for just regular 2d stuff

I had trouble with 8MB when running in 1680x1050 32bit (my regular resolution). There'd be no video memory left for DOSBox' surfaces. I'm not sure, but I don't think VMA replaces the video driver, just the mouse integration.

highnrg wrote:

I did some research and found out that apparently VPC uses an s3 trio video card, and it only has 8mb of ram. EW!

Surely that was the level of technology available when Phantasmagoria 2 was released?

Phantasmagoria II was released in 1996 and the high end video cards of the day were sporting 4MB.

the game runs fine. The video looks horrendous. its grainy, it's just horrible. when i played the game on my gateway back in the day, the video was 100x better.

i assure you, it's not how the video was supposed to look.

im pretty much stuck with it though, huh?

Yesterday I tried Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle Of Flesh in DosBox. The FMV scenes are grainy, yes... but they don't look any worse than they did back in 1996. It's your selective memory what makes you think that the video was 100 times better back in the day, when it was not.

Anyway, if you want to improve the quality of the FMV scenes, use the XP/Vista installer and run the game in Windows native mode:

http://www.squirtthecat.com/games/phantasmago … ia_2/index.html

This new executable will enable 32-bit color depth, scaled, filtered and non-interlaced videos... but won't do any magic for a 13-year-old game.

PS: just read that you have a Mac, so ignore my message.

hey there, thank u for checking out the FMV in dosbox.

i guess when i played the game in windows 95 or 98 *i forget* back in the day, it was 32 bit enabled, (or something) even if you look the phantasmagoria videos up on youtube, they look better than they do in dosbox.

im thinking it is the 32 bit mode you speak of.

either way, i beat the game yesterday, so im over it haha

it was a pleasure playing though - i think it was probably one of the best looking FMV games during the timeframe.

Unfortunately, playing it now, i realize the gameplay was somewhat lacking, but it was still enjoyable.

cheers

Why would someone want to play those crappy phantasmagoria games anyways? They were garbage.

why do you need to ask crappy questions anyways? They are garbage.

Seriously, why the need to question other people's taste? If they want to play it and enjoy it, so let them. Planting flame bait is not appreciated in this forum, even if I bite 😀

Agreed Dominus. I hope ADDiCT also read this.

Dominus wrote:

why do you need to ask crappy questions anyways? They are garbage.

Seriously, why the need to question other people's taste? If they want to play it and enjoy it, so let them. Planting flame bait is not appreciated in this forum, even if I bite 😀

Why do you need to comment on the crappy nature of my question? Pointing out flamebait is just plain garbage. 😉

Thread closed.