Topaze: Man, does this look ugly. Brr...
It's one of the best adventures, but it's also real eyesore on a 24'' monitor. Pity.
pkt-zer0: You should try running the install application and change the resolution to 320x240, then mess around with DOSbox's resolution and filters. By default, not much of the game is actually in hi-res, so with that option selected, the backgrounds are just blown up to twice their size without any filtering, which is uglier than it needs to be. And I think the default scaler is normal2x, so you'd be looking at an image made out of 4x4 pixel blocks.
Some clarification:
"the install application" refers to the DOS INSTALL.EXE that is in the GK game directory. You can probably just run it directly (I haven't tried), or you can open the dosboxGK.conf file in a text editor (Notepad, if nothing else), go to the bottom, and insert a line so that the last part of the file reads:
c:
cls
install
sierra
exit
That will cause it to run install before running the game.
BUT BEFORE YOU RUN OFF TO TRY THAT (switching from 640x480 to 320x240)...
The reasoning behind doing it is all about graphic scaling. DosBox can take the image that is generated by the software and apply upscaling filters to it (the selected filter is also in the dosboxGK.conf file, on a line that says scaler=normal2x (by default)). But it can only work on the image that was presented to it. And most of the filters rely on relationships between the pixels to decide what to do.
So this is where the 640x480 remastering gets nasty. Sierra just block upscaled all the backgrounds -- the simplest possible upscaling, you just replace each pixel with a 2x2 block of the same color. The problem is, when we try to apply DosBox filters, they see the 2x2 block, assume a higher importance of that color, and can't blend between those blocks like they would have blended between single pixels. In short, you'll see very little difference from any DosBox filter _IF_ the game is running in 640x480 mode.
Hence the tip to have the game render in its original 320x240 resolution. Now the game is providing single pixels to DosBox, and the filters can actually work as intended.
But is it worth it? Probably not. I just went through setting all of that up (which is a mild headache, by the way), and my impressions were:
1. video cutscenes filled more of the screen. This is a problem with the 640x480 version, where they didn't switch back to 320x240 screen resolution before playing videos, and their 386-based engine couldn't pull enough bandwidth for a higher resolution video. On the whole, though, the smaller video looked better, just smaller...
2. text/subtitles did seem to look better in upscaled 320x240 than they did in 640x480, but not enough to be worth the headache
3. backdrops looked slightly better, but blurrier -- common problem with filtering. The style of artwork does not lend itself well to the more advanced sharpness preserving filters.
4. cursor takes four times as much screen space, which I don't consider a good thing
5. interactable objects become indistinguishable from the backdrops. In the 640x480 mode, the objects did get redrawn at 640x480, so they are sharper and clearer than the backdrop, which makes them easier to see on the screen.
On the whole, I've decided to go back to the way it runs as installed. Maybe I'll get used to the giant blocks (I'm playing on an 84" projector screen, so when I say "giant blocks", I mean it...) I just wish that back when they did the remastering, Sierra had run all the backdrops through a bilinear or bicubic upscaling filter instead of just block upscaling them.
_Varyag_: A tip that works for me: alt tabbing out of the game switches it to a fully working windowed mode, try it out guys
You can also go to the directory where you installed GK and open a file called dosboxGK.conf (use Notepad if it asks). (Relatively) Near the top, you will find a line that says:
fullscreen=true
if you change that to:
fullscreen=false
it will open in a window originally.
For the more advanced: You can also play with fullresolution (for fullscreen) or windowresolution (for windowed), but I'd leave them alone unless you just enjoy twiddling or have special needs. (I fit both categories :) )
On the whole, the dosboxGK.conf file is reasonably self-explanatory, as long as you read through the parts that explain what the settings do.
