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[_r.u.s.s.]

well, pixelation changes if wrong refresh rate is set

[Japo]

I think the problem is that his monitor/TV simply won't take these resolutions. Each monitor has limited choices concerning what resolutions it can show because of the way it's made, and software can't do anything about that, other than forcing images into another resolution other than their native one by means of scaling or aspect correction. For example my monitor will go as low as 640x480 but neither 640x400 nor 320x200. I think what I've said is correct by I'm not entirely sure.

[dosraider]

Yes and no, Japofran, most monitors can go in low res if textmode, even TFTs(flatscreens), but they refuse in low res graphical mode. It's not entirely the same.
Example: the NT-W2k-XP-Vista load screen, or scandisk screen is low res, but textmode, not graphics mode, and thus they can handle it.
(That's putting it simple, I know there is more to it, but I don't wanna drown the cat here).

The problem with early W95 and some W98 games is the low res graphical mode, that's something those monitors can't handle.
VPC can, runs in a window or sometimes even full-screen in lowres. It act as a go between, a translator.
You could say that VPC runs in a layer put above your desktop screen.
A bit as dosbox does with low res dosgames, you even run 320x200 games on your monitor with dosbox.

[Japo]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dosraider @ Sep 22 2007, 09:12 PM) [snapback]312534[/snapback]</div>

A bit as dosbox does with low res dosgames, you even run 320x200 games on your monitor with dosbox.[/b]

That's scaling and aspect correction as I said. If I edit dosbox.conf and specify "fullresolution=320x200", my monitor won't be able and will run the game in a different resolution with the tiny 320x200 image surrounded by a black frame. The same happens if I try 640x400 so that scaling x2 the 320x200 image would fill the whole screen. So I must go for 640x480 and choose between using aspect correction or having the image fill the whole width but not the whole height (two black margins appear above and below the image in a Cinemascope fashion). The bottom line is that for changing the resolution of something it needs to be run in emulation or something similar, in your words by means of a "translator".

And yes I know that text modes are different from graphical ones BIOS-wise. However I think that a given monitor can't go beyond its few hard-wired resolutions. Text resolutions are characterized by columns x rows character resolutions, not by the real width x height pixel resolutions. It's up to the BIOS to translate the text (and graphical) modes into the code the monitor will obey, but deep below it stands true that a given monitor has limited options of *real* hardware pixel resolutions.

[Blood-Pigggy]

You can stretch games but you can't really change the resolution for older titles beyond what they give you, the only way that would be possible is if someone totally revamped their interface to fit the new resolution, and that's probably not going to happen.

[Japo]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Blood-Pigggy @ Sep 23 2007, 12:36 AM) [snapback]312567[/snapback]</div>

You can stretch games but you can't really change the resolution for older titles beyond what they give you, the only way that would be possible is if someone totally revamped their interface to fit the new resolution, and that's probably not going to happen.[/b]

That's granted, and it's why we're talking about translating with a third-party means the output from the game into an input for the monitor that it can handle.

[Maganda]

Sorry for not replying for so long but my graphics card died.

But I managed to get a refund and put the money towards buying a 8800GTX!

After installing this card on the latest beta drivers, the old problem has gone!

Though X-Com still doens't work...

Whereas before the image was displayed correctly but violently vibrating up and down (plus a small horizontal line of a spectrum of colours at the top of the screen), now the image is completely garbled. :S

The Longest Journey on the other hand works perfectly!

I don't know if the new drivers, card or both fixed that but anyway it's fixed.

What doesn't make sense to me though is that these games would not work on the former setup on my current TV, but did on the old one. The PC was exactly the same for both TVs, yet only faulty with old games on the new one. This makes me think it is more likely that the drivers were at fault but I don't know. They were the latest official nVidia ones, rather than the new beta set.