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the_bookman

I run doom in Dosbox, and screen resolution is of poor quality

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Alright, so I have been able to successfully run doom in dos box. Obviously I am dealing with the dos doom, not the doom95 version.

I run it and everything is fine except for one thing: the screen resolution looks crappy. It is no where near the crisp picture quality that I get when I run my doom95 doom. It's all pixelated compared to the clean crisp image I get in doom95.

I have already tweaked with all of the dosbox screen resolution parameters and such. I have also tweaked the Doom option menu for screen detail which is set on "high". nothing has done a thing to improve the picture quality.

so what is going on here? why does doom look like sh*t on dosbox?
is the dos version of doom supposed to have a lower picture quality than the doom95 or is dosbox just flawed in this department?

does anyone know what is wrong and how to fix it?

please help!

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so what you are telling me is that dos doom is supposed to have a lower picture quality than doom95 doom? because there is a big difference when I run the two different versions on my computer (doom95 doom actually looks good)

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Yes, the original game had a maximum resolution of 320x200. Doom95 had a higher maximum resolution, and many later source ports offer much higher resolutions than that.

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the_bookman said:

so what you are telling me is that dos doom is supposed to have a lower picture quality than doom95 doom? because there is a big difference when I run the two different versions on my computer (doom95 doom actually looks good)


Its DOS, what did you expect?

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the_bookman said:

(doom95 doom actually looks good)


Your eyes are broken. Doom 95 looked awful due to the fact it couldn't be arsed with aspect ratio correction and everything looked ridiculously wide as a result.

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toTheDarkAction: yeah, doom95 does look wider than dos doom, but that is not what I am refering to when I say it "looks good". Im refering to the crisp clear pricture quality that doom95 makes when I play it on my comp. much better than the dos doom that I run on dosbox.

also, if it is true that dos doom is supposed to have poor picture quality compared to doom95, then how do you explain this:

http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Aspect_ratio

this link will take you to a page that discusses the different aspect ratios between dos doom and doom95. however, in the bottom right side bar it has an image of map01 from doom2. in it's caption it offers a link to "how this appears in the original Doom." which is a link to an image of how map01 in doom2 supposedly looks in dos doom. In that picture, the picture quality is very crisp. Much better than how it looks when I play doom2 on dosbox. the picture quality in that image matches what I see when I play doom95 doom2 (aside from doom95's Horiz stretching not seen in that image). So either A) this website is telling a lie by showing an aspect ratio corrected image from doom95 claiming that it is a dos doom image or B) there is a way to play dos doom with high picture quality as seen in that image.

so which is it? if it is the later case, I would like to know how to make the correct configurations so I can play dos doom in hi def.

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the_bookman said:

this link will take you to a page that discusses the different aspect ratios between dos doom and doom95. however, in the bottom right side bar it has an image of map01 from doom2. in it's caption it offers a link to "how this appears in the original Doom." which is a link to an image of how map01 in doom2 supposedly looks in dos doom.


Those are both the exact same images. Doom only supported one resolution. If you want higher resolution, why don't you use a source port?

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after looking at some more images from that site, I cam across this one:

http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/File:Map08_spectre.png

This image is clearly from the dos doom because the spectre's partial invisibility is correctly rendered. It is a known fact that doom95 cant render spectres correctly(they look like refractions instead of shadows). This is proof that this is a dos doom image, not a doom95 image.

yet, the picture quality is crisp in that picture. I play doom2 on dosbox and goto that same level in that same room in that same position and I am unable to even see the existence of the characters on the UAC panels in the background of the room(this gives you an idea of the crap resultion I am experiencing). Yet in that image, you can clearly see that there are characters on the UAC panels in the background because they have somehow managed to play dos doom at a high resolution.

HOW CAN I PLAY DOS DOOM AT HIGH RESOLUTION?

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the_bookman said:A) this website is telling a lie by showing an aspect ratio corrected image from doom95 claiming that it is a dos doom image[/B]


I think this is it. That page is saying that is how the aspect ratio looks in vanilla Doom, but that screenshot is from some source port allowing a higher resolution. And it might not be from Doom95, considering Doom95 does some things wrong.

EDIT:

the_bookman said:after looking at some more images from that site, I cam across this one:

http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/File:Map08_spectre.png[/B]


That picture is not from Dos Doom, dos Doom only supports 320x200.


These pictures may be from PRBoom or another port that displays higher resolutions with correct vanilla Doom visuals.

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It's odd that you know your way around the doom wiki but don't know what a source port is, or that such things even exist.

I suggest you read up about source ports before posting again. That will answer your question and probably your next few.

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the_bookman said:

HOW CAN I PLAY DOS DOOM AT HIGH RESOLUTION?


YOU DON'T.

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TheDarkArchon said:

Your eyes are broken. Doom 95 looked awful due to the fact it couldn't be arsed with aspect ratio correction and everything looked ridiculously wide as a result.


+1

The weapon is drawn in abysmal quality.

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alright, so basically I need to get some kind of source port to play the dos doom in hi res since the real dos doom looks like sh*t.

that doom wiki needs to update it's page that discuss the differences between dos doom and doom95. In bold face letters, it needs to point out the following difference between dos doom and doom95:

"DOS DOOM LOOKS LIKE ASS COMPARED TO DOOM95 BECAUSE IT'S SCREEN RESOLUTION SUCKS AND DOOM95'S DOESNT"

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Doom95 caps out at 640x480; its resolution qualifies as "sucks" and "looks like ass" for quite a few people here, and the vast majority of people elsewhere. Not only does it cap out there, as other people have stated it, doesn't even bother scaling the graphics up properly.

Grab PrBoom+ and run with the -complevel parameter if you want vanilla gameplay at higher resolutions.

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You should try prboom. I think the picture quality is fantastic and it stays true to classic doom's roots.

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It doesn't look "like ass", it looks like the best you could get on the PCs of the era. I'd like to see your reaction to the "crisp picture quality" of Doom95 640x480 mode on a 486...

Kids these days...

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the_bookman said:

alright, so basically I need to get some kind of source port to play the dos doom in hi res since the real dos doom looks like sh*t


Hey hey hey, it looked great in 1993! And high-res games with 3D graphics didn't become commonplace until the Pentium era. So there.

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Is prboom+ the best source port to get as close to dos doom as possible (with the exception of good resolution)? if there are any better ones, please list them.

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If you want the behaviour as close as possible to the original game, but to have much higher resolutions possible, then prboom+ and Eternity are your best options.

If that's less important to you, then there are plenty of other ports you might consider. Zdoom and GZDoom are popular ones that add many new gameplay features at some cost in compatibility. There are Risen3D and Jdoom, which emphasize graphical enhancements to a greater degree. And others.

Note that not all newer user-created wads will work with those ports though, so you need to check the text-file to see what port it is designed for.

If you do opt for prboom+ and definitely want to keep things as close to the original game with resolution the only difference, then be sure to use software mode, and set the default_compatibility_level to 2 or 3.

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Out of the box, PrBoom+ is still pretty "broken" (in terms of compatibility; most of it is actually bug fixes). You want to run it with the -complevel parameter set to either 2 (Doom/Doom 2) 3 (Ultimate Doom) or 4 (Final Doom). That parameter only makes the gameplay authentic though, the default configuration file is a bit...off.

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Plus, the guy said he wants a "DOS DOOM". I guess that further limits the options to the few remaining DOS-only source ports...did any of them have high resolution?

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Maes said:

Plus, the guy said he wants a "DOS DOOM". I guess that further limits the options to the few remaining DOS-only source ports...did any of them have high resolution?


MBF had 640x400.

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I have tried PrBoom+ and Eternity. And I must say, Eternity is waaayyyy closer to DOS Doom than PrBoom+. I think Eternity does a great job.

My recomendations for improving it to make it even more Dos Doomish would be the following:

-get rid of the big sophisticated option menu and put back the same one found in the actual doom games. All those fancy options should be part of some setup menu that you would launch seperately from the game launch.

-Put the dos doom music in, not the doom 95 music.

-take out any annoying source port references such as the credits screen.

I think what would be ideal for me would be a high res chocolate doom source port. maybe they could call it "dark chocolate Doom". I like the idea of chocolate doom of making it as true to dos doom as possible, it's just the crappy resolution is not easy on the eyes.

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alright, so basically I need to get some kind of source port to play the dos doom in hi res since the real dos doom looks like sh*t.


Lolz, you fail it!

Sorry... I had to.

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the_bookman said:

-get rid of the big sophisticated option menu and put back the same one found in the actual doom games. All those fancy options should be part of some setup menu that you would launch seperately from the game launch.

Which is vastly inconvenient because you'd have to quit and restart the program every time you wanted to change one setting.

-Put the dos doom music in, not the doom 95 music.

No bloody difference. Put a Sound Blaster 16 in your computer if the "original" music is important to you; the difference is in your hardware and not the music itself.

-take out any annoying source port references such as the credits screen.

Huh?

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WildWeasel said:

Which is vastly inconvenient because you'd have to quit and restart the program every time you wanted to change one setting.


or just get rid of the options menu altogether. Who needs all those faggy options? people should be thankful the improvement would even offer them an inconvenient option menu.

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the_bookman said:

or just get rid of the options menu altogether. Who needs all those faggy options? people should be thankful the improvement would even offer them an inconvenient option menu.


The options are for probably for Boom and MBF comparability or something like that. Why are you bothered so much by the additional options? It doesn't change the overall game play.

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I'm still a newbie here so don't shoot me if I don't understand what all the grown folk are talking about, but...

...why struggle so much to take steps backward? What's wrong with using a sourceport... any sourceport? I understand nostalgia and all, but a lot of great folks have been working on these sourceports for years to make things easier and better for us so we don't have to screw around with things like DOSBox. I'm just not getting it...

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