Possibly a useful tool for running modern games on CRT: DxWnd

[Paradroid]

Hello fellow CRT freaks!

Over the last few months I have been hammering Luftrausers on a CRT. From the moment I first saw the game I couldn't help but think it would be awesome on a CRT... and it is! I created an interlaced 600 x 400 modeline to maintain native res and it works very well.

Anyway, this experience got me wondering about running other modern games on CRT. Games like Super Street Fighter IV obviously work very well but I'm thinking of other games that don't have a lineage with arcade games.

The only modern games I've really played properly are Minecraft and Battlefield Bad Company 2. Minecraft looks pretty ridiculous on CRT and I couldn't get BBC2 to run at a low enough resolution... which got me searching for some kind of hack.

In the end I discovered DxWnd and it looks quite promising! There are all sorts of options for forcing resolutions in games. I don't claim to be an expert and haven't looked deep into it yet... but I figured I'd post a link here in case others were struggling with running modern games at 15 kHz resolutions and wanted an avenue to explore.

[Calamity]

Hi Paradroid,

Thanks for the pointer, I didn't know this software. I'm thinking it could be interesting to see if it can be modified so instead of running games in a window it runs them at full screen but at a given lower resolution.

[Paradroid]

Yes, exactly. Full screen with a lower resolution is the aim.

As said, I haven't dug deep yet but there are a lot of option in there for forcing a specific resolution and controlling the DirectX API. Looks quite promising...

I would imagine that each game might need its own specific configuration according to the kind of API hooks needed.

I got interested in this because of all these new Indie games (like Nidhogg and Super Time Force) that just scream "CRT!"

[Elaphe]

Yes, there are several games that look like low resolution but are not, so you see them interlaced when on a CRT, for example, Maldita Castilla or Hydorah.