VOGONS


First post, by MusicallyInspired

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Is there such thing or has anyone thought of having a feature in DOSBox where, defined in the CONF, you could add a border/background image file that would display in the black column bars around the render display (most useful for aspect ratio-corrected games)? So that, for instance, when you're playing a 320x200 aspect ratio-corrected game in 1920x1080 fullscreen resolution you could have a nice optional border around it? That could go for letterbox displays as well for that matter. Perhaps it could also have an extra CONF entry for scaling/best fit options like fill/stretch/fit/1:1 etc. It would just display "behind" the game display like a wallpaper and spill out into the black bars/columns outside the main render area that DOSBox usually doesn't take up. The idea just came to me after watching some DOS game let's play videos on YouTube. It's nice for presentation for streams and YT videos but it'd also be kind of nice in real time for playing a game yourself at home as well. Or on the Steam Deck, for instance.

More of a suggestion than a request. I'm guessing off the bat (without knowing exactly how DOSBox renders the display) that it would have to change the way DSOBox renders the display to cover the black areas as well somehow if the black areas outside the display in the DOSBox window aren't currently accessible in this way with the current code. Thoughts?

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Reply 1 of 3, by leileilol

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While not exactly what you're wanting but if this is ever implemented somehow, maybe pull the overscan color into it at least? (0x11)

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Reply 2 of 3, by Bubu2000

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This should already be possible if you use Retroarch with its DosBox core. Retroarch has a lot of border / background shaders.

Reply 3 of 3, by MusicallyInspired

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Bubu2000 wrote on 2022-02-16, 14:42:

This should already be possible if you use Retroarch with its DosBox core. Retroarch has a lot of border / background shaders.

I'll have to look into that, though I like the versatility of utilizing DOSBox outside of a frontend like Retroarch. Thank you.

Yamaha FB-01/IMFC SCI tools thread
My Github
Roland SC-55 Music Packs - Duke Nukem 3D, Doom, and more.