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First post, by mikenowo

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I've been trying Gabriel Knight 1 in dosbox (used the GK1ForDOSBox.exe from sierrahelp.com to install) but find the resolution hard to look at). Is there a way to improve it, seems to me even games I had from 1993 had better res than this (see attached file) 😒

Reply 1 of 16, by Malik

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What do you mean by "bad" resolution? Do you mean it looks stretched?

Have you set the aspect = true in the dosbox.conf file?

What is your monitor/lcd screen's size and resolution?

5476332566_7480a12517_t.jpgSB Dos Drivers

Reply 2 of 16, by mikenowo

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I attached a jpeg as to what it looks like previously, not stretched just hard to look at. I have a 1600x900 lcd screen, but even when I play the game fullscreen atrocious to look at.

Reply 3 of 16, by leileilol

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Might also help to use the VGA driver and not the SVGA driver. That just has hi-res interface graphics and little else. You'll get less pixel distortion that way.

If it's about the fact the game's made for 320x200 - the CD-ROM drive wasn't adopted everywhere yet and a SVGA adventure game on floppies would simply be masochism 😀 also consider the processor speeds of the timeframe and the slow ISA bus and the commonly slow SVGA cards that were there. Only a few were on the bleeding edge of performance, even if that bleeding edge were a 486 DX2, and the FryingPantium 60MHz was just a sadistic luxury.

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Reply 4 of 16, by mikenowo

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I tried VGA as well but looks the same. Did the game look like that initially or is it just trying to run it in Dosbox that makes it look less clear than it originally was? I've just tried GK2 as well and it looks a tad blurry (even the initial videos, I've attached a snapshot of that too). 'Fraid my tired old eyes wouldn't be able to take that for too long before imploding 😜

Reply 5 of 16, by collector

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You'll have to accept the fact that these games are a couple of decades old. You are talking about an era when VESA was relatively new and VGA was still around. Many games were still trying to accommodate the many who still had older hardware. This is the reason that GK1 shipped with both a VESA and VGA drivers. Also, few had monitors much larger than 14" or 17". Better get used to it if you want to explore classic games.

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Reply 6 of 16, by Malik

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I still don't understand the bad resolution thingy. These games have always looked this way. Unless if there are also "good resolution" pictures to compare to what mikenowo is trying to tell.

5476332566_7480a12517_t.jpgSB Dos Drivers

Reply 8 of 16, by robertmo

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as for gk1
games using pictures never look good in vga. Other games use drawn pictures so they look ok, like indy4 or kyrandia
http://www.mobygames.com/game/indiana-jones-a … tis/screenshots
http://www.mobygames.com/game/legend-of-kyran … ate/screenshots

as for gk2
if you look at the walls they look as if they were displayed in 16-bit color instead of 32-bit hence the visible "rainbow" pattern on the walls

Reply 9 of 16, by mikenowo

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Well, I've been playing computer games since the beginning of the 1980's (originally on an Apple II with a floppy drive 😜) but I don't remember them being so blurry. Ah well.

Reply 11 of 16, by IIGS_User

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Both screenshots taken by Mikenowo shows original graphics of the game.

Klimawandel.

Reply 12 of 16, by mikenowo

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Actually, early 80's I said. Can't really remember the size, was too long ago. Was a color and svga though.

Reply 13 of 16, by Mau1wurf1977

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mikenowo wrote:

them being so blurry. Ah well.

I think you need pixelated and not blurry. Blurry is something else.

The comment with the monitor size is true. On a 14" monitor the pixels will be miuch smaller and the overall image appear much less pixelated.

Just play the game in a 640 x 480 window 😀

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Reply 14 of 16, by collector

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mikenowo wrote:

Actually, early 80's I said. Can't really remember the size, was too long ago. Was a color and svga though.

Well GK1 was released in '93 and GK2 in 95, so the point holds, if you played the games when they came out, you would have seen them on the monitor you had in the early 90s. BTW, GK1 was one of the first Sierra games to support VESA. As noted, this was mostly in higher res interface items. The views and the pics are just VGA. Remember, Sierra's first VGA game was KQ5, which was released only three years earlier. You are dealing with digital antiques. Of course they will be pixelated on today's giant monitors. If it really bothers you that much, just do what Mau1wurf1977 suggested. Play it in a smaller window. You could also play it on your Android for a more appropriately sized screen.

Reply 15 of 16, by Malik

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These later Sierra games will look a bit better with lower res 0.29 or 0.32 DP (Dot Pitch - please correct me if I'm wrong - DP or DPI) monitors. They get pixelated the higher the res goes.

I remember Quest for Glory IV's grass and ground looked "blocky" or more pixelated with the 0.28 dp monitor, a far cry from the 0.30 or so monitor I previously used. I remember thinking to myself why the grass with flower patches look so blocky. Just a faint recollection. Maybe that's what he's referring to.

But it's in no way a bad resolution or blurry. I remember it just as how it looks in the pics above.

5476332566_7480a12517_t.jpgSB Dos Drivers

Reply 16 of 16, by mikenowo

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Hmm .. ok, I tried it in a 640x480 window but can't tell if it looks better or not ..ha!

Well, thanks for all the info. I'll just try it like that and see how it goes.