Dosbox on pi 4, game window is fullscreen but not centered on screen

quicksilver

@mitu I'm mainly using tie fighter collectors CD-rom version. That game has an option to run 640x480 res during missions and it's very demanding. It's especially noticable when large ships and space stations are on screen. With output=overlay and tie fighter set to 640x480, the game can become a slide show if many ships/large ships are on screen. With output=surface performance is massively improved. I have also tested using Amazon Trail windows 3.1 version. There is a dissolve effect when the main menu comes up that seems to be really taxing. When output=overlay the dissolve effect takes a long time to finish. Output=surface and it's nearly instantaneous. Dispmanx does slow it down a little but it seems to be the only way to get output=surface fullscreen.

Glaglachel

@quicksilver I have exactly the same issue with the last 4.6 version on my RPI4 : with dispmanx enabled, the aspect parameter from the conf files is completely ignored.

I can also achieve a correct scale centered display when specifying the windowresolution but it means I have to configure output = overlay instead of output = surface and the final aspect is not really good, texts on games are readable but not as smooth as it is with my RPI3B+ with Retropie 4.4 (without any particular configuration compared to the default conf file).

I'm doing my test with my CD version of Heroes of Might & Magic.

quicksilver

@Glaglachel yes unfortunately dosbox doesn't behave the same way on the pi 4. Performance is actually better on my pi 3. Hopefully that can be fixed at some point because for now I cant find a perfect solution via the settings.

Glaglachel

@quicksilver Let's hope so :) I've just rebuilt one RPI3B+ with the last retropie 4.6 and everything is working as expected with no need to use dispmanx and parameters in my conf file are the same than previous versions :

fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=original
windowresolution=original
output=surface

aspect=false
scaler=none

RetroJoe

@Glaglachel

I'm using original Dosbox on my pi4
Same as I used on pi3
And all games I've tested so far approx 25 I had on pi3 are working great
I do have the screen of center but no issues
I tried the sdl2 version that was sluggish

quicksilver

@RetroJoe said in Dosbox on pi 4, game window is fullscreen but not centered on screen:

And all games I've tested so far approx 25 I had on pi3 are working great

I do have the screen of center but no issues

You can change to fullscreen=false in the dosbox.conf file and it will center the display. Most undemanding games do work just fine on the pi 4, it's just the more demanding games that the difference is noticable.

RetroJoe

@quicksilver
That makes
the screen tiny when loading and playing a dos game.

I put back to true.

Any other suggestions?
Thanks

quicksilver

@RetroJoe if you set it to fullscreen=false make sure that the window resolution setting is set to the resolution of your display.

RetroJoe

@quicksilver thanks that fixed it 👍😁

Glaglachel

@RetroJoe Indeed, all my games are running too but not as good as on my RPI3. If I can have a good centered fullscreen ratio and keep output = surface, I will be happy

RetroJoe

@Glaglachel makes sense I'm sure it will get improved in time. I'm just happy to play them still on pi4 for now.

Glaglachel

I finally tested with dosbox-sdl2 and graphic result is quite good with default parameters in .conf file. Performance is maybe a little under dosbox but for now it is a good compromise :-) Need to be tested on longer game sessions.

RetroJoe

dosbox-sdl2 gave me poor performance, even with games like arkanoid.

ParadoxGBB

Just wanted to chime in with my findings as well. Since setting up my pi4 I noticed the same thing --- the defaults overwrote dosbox-SVN.conf but overlay no longer seeems to respect placement, resolution, or scaling compared to the 3B.

I had success with the following settings for now:

fullscreen=false
windowresolution=1920x1080
frameskip=1

I noticed particularly bad performance for fade in/out sequences --- the baseline testing program I was focused on tuning was Zoop. The frameskip in particular helped thread the needle between the resolution/scale and performance for me.

Anyone try experimenting with config.txt settings in the boot folder to see if anything in there is causing a problem?

quicksilver

@ParadoxGBB said in Dosbox on pi 4, game window is fullscreen but not centered on screen:

Anyone try experimenting with config.txt settings in the boot folder to see if anything in there is causing a problem?

The issue is that the pi 4 uses different display drivers compared to previous pi models. If you scroll up a ways you'll see that mitu provided a basic explanation of the issue. At the moment there isn't anything we can do about it. I've tried every combination of settings to try to get past the scaling issue and unfortunately they all involve using output=overlay, which is just too demanding for 3d dos games. So for now I'm just playing those dos games on my pi 3.

quicksilver

So I started using raspi-config to set display res to 640x480, rebooting then playing my dosbox games using output=surface. It's the only way I can get it to work fullscreen and give the performance I'm looking for. Then if I want to play other emulators I revert back to 1080p. It's a very clunky way of doing it but for now it's all I can come up with. I wish there was a better way to switch video modes on the fly on the pi 4.

fede999

@quicksilver said in Dosbox on pi 4, game window is fullscreen but not centered on screen:

So I started using raspi-config to set display res to 640x480, rebooting then playing my dosbox games using output=surface. It's the only way I can get it to work fullscreen and give the performance I'm looking for. Then if I want to play other emulators I revert back to 1080p. It's a very clunky way of doing it but for now it's all I can come up with. I wish there was a better way to switch video modes on the fly on the pi 4.

I've got the same problem on my Pi 4 (my Pi3B+ works perfectly with default config) and it's the only way I've managed to play games with a correct aspect ratio.
However, I 've found it's not a "one size fits all" solution, as several games get a forced small window in the center or on the top of the screen, despite having the same config settings as other running full screen. What could it be?

Here's my dosbox config, I'm on a 1920x1080 tv:
fullscreen = true
fulldouble = false
fullresolution = original
windowresolution = original
output = overlay
autolock = true
sensitivity = 100
waitonerror = true
priority = higher,normal
mapperfile = mapper-SVN.map
usescancodes = false
frameskip = 0
aspect = true
scaler = none

It's a real bummer, since playing DOS games with improved graphics was one of the reasons for upgrading to the Pi 4.

shavecat

Have the same issue too :\

quicksilver

This is my latest workaround for this issue. Youll need to create two scripts and place them in:/opt/retropie/configs/all/

runcommand-onstart.sh:

#! /usr/bin/env bash
echo "Hello logfile - runcommand-onstart checking in here" >&2
#START DOSBOX SECTION - SNIP CONTENTS IF PASTING INTO EXISTING SCRIPT
if [ $2 = "dosbox" ]
then
    echo "dosbox detected - changing video mode to 640x480@60hz" >&2
    tvservice -e "DMT 4"
fi
#END DOSBOX SECTION

runcommand-onend.sh:

#! /usr/bin/env bash
echo "Hello logfile - runcommand-onend checking in here" >&2
#START DOSBOX SECTION - SNIP HERE IF PASTING INTO EXISITNG SCRIPT
if [ $2 = "dosbox" ]
then
    echo "Reverting display back to preferred mode" >&2
    tvservice -p
fi
#END DOSBOX SECTION

This script/hack will force 640x480 mode for Dosbox, so your TV will need to support that mode, otherwise modify the script to a mode your TV does support (as close to 640x480 as you can).

For best performance in full-screen use these dosbox settings in conjunction with the above scripts:

fullscreen = true
fulldouble       = false
fullresolution = original
windowresolution = original
output = surface
autolock         = true
sensitivity      = 100
waitonerror      = true
priority         = higher,normal
usescancodes = false
frameskip = 0
aspect    = true
scaler = normal2x

These setting are working great for me and I can now run Tie Fighter Collectors CD-ROM edition in fullscreen with SVGA mode (gorgeous 640x480 resolution during gameplay) with absolutely no slow down. All 30 of the dos games I have on my pi are working good with these settings. I did have to lower the display res of windows 3.1 from 800x600 to 640x480 for my windows 3.1 games to display correctly.

If you run into issues let me know! :)

quicksilver

@fede999 said in Dosbox on pi 4, game window is fullscreen but not centered on screen:

@quicksilver said in Dosbox on pi 4, game window is fullscreen but not centered on screen:

So I started using raspi-config to set display res to 640x480, rebooting then playing my dosbox games using output=surface. It's the only way I can get it to work fullscreen and give the performance I'm looking for. Then if I want to play other emulators I revert back to 1080p. It's a very clunky way of doing it but for now it's all I can come up with. I wish there was a better way to switch video modes on the fly on the pi 4.

I've got the same problem on my Pi 4 (my Pi3B+ works perfectly with default config) and it's the only way I've managed to play games with a correct aspect ratio.
However, I 've found it's not a "one size fits all" solution, as several games get a forced small window in the center or on the top of the screen, despite having the same config settings as other running full screen. What could it be?

Here's my dosbox config, I'm on a 1920x1080 tv:
fullscreen = true
fulldouble = false
fullresolution = original
windowresolution = original
output = overlay
autolock = true
sensitivity = 100
waitonerror = true
priority = higher,normal
mapperfile = mapper-SVN.map
usescancodes = false
frameskip = 0
aspect = true
scaler = none

It's a real bummer, since playing DOS games with improved graphics was one of the reasons for upgrading to the Pi 4.

I would recommend trying the settings in my above post first as I think it will give you the best performance on the pi 4 (better than the pi 3!)

However if you don't want to use that method for whatever reason then you'll need to change to these settings:

fullscreen = false
fulldouble       = false
fullresolution = original
windowresolution = 1920x1080
output = overlay

Just be aware that performance will still not be as good as your pi 3. So I'd encourage you to use my above method.