Hello,

I am going to share the configuration of DosBox that allows you to play with the Joystick without the drifting issue.
Also, as I have mentioned in other posts, Tie Fighter is very playable with the mouse. In fact, for me it plays better than using a Joystick. "Heresy!" some of you may cry, but stay a while a listen ;)
There are also optional graphic settings according to personal preferences.

Unfortunately, due to obvious reasons, this only applies for the 1994 version where we are stuck with awful 320x240 resolution. However, it will definitely work with the 1995 Collector's edition that everyone around here is waiting for.

So let's start. Go to your Tie Fighter installation folder and open the file "dosbox_tie.conf" in notepad. Needless to say, if you want to do this for your old copy of Tie Fighter, you need to edit the original "dosbox-0.74.conf" file.

============
Fix Joystick drift
============

Search for "[joystick]" and find the "timed" parameter. You need to set this to value "false"

This one is already hinted by DoxBox:
# timed: enable timed intervals for axis. Experiment with this option, if your joystick drifts (away).

=============
Play with mouse
=============

The main reason for why playing the game with the mouse back in the days was a no go, is due to the painfully slow sensitivity. Well, this is no longer an impediment thanks to our favorite emulation environment.

Search for "sensitivity". You will find it at the beginning of the config file (if you are in the joystick section remember to switch search direction to "up" because notepad is not that smart).

The default value is 100. Set it to 600 for e.g. This is perfect for me, but you should experiment.

The only problem you'll have is the ultra high sensitivity in the menus. Once in the simulator, your Tie Fighter will be very responsive and accurate. You will be able to turn the craft with very little mouse movement. And I am convinced that you will renounce the Joystick :)

Mouse precision is unmatched! Now go and hunt the pixels of those pesky mines

=======
Graphics
=======

And now for the optional settings.
I don't like to play full screen and prefer windowed mode, so I change the following:

fullscreen=false
windowresolution=1280x1024
output=ddraw

Finally, I modify the render. Have a look at http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Scaler for examples

scaler=hq2x


I hope this will make your Tie Fighter experience much more enjoyable.

Cheers!

and as most people nowadays have widescreens you can set the resolution for fullscreen (which is empty by default) to avoid the picture gets stretched. aspect=true is already set, but it doesnt work without some kind of fullscreen-resolution set.

i use "desktop" (dosbos will use the resolution your desktop is set to) or "native" (dosbox uses the native resolution of your monitor)

like

fullresolution=desktop

This sounds great, thanks.

I wouldn't advise using ddraw. Windows 8 in particular gimps ddraw a lot, which means that it has no linear filtering and also is very slow at high resolutions.

opengl output is a better choice for a general guide, and looks the same in the end.

Also, I find that mouse sensitivity=300 or even 200 is more than enough for good mouse control, and the menu cursor is still useable.

You should also advocate the joystick setting swap34=true, since there is a TSR called JOY.COM that allows you to map throttle to a joystick axis, but modern joysticks usually have the throttle and twist rudder axes swapped.