VOGONS

Weird resolution

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First post, by Gooch

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Hi,
I want to run an old game which uses a resolution of 640x350 (at least thats the size of the game measured using photoshop using a screenshot of the game while in surface mode).
It works (i.e. no black bars on either side) if I use

fullresolution=640x480 (or any other 4:3 resolution, such as 1024x768)
output=opengl
aspect=true

but this way the game looks blurry because my displays native resolution is 1680x1050.
If I use

fullresolution=1680x1050

the aspectratio is always wrong, no matter if I use true or false for aspect: if set to false, I get black bars on top/bottom, if set to true, I get black bars on the left/right.
I can tell the game is not supposed to look like that because circles are stretched either vertically (aspect=true) or horizontally (aspect=false) (same with squares etc.).

I am using DOSBox 0.7.2 running on WinXP
Graphics: NVIDIA GF 8600GT, 178.24 drivers

Greetings, Gooch

Reply 1 of 6, by wd

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this way the game looks blurry

opengl_nb

circles are stretched either vertically (aspect=true) or horizontally (aspect=false)

Unless the game attributes for it, circles are supposed to be stretched in
non-square pixel modes as 640x350

Reply 2 of 6, by TeaRex

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Just a wild guess, have you tried fullresolution=1400x1050?

1680x1050 is not a 4:3 resolution, so unless your physical screen pixels are non-square (very unlikely on a modern LCD display), black bars on the left and right would be expected.

640x350 is the EGA highest resolution mode and was retained on VGA for compatibility. The pixels in this mode on real EGA/VGA cards with CRT monitors are non-square, the whole picture is supposed to have a 4:3 format.

Thus the game has to do its own internal aspect correction if it intends to draw round circles. If it does not, you will get distortion even on the hardware the game was originally intended to work on.

tearex

Reply 3 of 6, by Gooch

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opengl_nb

The problem is not the way DOSBox scales the game to fullscreen but the way the screen interpolates the low resolution to its native resolution. If I use the 1680x1050 resolution the game looks perfectly fine apart from the aspect issue.

Unless the game attributes for it, circles are supposed to be stretched in
non-square pixel modes as 640x350

I guess you're right, but why does it work in 4:3 resolutions? Besides it just looks wrong if the picture is stretched either horizontally or vertically..

edit:

Just a wild guess, have you tried fullresolution=1400x1050?

I just did and this way i get the correct aspect ratio (using aspect=false), but with black border around (its like now there are black bars on all sides, nut just top/bottom or left/right).
Also the mouse performs weird, it is noticably faster when moving left/right compared to moving it up/down.
But thanks nonetheless, one step closer to my goal 😀

Last edited by Gooch on 2008-12-06, 13:23. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 4 of 6, by dh4rm4

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Care to name the game?

Reply 5 of 6, by Gooch

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Care to name the game?

It's called Sherlock (version 1.4), a puzzle game from 1992(?) by Everett Kaser. I couldn't find it in the DOSBox game database, if that's why you're asking 😀

Reply 6 of 6, by dh4rm4

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I was asking to find out what the game's native res is.

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