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Hello everyone!

I finally got around to updating the Tweak Guide for Strike Commander!

Video: Strike Commander Tweak Guide GOG


♦I am covering the following tweaks♦

- Graphics: Nice full-screen 4:3 aspect ratio correct image

- Sound: Higher sample rate for better sound quality

- Music: Setting up and configuring General MIDI

- Joystick: Thrustmaster Flight Control System, Configuring POV hat and Rudder

- Playing on DOS Gaming PC: Burning an original installation CD


♦Download links♦

Virtual MIDI Synth: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth#download

SoundFonts: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth#soundfonts
Post edited July 14, 2015 by philscomputerlab
If you care about accurate emulation of the game, you may want to try output=openglnb instead of output=opengl. The "opengl" option applies bilinear filtering, which slightly smudges the graphics throughout the game (i.e. even the menus). The "openglnb" option, on the other hand, has "no bilinear," which retains the sharper, more pixelated look that the game was meant to have. At such a low resolution of 320x200, the difference isn't dramatic, but you can notice it if you switch between them.

Edit: After playing with openglnb some more, I see that it has some issues with scaling. I really don't like how much filtering the opengl setting applies, though, since it washes out the colors and detail by slightly blurring everything. On close inspection, I've discovered that ddraw does the same thing, though not quite to the same extent as opengl. I'm starting to appreciate the ol' overlay setting a lot more. It applies no filtering, so games look as pixelated as they should, and it doesn't appear to have any scaling issues. To me, output=overlay and fulldouble=false provide the most accurate and smoothest graphics in Strike Commander.
Post edited July 07, 2017 by jnisbet
Yea I disagree. It won't look "as it should", as most of these games run at 320 x 200 resolution and on modern screens openglnb will give you pixels of different sizes. It looks really odd, especially on fonts. So while OpenGL does you give you a softer image, I feel it's the best compromise.

There are projects out there that can do pixel perfect scaling, but that's beyond most peoples interest. Those who care, they have it already figured out and setup the way they want.
I agree with you now about the scaling/pixel issues with openglnb. As I added, though, I don't see the same issues with overlay. It seems to me to give the best of both worlds: no scaling/pixel issues and minimal softening/blurring of the image. Before, I assumed that ddraw and opengl would be better than overlay, but that doesn't seem to be the case, at least at low resolutions of only 320x200.
Unless you have a 1600x1200 screen it's not possible on LCDs to have the correct aspect ratio and pixels of identical sizes. The math just doesn't check out.

A lot of people play 320x200 without aspect ratio correction, then you do get identical pixels, but the image is horizontally stretched.
Best non blurry pixels I got with output=overlay and scaler=normal3x and aspect=true,
it essentially still stretches an output image of 960x720 but almost without the visible oddly artifacts when correcting the aspect ration from 320x200 -> 320x240 / 320x200 -> 640x480 on lower scalers.

The resulting pixels alternate between 3 and 4 pixels height and do not seem to bleed into each other like on lower scalers.

As I use linux, your milage may vary, maybe its also worth a look how it renders in openglnb.

EDIT: seems "resulting pixels alternate between 3 and 4 pixels" are exactly what happens with openglnb, opengl seems to blur more on lower scalers though , so normal3x is slightly clearer than normal2x
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Post edited September 23, 2017 by Harr-Nuta
You might care to give DOSBox ECE a try, since it incorporates a "pixel perfect" patch that might eliminate that alternating "between 3 and 4 pixels" that you're having. It's not updated for Linux anymore, but the last version is from only a few months ago.

Linux versions: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BxEUSpZ8xHkvYWUyUzdKSDZxVGc

Windows versions: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BxEUSpZ8xHkvS2tCbEJRUXpnNTg
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jnisbet: You might care to give DOSBox ECE a try, since it incorporates a "pixel perfect" patch that might eliminate that alternating "between 3 and 4 pixels" that you're having. It's not updated for Linux anymore, but the last version is from only a few months ago.
I wasn't aware that patch made it into any existing dosbox builds , nice , just stumbled on the pixel perfect patch after checking for better scaling after my post here and it is amazing

The scaler is very fast (for me at least) , has the option of nearly fullscreen with zero blurring (minimal top/bottom borders) or fullscreen with almost no blur and looks very nice (screenshot attached).

As I build dosbox myself I however have no idea how good/fast/stable the ECE edition is.
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Hi guys,

Been trying to get my X52 throttle to work, I madea profile but the game crashes with it loaded. Has anyone had any luck with a custom X52 profile before?
Hey phil; everyone else;
I gave your guide a whirl and after messing around with trying to create a mapper file I could actually save instead of it going to C:\Users\[name]AppData\Local\DOSBox\mapper-0.74.map I found that mapping yaw to , and . worked.

I have the same stick as you Phil.
However, mapping the face buttons on the stick to things like - and = (for throttle control) didn't work. They still do the function the game says they do, namely flip through weapons and fire.

Has anyone come across this?

edit: turns out half of the problem is dosbox. Replacing 0.74 with a recent community SVN restores mapper functionality and allows me to map the buttons. Now I've mapped the two left most buttons on the T.16000M to increase and decrease speed. However the game also made these change weapon and fire weapon. So the game now does both. Any Ideas?

E2: I forgot about the TARGET software, that should do it.
Post edited January 20, 2018 by hollenhammer
Very helpful post, especially the video on youtube. Helped me get the game running as it should.