Which output is best on a Nvidia GPU, Intel CPU and Windows 7 64-bit? If there's balance difference (eg good stability but bad performance or good performance but more glitches) please name them.

Also, I put 1920x1080 as my resolution and it sort of worked but it's not fullscreen exactly, I have very small bars. Is there anything that can be done? I put the res on both fullscreen and window in the config file as well as running fullscreen and double buffering (does VSync drain any performance. MSI AB reports in-game that my GPU isn't even utilized 1% of its data processing which is annoying but it's old so it's understandable).

Any changes one should do on the CPU cycles and all that? I know this isn't really the kind of game where performance is important but I always games more when they are as optimal as I can make them.

Also, running this old game on a high resolution makes text rather hard to read so is there any modification one could make to make it less jaggy and unfocused? I've forced 16xAF as always through nvidias CP but I'm not sure if it works with an emulator like DOSBox. Perhaps a magnication filter is available, I like those.

I'll be honest. Most of what you ask is way over my head. However, when you talk about resolution I find myself curious. Vanilla has only one resolution, no matter what you set your PC/monitor to. The one way around this is with the Exult project. You might want to check out their web site and forum, see if they have answers to your questions (connected to Exult installations, of course).

Thanks, I will take a look at that.

EDIT: Hmm, I don't know. Those kind of projects, they usually end up dead because the creators don't have time or the resources to continue and followers aren't that high.

On the page I noticed that apparently there's some sort of bug that is introduced that makes items disappear permanently (this could be a very nasty game breaker) and that makes the game crash more.

When you say there's only one resolution, that may be true. It may have stretched the resolution's original size to the one I wrote so everything looks close but very pixelated (quite annoying).

EDIT2: After testing Exult it seems to be exactly what I'm looking for. :)

It's pretty stable now, so even if they leave, it will still be around. The bug is specific to the current public release. You can always download the previous release. It may not have all the latest changes, but it has a good number of screen resolutions as well as a scroll smoother for when you move about. And there are a few nice patches and mods available. The Black Gate Keyring mod is a must in my opinion.

A little late in this reply, but I wanted to mention that you can also 'fix' the jaggies/pixellation without using Exult by using the GOG dosbox graphic mode setup program that came with U7. In the "advanced settings' tab, change the scaling engine to something else that suits you. I'm guessing you'll find the advmame or hqx engines to be the best

I tried the advanced settings but it never works with dosbox games I try from GOG. There's always some weird error that I think I read here wasn't that uncommon.

I'm not sure bumping is exactly allowed here but since I'm not doing it often and it would be redundant to make a new thread of exactly the same type of thread I think it should be okay.

Anyway, I went back to the game I want to play this game but it's sort of hard. I think I've given up on Exult as their main forum is up to date and they still haven't figured out how to fix that disappearing bug and it seems DosBox is more stable so..

Now, to the settings. First, I'm trying to run in fullscreen with 1920x1080 and hq3x scaler but it's hard, always some issue. I've attached a file which shows how it runs with Direct3D as output.

Why does the picture look like that? If I move it gets reset but as soon as I move with the mouse the picture gets messed up.

If I run surface scaler doesn't work and if I run DDraw I get 4:3 (why is that?). I think OpenGl had some other issue and it suffers from performance issues as well. The only thing that works so far is the mouse movement, it's perfect. No lagging, it was lagging has hell with Exult so at least that's fixed.

I'm not sure if this game is stable with 1080p resolution but if it is I would like to get it to work with that and the scaler hq3x is also sort of required depending on my options.

I tried frameskip but is something I can't run with. Is there anyway to limit the engine's performance without overusing it so when the game gets graphically intense (I read that later on it will be) I won't suffer from yet another performance related issue. CPU cycles seem to be able to offset this issue but I'm not sure what do with it.

Rather than trying to run DOSBox at the actual 1080p resolution you should try running at a lower resolution with a 2x scaler. You can adjust the resolution as required to get the right fit depending on how much of your screen you want it to take up.

The end result will look reasonably close to the 3x filter while offering much better performance and probably also eliminating the visual glitches.

But I'm already using the hq3x, isn't that 3x? Also, is even widescreen supported?

After some testing, DDraw seems to work. No visual glitches really but the movement is kind of clunky (this was very nice in Exult unfortunately with the smooth scrolling) and I don't have 1080p exactly, it's with the 4:3 format. The format isn't a deal breaker but the movement issue is quite annoying, I would prefer to fix that. Perhaps that could be fixed with the correct combination of resolution and output (probably output mostly).

As it is now with Exult, it seems to work just fine (except the mouse is slow as hell) but the disappear bug is very annoying for this kind of game especially the randomness of it. With my luck, I would probably start getting it at 40-60% of progress and in knowing that I'm holding off with that.

Edit: I forgot. If widescreen is supported (along with scaling, which output) which is the highest 16:9 resolution you would recommend but is lower than 1080p?

Edit2: It seems I can't get widescreen to work. I tried 1280x720 but it made no difference, I don't exactly have performance issue in the usual sense. It's more like the movement is just off because it's old game, I know the Exult team had a hard time figuring out how the animations were actually moving in the original code.

Unfortunately, in original DOS version, widescreen is not really possible. Of course you can set up your graphics card to stretch the resolution to full screen, but you will get wideloaded characters :)

I think best you can do is to set up dosbox to use ddraw or opengl, and use any 3x scaler. Then, use original resolution, which is not actually original but 3x scaled resolution. You should get full screen with aspect ratio of 4:3.

EDIT. By the way, there is one trick to get almost wide- & fullscreen without too noticeable stretching. Just disable option "Aspect ration correction" (aspect=false dosboxXXX.conf file setting). I am not sure if this option can be changed with graphics mode setup program or not.

I will try that, thanks.

That will actually work because the original dos vga mode 320x200 does not have square pixels. If aspect ratio correction is turned off, dosbox will simply apply the 3x scaler (bringing the resolution to 960x600).

I just tried it and I think I prefer full native because I can see more of the world then. I'm not sure yet how I want to play.

Is it possible to change hotkeys when you play via DosBox?

No. Only with exult