Essential tweaks for Phantasmagoria

This guide will describe what to do to get a bit more from your Phantasmagoria.

Prefix

I wrote this guide years ago - since then a lot of has changed and ScumVM is now fully supporting this game. As such, you should use it instead, even if you are a gaming purist:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1396871380

Below is original text.

Introduction

In this short guide, I'll try to explain how to improve elements like FMV quality and tweak some of the basic DOSbox options. As the title suggests - this will cover only the essential tweaks. We won't be replacing DOSbox, loading shaders for display etc. Just few basic tweaks. If there are some more improvements that can be done, you'll most likely find them on Steam Community Forum or on PCGamingWiki page for the game[pcgamingwiki.com].

In-game settings and movie quality

First of, we will start with fixing these abysmal FMVs. If you have just launched the game and clicked Watch Intro, you probably saw something that looks more or less like this:

Totally unwatchable. Let's fix that.
- Click New Game.
- Type in a name for your save file.
- Choose Chapter One.
- Skip the chapter intro - you'll watch it later.
- You'll see the game's main screen, click a huge P in the middle of your screen.
- You'll see the game's option screen, which looks like this:
- Click a button, left of a Half Screen to change the FMV display mode to Full Screen.
- Click More.
- You will see a 2nd option screen:
- In the upper right corner click on the button for Movie Detail to set it to On.

And that's it. Now you can go back to a Main Menu and once you'll play the intro it will look like this:

Much better! No more interlaced lines and the cinematic actually take an entire available DOSbox space. They are still at a pretty low resolution and low framerate - but oh well, that's 1995 for you.

DOSbox tweaks (fix for elements spinning too fast while inspecting them etc.)

This issue I stumbled upon after writing this guide. So this section was add after I finished with the guide. This is a fix for objects spinning too fast while you inspect them (and possibly other issues where something just happens too fast). Because it's so essential - I've put extra effort filling it up with additional screenshots. And because I'm lazy, I won't bother editing other section and I'll just reuse some of the screenshots. Alright. Let's go.

- Go to your Steam library.
- Find Phantasmagoria on it and right click on it.
- Choose Preferences.
- Go to a Local files tab.
- Click on Browse Local Files....
- This will open an Explorer window, with your files for Phantasmagoria.
- Open a folder Phant.
- Once inside, open a folder DOSBOX. You'll see following files.
- The config file you want to edit is dosboxPHANT.conf (or dosboxPHANT if you already have a program assigned to this format and you haven't enabled displaying file extensions in Windows).
- For editing you can use pretty much any text editor, although it'd be best if it was a basic text editor like Notepad and not something like Word, cause these may auto-format some sections and essentially corrupt the file. I personally recommend Notepad++[notepad-plus-plus.org] and this is what I will be using.
- Before you start editing, make sure to create a backup copy, just in case you do something wrong.
- If you have a program associated with this type of files (that isn't a text editor), right click on dosboxPHANT.conf, hover on Open with and click on Select default program. Then find your text editor on a list and click OK.
- If you don't have a program associated with this type of files, simply double click on it and Choose an option Select program from a list of currently installed programs (the line and a window may look different depending on Windows you are running - I'm still stuck on 7, so you know ;)) and choose your text editor, then.
- Once you have opened the config file - scroll down till you see a line which says:

[cpu]

- Under it you'll find a line which says:

cycles=max

- Change the line cycle=max to:

cycles=fixed 26800

- Save changes.

The issue should now be fixed, although some loadings may take a bit longer now. 26800 cycles is about the speed of 486 66 MHz - just if you need to know. If the game is running too slow - try increasing it a bit. You may also experiment using combination of keys:
CTRL + ALT + F12 - to increase the amount of cycles
CTRL + ALT + F11 - to decrease the amount of cycles

DOSbox tweaks (few words about configuration file)

This section was originally describing where to find configuration file, how to edit it, etc. but it turns out the config provided in digital distribution has an issue, so a lot of it was moved to a previous section. This is what's left.

Understanding configuration file
Once you have opened the configuration file, you should see something which looks like this:
We will be reading the files line by line, as this is how DOSbox is programmed to read it. As mentioned in the 2nd line of a file - Lines that start with # are comment-lines, and as long as they start with that character, Dosbox will ignore them. These lines are placed there to make user aware of what each setting does and what are the possible options for it.

Have a look at lines 6 and 24:

(line 6): # fullscreen: Start dosbox directly in fullscreen. (Press ALT-Enter to go back)

(line 24): fullscreen=true

These lines are related, as in our line 6 which is a comment-line explains what line 24 does (i.e. makes the Dosbox start in Fullscreen mode). For the clarity sake, I'll be referring to lines that set some options simply as Settings.

There is one more type of lines aside from Settings and Comment-lines and these are the lines that start and end with a square bracket characters. E.g.

(line 5): [sdl]

(line 36): [dosbox]

(line 51): [render]

I will be referring to them as Sections, as this is what they do - they start a section, which contains settings specific to it.

Finally there is a construction of a Setting line itself. This one is rather easy as well, as all of the settings are written in the same way: property name which is separated from its value by = character. Enough basics - onto tweaking.

DOSbox tweaks (options)

I kind of realize how comically this section will most likely look after the long instruction, but it had to be done. So, let's start.

Allow Steam Overlay to hook into DOSbox
Steam by default can only hook into applications that are using popular APIs for rendering graphics - like Direct3D, OpenGL or Vulkan. To allow Steam overlay to hook into DOSbox, under the section [sdl] find a setting named output and set it to:

output=opengl

Save the changes. Now when you launch the game through Steam, you should see a Steam overlay actually pop up. It may be a bit buggy, but it should allow you to take screenshots and stuff like that ;)

Note this actually requires a graphics card capable of rendering graphics in OpenGL, but with current PCs and Laptops, I'd be very surprised to see one that is incapable of doing so.

Start the game in a Windowed mode by default
This setting may be especially useful for people streaming their games on Twitch. Under section [sdl] find a setting named fullscreen and set it to:

fullscreen=false

Note that you can toggle between fullscreen and windowed by pressing a combination of keys:
ALT + ENTER

Start DOSbox in a specific resolution
Don't get your hypes up - there is no proper widescreen support in this game, but you can force a specific resolution, which can be useful if you have multi-screen setup. Under the section [sdl] find settings named fullresolution and windowresolution. First one is responsible for the DOSbox resolution in fullscreen mode, second one is responsible for the resolution in windowed mode. To set the resolution use: YYYYxZZZZ format, where YYYY is the width in pixels and ZZZZ is height in pixels. E.g.

fullresolution=1920x1080
windowresolution=1920x1080

Note that OpenGL in DOSbox likes to be screen exclusive, so if you want to actually use the 2nd monitor, you'll have to run DOSbox in ddraw or overlay mode - these however won't allow Steam Overlay to hook in. Other solution may be running DOSbox in windowed mode (see above).

Change scaling method
This one is quite complex. Basically, unless DOSbox is running with original resolution setting it will scale the image to a required size (with some exceptions) - this is better than having a monitor do it, as the scaling image on graphics card produces generally much better resolutions. On a DOSbox wiki page[www.dosbox.com] you can see different methods available for scaling image and results they produce - the differences are often subtle. To change the scaling method under the [render] section change scaler option. The possible options are:
- normal2x (default)
- normal3x
- advmame2x
- advmame3x
- advinterp2x
- advinterp3x
- hq2x
- hq3x
- 2xsai
- super2xsai
- supereagle
- tv2x
- tv3x
- rgb2x
- rgb3x
- scan2x
- scan3x
However to make it actually work in this case, you will have to force it, by adding forced after it. E.g. for me it's:

scaler=hq2x forced

The difference is there, although you may need to actually display the image in a full resolution to actually notice it:

And for now, that will be it. I may add additional section on using Remapper, but I doubt it will be useful with this game.

[Sui]

Actually this is outdated at this point, cause....ScumVM supports this and will give you a better experience.

[Swing Shift CZ]

I'm having flashbacks to going through zelda's old livejournal let's play of this game... finally after all these years I get to play the game I heard so much about! Thanks for the tweak guide, I swear zelda had similar tips but I sure af couldn't remember that after all these years.

[KeaponLaffin]

Is there a tweak to set it to 4:3 mode as intended?

[halfmonkey]

Phantasmagoria was the first pc game I ever purchased way back when (for a now silly $79...) Using your tweaks (especially the last tip about changing scaling method) means I'm replaying it this many years later and it looks better than the original- notably the fonts.

[green909]

I'm gonna beat this game for the 2nd time using this patch ( ´ ▽ ` )

[Achievement Unlocked]

LITERALLY THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH! This is extremely helpful.

[Tengaia]

Wow!! Thank you so much!!

[_Gustavo]

Very useful guide, thank you so much !

[CuJo]

Thank you for the guide and information! Works great now.

[Cool Cat KaToffee]

GREAT results! though the only scaler i got to work was this (looks great): scaler=advmame3x forced