What's the proper way of playing old, low resolution games on modern monitors?

[DalekFlay]

That's just your nostalgia talking. The game was really that pixelated. Source: I still play those games on an actual, old-as-fuck computer. The pixels really were that big. But I like big pixels and I cannot lie.

I thought he was more saying CRT monitors hid a lot of that, which is true to some extent. It's why there are "CRT filters" in pixel game emulators, even though they suck ass.

 

[visions]

Last time I plugged my laptop to a CRT to play HoMM 1 or 2 and compare the images, I was shocked by how much less pixellated the image looked on the CRT. The difference was very noticeable.

 

[schru]

Maggot posted very nice photos of his CRT screen earlier in this thread that showed very well how graphics looked crisp, yet not too sharp on those monitors. There was also a blending of colours between adjacent pixels that made image smoother without blurring it in a bad way, and this is what LCDs most sorely lack. Unfortunately Maggot's photos are no longer up. I had two of them saved:

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Here is the result I obtained with dgVoodoo's CRT shader (there's some glare and blurriness due to the camera; I couldn't capture screenshots of games running on dgVoodoo at the time):

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Here's a photo of Fallout on a CRT:

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And here's Heretic with the CRT.D3D.fx shader with a few features disabled. Note how much smoother the weapon, the sky, or those studded columns look:

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[ItsChon]

Tell you what, I've never played this game using the steps suggested by Agris that you linked, and tbh, all the screenshots of the game look way better than I remember. I'm going to redownload the game and see what's up. Either my opinion will have changed, or I'll be able to explain to you my exact problems to you with my own screenshots to back up my points properly.

Good on you for at least being willing to think of this differently. Presentation (resolution) really does make a huge difference, it's why I went to the trouble of documenting how to play those games and advocate for isometric games with 2D art to have resolution-independent presentation of game world and UI element sizing. The original fallouts were never meant to be viewed as ant colonies, same with the infinity engine games, and you lose a really compelling aspect of the experience if you play then in modern HD resolution.

I tried following the steps out outlined in the link that Black Angel posted but when I tried to change the resolution to 960x540

the game doesn't load? And where do I find draw.ini? Is that the text file that's brought up by selecting manually edit config?

edit: fixed

edit 2: octavius i said i fixed it u son of a bitch

 

[agris]

ItsChon oi, the instructions never mention that program. why are you using it? go into the install directory and look at the files; that's where you'll find the various .inis. The game isn't loading because 960x540 isn't a standard resolution, but by following the instructions I laid out you get around that by rendering the game in an external resolution of 1920x1080 and internal of 960x540.

If you don't know how to get into the fallout install directory and edit .ini files, someone more charitable than me may help you. sorry, i don't have the patience.

 

[agris]

Infinitron in your desire to partition posts into the "correct" threads, you've stripped this helpless zoomer of his support network. people were watching that other thread, not this one. he would have gotten support posting the above in the original thread, he's likely going to wither on the vine of ignorance here.

 

[ItsChon]

ItsChon oi, the instructions never mention that program. why are you using it? go into the install directory and look at the files; that's where you'll find the various .inis. The game isn't loading because 960x540 isn't a standard resolution, but by following the instructions I laid out you get around that by rendering the game in an external resolution of 1920x1080 and internal of 960x540.

If you don't know how to get into the fallout install directory and edit .ini files, someone more charitable than me may help you. sorry, i don't have the patience.

I know how to get to the Fallout director and edit .ini files, the problem is my Fallout game folder doesn't have any .ini files. It's all _res or _res.dll.

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Or am I retarded and is my f1_res config file my ini file? I can edit shit like graphics mode and resolution in it as I've fucked around with in the past, but I don't see the GPUBlt option. Also this res config file only offers graphics_mode options ranging from 0-2

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If I use the high_res_patch download that comes with the game I get a file that can be accessed in my windows roaming directory, and it looks like this

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which again allows me to edit Graphics_Mode and my resolution like in your post, but I don't see any option to edit something called GPUBlt. Do I need to get FO from something different than gog?

Forgive me if I'm missing a completely obvious solution. I'm not experienced with computers but I'd like to think I'm not a complete retard that can't follow instructions.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

high resolution hacks are shit and should be avoided
no, the designers never intended the game to look like this lmao

 

[agris]

ItsChon what is your base install, Fallout 2 from… CD (iso)? gog? steam?

 

[ItsChon]

ItsChon what is your base install, Fallout 2 from… CD (iso)? gog? steam?

https://af.gog.com/en/game/fallout?as=1649904300

GOG download.

 

[agris]

ItsChon what is your base install, Fallout 2 from… CD (iso)? gog? steam?

https://af.gog.com/en/game/fallout?as=1649904300

GOG download.

Ok, so what's not clear about this?

in draw.ini set graphics mode to 4 or 5 (5 and playing with borderless gaming is superior for multi monitor users IMO, mouse is still trapped in window until you alt-tab), the resolution to your desktop's native 1920x1080, and GPUBlt=1. That's it for ddraw.

In f2_res.ini, set graphics_mode=0 which passes along game window resolution control to ddraw. Put scale_2x=0, and set the screen resolution to 960 and 540 (600 for 16:10 owners). For fullscreen colors, set it to 8, and all the other graphics options are the same. Windowed does not need to be set to 1 in the subsequent options if you're using dx9 windowed mode, ddraw will handle that.

Launch the game with the fallout2HR.exe file, that's the .exe that's patched to use widescreen resolution. Don't use any of that other shit. I just checked it on a fresh gog install, works fine.

 

[ItsChon]

Ok, so what's not clear about this?

I posted pictures of what my Fallout folder looks like and I don't have a draw.ini file in there. Your instructions are very clear but I need these files in my folder so that I can follow them. There is a ddraw.dll file, which when I open has a bunch of strange characters and random text.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

There is a ddraw.dll file, which when I open has a bunch of strange characters and random text.

zoomers are adorable

 

[agris]

ItsChon so you’re playing fallout 1, not 2. I asked you to confirm fallout 2 version and you didn’t correct me.

Fallout 1 is the superior of the two, so you’re on the right path. Grab the sfall1 file from here, extract it to your root fallout 1 directory, overwriting when asked, then follow the directions I posted above for Fallout 1.5/2

 

[ItsChon]

ItsChon so you’re playing fallout 1, not 2. I asked you to confirm fallout 2 version and you didn’t correct me.

Fallout 1 is the superior of the two, so you’re on the right path. Grab the sfall1 file from here, extract it to your root fallout 1 directory, overwriting when asked, then follow the directions I posted above for Fallout 1.5/2

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Thanks for the help! Not sure how I missed everyone asking me about Fallout 2, it's probably because I was talking about Fallout 1 in the original thread and that's what my brain got stuck on. Was simple enough once I actually had the files I was supposed to edit.

 

[agris]

Yo ItsChon bro, you’ve got a 4:3 internal resolution (1024x768) mapped into your 16:9 aspect ratio screen (1920x1080). You need to change the 1024 resolution to 960x540, then the image won’t look distorted like it does in your screenshot.

 

[ItsChon]

Yo ItsChon bro, you’ve got a 4:3 internal resolution (1024x768) mapped into your 16:9 aspect ratio screen (1920x1080). You need to change the 1024 resolution to 960x540, then the image won’t look distorted like it does in your screenshot.

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My ddraw.ini file and my f1_res.ini file. I followed the instructions like you said I believe but for some reason the 960x540 resolution doesn't get loaded up in the game? The GOG download comes with a high resolution patch 4.1.8 that I haven't downloaded, is that why this is happening?

 

[agris]

Humm. No, it’s the resolution patcher program they ship with F1. Imma download the gog release and poke around, I’ll let you know what to do to fix it tomorrow.

 

[Alienman]

Curious about a thing. When playing old games on my dual monitor setup that has lower resolution than native it messes up the format/resolution on the second monitor. Like if I have a Youtube video running on the second monitor the whole thing gets misplaced and hidden half out of view. Just wondering if there is a way to fix this?

 

[agris]

Curious about a thing. When playing old games on my dual monitor setup that has lower resolution than native it messes up the format/resolution on the second monitor. Like if I have a Youtube video running on the second monitor the whole thing gets misplaced and hidden half out of view. Just wondering if there is a way to fix this?

Some games have community renderer swaps that let you separate game resolution from window resolution. The solution to your problem is to not change the resolution of your main monitor, yet have the game itself render at a lower resolution and be stretched, aspect-ratio correct, to fill that window. I talk about this as internal vs external resolution, and it's what I'm trying to help ItsChon with. Fallout 1 and 2 have a community application called Sfall that, when combined with the high resolution patch, let you play them at your desktop's native resolution but the games themselves are rendered at a much lower resolution, to avoid the effect that rusty highlighted with his 4k arcanum pic. For really old games like the Fallouts, playing in 960x540 internal with external set to your native resolution is the ideal, imo. For the infinity engine games, playing at something like 1280x720 is ideal.

ItsChon it works for me from a fresh gog install of F1, are you sure you *saved* fi_res.ini after you edited it? the default resolution is 1024 x 768 which is what your screenshot shows.. and make sure to launch using falloutwHR.exe, not anything else.

edit: check out dgvoodoo for whatever it is you're trying to play Alienman, I believe it lets you specify a window resolution and a game resolution,

 

[luj1]

high resolution hacks are shit and should be avoided
no, the designers never intended the game to look like this lmao

yup exactly

 

[luj1]

I grew up on CRTs (Samsung syncmaster was the best)... these old games look and play great on them

i actually still have my old vintage pc with 32 mb and 60 gb maxtor hdd somewhere in the basement

 

[agris]

high resolution hacks are shit and should be avoided
no, the designers never intended the game to look like this lmao

yup exactly

that's why you have to do it the right way

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[ItsChon]

ItsChon it works for me from a fresh gog install of F1, are you sure you *saved* fi_res.ini after you edited it? the default resolution is 1024 x 768 which is what your screenshot shows.. and make sure to launch using falloutwHR.exe, not anything else.

100% sure. I think launching the game in windowed mode is what causes it to revert back to the default resolution. When I set the graphics mode to 4 (fullscreen) in ddraw.ini, everything fits on the screen as it should. That's fine as fullscreen works for me but would be interesting to know why that happens.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Currently using a 1920 X 1080p TV for my gaming. Until I get my new Sony 4K 65" X90J in a couple of weeks, I've tried to avoid anything higher than 1280 X 720 with older games, otherwise it's always like this with the damn UI: