Re: SUCCESS AT LAST

Jester typed:

Ah! Some more help has arrived at long last. ;)

Maybe there WAS something else, but I don't know
what it is. I've only know the "close only counts in
horseshoes" part. 

Hand grenades. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand
grenades. Or so I've always heard it.


That was it! ;)  I was thinking grenades (but without the hand-
part, did not sound right)

I thought it might've been women, too, but if you think about
it, close probably *does* count with women. ;D

Well, doesn't DOS box copy all the hard drive files on
your computer to Dosbox program? If you do C:\ after
you mount the drive, all C files are there, or is it like
a sort of mirror?


More like a mirror, yes. The files are there, but they're the
same files that are on C:\

I can't really completely understand that
concept but I don't have a great need to go into the
details about virtual drives.

It doesn't make another copy of the files. 

No, but you see, conventional terms were not helping much,
so I had to think outside the box. ;) (the DOSbox! ;D)

Mounting the drive gives Dosbox a way to get at the files
that are already on your hard drive.


Yes, but how do you explain what the "c: c:\" part does? ;)
(It is difficult to put in words, that is to say)

The last line "scaler=" is the one to change, and I think
the "advinterp2x" scaler is the best. Make it so. ;)

Then save the file and start up your game in DOSbox. :)

What is that supposed to do? 

When you use low resolutions on a relatively large monitor,
you end up with very large pixels due to everything being
scaled up, making everything look blocky. The scaler
settings, such as the advinterp2x, perform some graphical
magic while scaling things up, so they end up smoother and
less blocky. The end result is the graphics looking better,
although you'll have to test the different settings to see
how much of a difference they make and whether or not you
like the result. I find that some of the settings smooth
things out a little too much for my liking.


I prefer them smooth. :) The smoother the better. Now, if we
were talking about peanut butter, it would be the opposite. ;D

Frameskip will skip rendering some frames so that the game
runs faster. Of course, you only need to worry about that
if the game is running too slowly in the first place.


And before trying that, I suppose one could turn up the cycles
as well:

[cpu]
cycles=3000

That does seem to be the default (3000). If a game runs too
slow, you could try incrementing that (no higher than 20000?)

Well, I could try it sometime, but as I said, the graphics
I get with Goblins 2 are fine. they seem to be the same as
I remember them when I played the game before on floppies
years ago. The graphics are fine in the version I am not
playing.


Nevertheless, I *think* the Gobliins 2 graphics, like most the
adventures of the DOS era (error? ;>), are in 320x240.

DOSbox I suspect is scaling it up by default, so it only looks
as if you're playing it in 640x480.

<*checks*>

Yes indeed, when I look at my *unmodified* dosbox.conf, the
scaler line says "scaler=normal2x" - which looks the default,
normal scaler without any graphics magic (not as "advinterp2x"
does)

If you want to experiment, try setting "scaler=none" to see
the original size of the Gobliins 2 graphics. :)  (I mean the
size they were originally drawn in by the artists at Sierra)

- I'll mention again, by the way, we learn things in this life
from experience - so if you're not going to experiment, how
do you expect to learn what we're talking about? (It seems
strange to me that you're asking all these questions, but not
really trying it out to see for yourself)

Ah, but there's the chance they could be even better than
you remember. (-:


Precisely. :)

<snips> 
I have 640X480 set on my computer but as I told you
before, if I set it for a higher resolution, the game
would be too small for me to play comfortably and
dosbox frame would be smaller, so that wouldnt help.


In your .conf file, do you have a line like

fullfixed=true

If so, try changing the true to false. Then when you
go to full-screen with Alt-Enter, it should actually be
full-screen with the proper resolution.


I'm not sure, there are some other settings that could pertain
to that as well.  Now we're getting to the *juicy* stuff. ;)

In my dosbox.conf, it looks as if "fullfixed=false" by default,
so if so, I'd try changing that line to "true":

[sdl]
fullfixed=true
fullresolution=640x480

[render]
aspect=true
scaler=advinterp2x

MaryJ, try changing the above four lines in your dosbox.conf to
the above settings - and I *think* that should fix the squashed
-looking graphics you mentioned. (Again, no harm can be done-
you can always change them back)

Since I'm sure you're going to ask "what does that do?" ;), I'll
tell you before you ask ;D, these are the descriptions I have:

- "fullfixed=" keeps the aspect ratio of the selected resolution
(I'm not entirely clear about this one myself- surely the aspect
ratio should always be 4:3?- does anyone know more?)

- "fullresolution=" sets the resolution for full-screen mode

- "aspect=" performs aspect ratio correction, or fills in the
missing vertical pixels if the source resolution is 320x200
(instead of 320x240)

- "scaler=" selects scaler to use for up-sizing and enhancing
low resolutions (320x240)


--
};> Matt v3.2 <.{

<random sig>
Psychic midget escapes prison: 'Small medium at large!'
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