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[Addison]

Hey guys.

Yeah, I own Theme Hospital, actually it's my wife's and it runs awesome on our computer.

The thing is, it's for Windows but I would like to run in under DosBox.

The reasoning behind this is so I can play it on my TV, I've got a soft-modded Xbox.

Are they any files that I can substitute or something that I can do so it will run under DosBox?

Has anybody every even played this game under DosBox, if so, how was the framerate and game speed?

That's for helping this troubled soul out.

[The Fifth Horseman]

It depends whether your version is a dual-system DOS/Windows one or a Windows-only one. In the latter case, that would be impossible.

I suggest you mount the CD under DosBox and try running whatever executables are on it - simply to see whether there is a version of the installer on it that was meant to run in DOS.

[Addison]

Greetings Horseman.

Well, fortunately you were correct. I do have the dual version, I just had to look around in the folders. Thanks for the terrific advice.

I do however have one last question. How can I find out what the screen resolution is for a game that's running under DOSBOX and not running under full screen mode?

Thanks.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Typically by just looking at the size of the window. Most common resolutions are 320x200 (8:5 aspect), 320x240 (4:3), 640x400 (8:5) and 640x480 (4:3).

What do you need that for?

[Addison]

I'm attempting to take some of the old games that I have on CD and run them using DosXbox, that way I can play them over again on my television instead of sitting in front of a computer screen.

If I know the default screen resolution for a certain game, I was just thinking of doubling that number so it would display a little better on my TV instead of trying to stretch each game to full screen.

Hope that makes sense to ya.

[The Fifth Horseman]

For windowed modes, it doesn't really matter what it exactly is as long as it's got 4:3 aspect ratio (and aspect correction too - that's important, trust me). Can be 640x480, 800x600 (which I'm using as my default windowed resolution), 1024x768 and anything else you like as long as your display can handle it.

As for fixing distorted image in fullscreen mode, change fullscreen resolution ("fullresolution" in Dosbox.conf) to a fixed one rather than default "original" and enable aspect correction in Dosbox.conf. That helped me when I had that issue with my regular CRT display.

[Addison]

Okay, so it took me 2 days and reading your post 5 times before it all finally clicked and made perfect sense to me.

Thanks a bunch for the detailed answer. Someday, someone should write a song about you.

One last and final question if you don't mind, hopefully it doesn't sound like I'm coming across vainly to you.


I'm a complete junkie when it comes to watching anything in widescreen or letterbox form even though I just have a standard 4:3 aspect ratio Sony Trinitron television.

Is this even possible to achieve for someone that is a pixel purist and would like to avoid any type of distortion?

So say a DOS game's default resolution is 320x200, how would you adjust that to letterbox form on your television, or wouldn't you?

Thanks again.

[The Fifth Horseman]

I'm a complete junkie when it comes to watching anything in widescreen or letterbox form even though I just have a standard 4:3 aspect ratio Sony Trinitron television.

Is this even possible to achieve for someone that is a pixel purist and would like to avoid any type of distortion?

So say a DOS game's default resolution is 320x200, how would you adjust that to letterbox form on your television, or wouldn't you?[/b]

No way I know of, at least.

For games with 8:5 aspect ratio (320x200, 640x400), you can achieve something close to that by not enabling aspect correction. Unfortunately, that will also result in a slightly squashed appearance.