How do you guys configure DOSBox?

[Cas]

Hey, guys. I've recently bought a new monitor for my desktop computer. Until a couple of days ago, I was using a monitor at 1360x768 pixels. My new monitor does have full-HD. Among other things, I wanted to have 1920x1080 because, with my previous monitor, 3x was OK for 320x200, filling a significant part of the screen when in a window, but 640x480 looked very small at 1x and doubling it was not possible as it would've been larger than my screen. I was calculating that full-HD would allow very good proportions at 4x for 320x200 and 2x for 640x480.

To my surprise, the new graphics mode did not trigger a larger window in 640x480 and it seems 3x is the maximum (normal3x) for 320x200    I can, of course, use full screen and that looks perfect. The problem with that is that I'm forced to go out of that mode if I need to do anything with another program and then come back and that is slow. With a window, I can disable mouse pointer auto-lock and access the window like it were any other program window, which is great. Also, I would like to use an integer multiplication factor, so that the scaling will look natural and is faster, and I don't want to apply any interpolation, as that makes games look very different from what they were originally and I like the classic look.

So I wanted to ask you what you guys use for a configuration, what you suggest and if you know how I can achieve what I like. The last changes I've been trying to make appear to have no effect or a very different effect from what I look for.

[Duplode]

That's a nice question. For the last few years I have been playing with the setup you don't like, a normal3x 960x720 window on a full-HD monitor. For me, that's a comfortable window size which has decent screen space for other windows in case I need to keep an eye on something on the background (as in the attached screenshot ), so I never gave too much thought to it.

To get a 4x window, I think you have to switch to opengl or some other "hardware" output, so that you aren't limited to the software scalers like normal3x. Here's what the relevant settings might look like:

Code Select Expand

[render]
aspect=true
#scaler=normal2x

[sdl]
output=opengl
fullscreen=false
windowresolution=1280x960

If you leave scaler unspecified, DOSBox will default to normal2x, which in this case means a 2x software scaling and a further 2x hardware scaling to fit the window size. From a quick test I have done here, it looks like this gives better results than using scaler=none, which resulted in a quite blurry image. Also note the aspect=true setting, which ensures the aspect ratio of the game will be correct.

[alanrotoi]

My screen is 1920x1080 and I use a normal2x

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[cpu]
cycles=20000
core=dynamic

[render]
aspect=true
scaler=normal2x

[sdl]
fullscreen=false
windowresolution=1200x900
output=overlay
priority=higher,pause
fullresolution=desktop

[KyLiE]

All the monitors that I use to play Stunts have a native resolution of 1920x1080.  I mostly play Stunts in full screen and when I do have to run it in a window, I don't mind it being a bit small because that's kind of the point.  If it's almost full screen, then I figure it might as well be.

as in the attached screenshot

Hey, that's my track!

[Duplode]

Hey, that's my track!

That one did call for a map to be easy at reach 

[Cas]

Thank you, guys. I have some things to test now!

Well, the reason why I find this size too small is because my monitor is 20". I didn't want to buy a big monitor, as that wouldn't be comfortable to me. My desk is small and I don't have space to put it much further from me. I also need the space for other stuff. The switch between full screen and desktop is slow and it's mostly Telegram that I need to switch to from time to time to reply to messages.

I wonder if the opengl option will work via software, since I don't have any video acceleration hardware on my computer. I'll give it a try. Even in a big window, Stunts leaves space for other windows because of the 4:3 proportion DOS uses (actually, 320x200 is 8:5, a little wider and I kind of prefer to let it be that way so that no aliasing occurs, since the aspect is not that different anyway).

By the way, is there any tool for GNU/Linux that can 2x-zoom a program window live as you use it?  Surely, that'd be slower, but if it's playable, it'd be a good thing to try.

EDIT: The opengl option worked perfectly!   It does soften the pixels a little bit, so they don't look totally sharp, but they're still very good. The thing gets a little blurry if I set aspect=true, although not as bad as I had expected. It does seem like the frames per second fall somewhat when I set that, so I've left it at aspect=false. Games at 640x480 also scale up perfectly!