Did a Video That "Remasters" Shadow of the Comet and Fixes All Its Technical Problems

[Bobbert]

I don't usually post videos on Steam, but I figured this one might be of interest to fans of the game.

I love Shadow of the Comet, but in its current state it's pretty broken. I used video editing to “remaster” Shadow of the Comet and fix its most glaring issues and make it a more entertaining experience (full list of fixes below). It required thousands of edits and an entirely new custom subtitle track (that finally fixes the awkward pauses and desynchronization).

List of fixes:

Animations playing at 2x speed - Fixed
Voice tracks desyncing from subtitles - Fixed
Missing SFX - Fixed
Subtitles hard to read - Fixed
Soundtrack Not Playing - Fixed
Intro not synced with music - Fixed
Crackling Audio - Mostly Fixed
Miss Picott - You can’t fix Miss Picott!

Steam thinks the end of the URL for this video link is a swear word so it won't let me post it! I guess if you want to check it out you can either just search for it on YouTube ("Shadow of the Comet Remastered" should do it),

or you can copy and paste this url and remove the spaces.
youtube. com/watch?v=fU XWA ncLqt8


let me know what you think! :)

[Bobbert]

Originally posted by catbox:

i guess for some people the proper 4:3 aspect with "black bars" is a problem.

yes the subtitles in dosbox are not good

its a good looking vid, ill be back when i finish my playthrough of day 2+

Hi! Glad you like the vid!

By the way, 4:3 isn't the correct aspect ratio for this game. It's got something to do with the fact that a lot of these classic DOS games used non-square pixels (because old CRT screens stretched pixels horizontally). When you use the 4:3 aspect ratio you're squashing those non-square pixels into squares so everything looks taller than it should. (try measuring the diameter of the wheels on the horse-drawn carriage at the start of the game, you'll notice they're oval in 4:3).

These are the correct video settings to add to the dosbox_sotc.conf file (edit it in notepad) if you'd like the true aspect ratio:

fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=desktop
windowresolution=1280x1024
output=openglnb
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper-0.74.map
usescancodes=true


frameskip=0
aspect=FALSE
scaler=normal3x


Settings for the other stuff you might like to use too:

language=
machine=svga_s3
captures=capture
memsize=63


core=pentium_slow
cputype=auto
cycles=41500
cycleup=1000
cycledown=1000


nosound=false
rate=49716
blocksize=8192
prebuffer=8192


mpu401=intelligent
mididevice=win32
midiconfig=0

sbtype=sb16
sbbase=220
irq=7
dma=1
hdma=5
sbmixer=true
oplmode=opl3
oplemu=compat
oplrate=49716

gus=false
gusrate=44100
gusbase=240
gusirq=5
gusdma=3
ultradir=C:\ULTRASND

pcspeaker=true
pcrate=44100
tandy=auto
tandyrate=44100
disney=true

joysticktype=auto
timed=true
autofire=false
swap34=false
buttonwrap=false

serial1=dummy
serial2=dummy
serial3=disabled
serial4=disabled

xms=true
ems=true
umb=true
keyboardlayout=auto

[Bobbert]

Originally posted by catbox:

look at circles, not the squares

Exactly. All of the circles are squashed when playing at 4:3 (such as the wheels on the horse-drawn cart at the beginning). Also none of the official Shadow of the Comet screenshots on Steam or GoG (or Google) are 4:3. They're all 8:5.

The game's meant to be played in a 8:5 aspect ratio, not 4:3. Old CRT monitors were analogue and allowed you to stretch or squash the screen to account for that.