I don't know why you would want to do that. Running anything beyond 640x480 will probably run very slow.

Well, if my 486 at the time could run it, I think a modern P4-3.6 should be able to emulate vesa 1024x768. As to why exactly, for the simplest of reasons: otherwise you don't have enough view around your agents to actually be effective.

I regret to say that you may be wrong in some aspects. When things are emulated, direct speed (real cpu speed) doesn't match emulated speed.

In a nutshell = cpu requirements for emulating a cpu or a complete system grow EXPONENTIALY.

In an emulated environment a P4 could be as fast as a 386/486 depending the software that is being emulated.

In a simulated environment, a P4 speed is the same as the real thing.

Simulated = VDMSound.
Emulated = DOSBox.

Moving to DOSBox Games/Apps. by the way...

I am familiar with how emulation works and with how graphic adapters work. I will maintain that an emulated 2D surface at 1024x768x8bit will not significantly tax a modern PC: not only in theory, with which I have some familiarity, but also as derived from practical experience with several emulators. Just to give you a frame of reference, running a similar screen in vmware will not even register signficant CPU load - and vmware does not have optimised video drivers for DOS. I haven't tried dosemu in a long time, but I don't recall there being a particular problem there either. Therefore, either dosbox does an exceptionally poor job of emulating the video adapter - which is possible - or I cannot for the life of me see why a VESA display at 1024x768 should be a problem.
In any case, this is besides the point: I' d like to know what the command arguments for main.exe are, if anyone can dig them up, and since this is most definitely not related to dosbox I am not sure that placing this in a dosbox forum is appropriate, which is why I'd posted to DOS games in the first place.

- nameless

Please search the forums for countless explanations of why DOSBox is so unexpectedly slow. It is, and for a good reason.

Are you talking about Syndicate or Syndicate Wars here? AFAIK, the original Syndicate runs in 640x480x4bpp (a standard VGA mode). Be suprised if it had support for anything higer, as it came out in '93.

Syndicate, not syndicate wars. I remember actually playing it at 1024x768, it was the only way to actually get through the reactor mission IIRC. And I think I managed to get it at that resolution even on an emulator, more recently.

- nmlss

Well, I can't find any mention of this for the dos version. Doing main /? only brings up sound-related options. And it doesn't look like Syndicate uses VESA, at least not normally. Just good old VGA mode 12h. One thing's for sure - if the option does exist, it's really well hidden. I even opened up main.exe in a hex editor and couldn't find anything. I guess it could be a mode that's only enabled on certain graphics cards though.

The reactor mission is do-able anyway, as long as one of your team has a scanner, so you can see more of the map.

Well, as far as using at least 640x480, I am reasonably certain it does - I just ran it. As far as the higher res modes, I'll try looking in the various archives I have and if I find anything I'll post it.
(incidentally, the /? help on main.exe is fairly useless: for instance, it doesn't mention that /cn changes the language in the game either)

I thought Syndicate run on 640x480x4...

It does. Someone wrote a program to trap Int 10h calls, and determined the game uses mode 13h (320x200x8bpp) for video and menus and mode 12h (640x480x4bpp) for the in-game parts. It's easy to see this in dosbox in windowed mode, and it's almost common sense anyway. Few games used VESA until '95, and it's clear Syndicate only uses 16 colours in-game. However, if nmlss2006 is right, I guess it has support for higher resolution modes too - either through VESA or support for some specific gfx card(s).

nmlss2006 wrote:

Syndicate, not syndicate wars. I remember actually playing it at 1024x768, it was the only way to actually get through the reactor mission IIRC. And I think I managed to get it at that resolution even on an emulator, more recently.

- nmlss

Forgive the necro-posting.

The individual quoted above was confusing the IBM VGA only SYNDICATE (Bullfrog 1993) release with the IBM VGA/VESA v1.2 release(s) of SYSTEM SHOCK (Origin-1994) as there was no "reactor mission" in any of the SYNDICATE, AMERICAN REVOLT or SYNDICATE WARS releases. Given the SYNDICATE sprite construction was optimised for the IBM VGA mode 12h (640x480x4bpp) and that there is no evidence that any VESA v1.2 modes were supported in the dis-assembled MAIN.EXE game program file of either SYNDICATE or the AMERICAN REVOLT expansion - just have to chalk it up to bad memory on the part of the poster.

However, there is a "Reactor Mission" in SYSTEM SHOCK, which is capable of being patched to restore support for a VESA mode 105h (1024x768x8bpp) resolution (removed before game shipped) instead of the VESA mode 101h (640x480x8bpp) which was the highest standard resolution supported on the CD-ROM vF1.6C release.

Just wanted to clear that up... 😁

dvwjr

dvwjr is completely right:
- there's no "reactor mission" in any of three Syndicate games
- Resolution can't be set higher than 640x480 in any of three Syndicate games

Some details:
- In Syndicate and American Revolt you can't change resolution at all - theres 320x200x8 in menus and 640x480x4 in mission. File formats are optimized for these resolutions and the game engine has no ability to display any other resolution.
- In Syndicate Wars resolution can be switched between 320x240x8 and 640x480x8 VESA modes. The VESA driver used there supports resolution modes up to 1600x1200, but there is NO function/parameter to change into higher mode, and the static buffers in the game would overflow if resolution is increased beyound 640x480.

Since it was brought back from the dead.. so am I.
The final mission in the original Syndicate is what I termed the 'reactor mission'. And I was fairly persuaded that there were different resolutions - I remain persuaded of such, by the by.

There is no "final mission" in Syndicate as it is you who choose the order in which you play the missions by clicking territories on the world map
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/syndicate/s … ameShotId,1175/
So if you choose a mission earlier or later you will have different difficulty for that mission. I remember how easy the Atlantis mission was if you chose it earlier 😀
And the trick for atlantis mission was not to shoot manually but click both mouse buttons to enter "high perception auto" mode, so you won't be out of ammo.

Sorry, I should've been more precise: indeed, the atlantis mission in the middle of the ocean, the 'Accelerator' one. In any case, I've gone back to playing but I found out something odd: the game won't save. If I select one of the save slots and press save it returns me to the main menu WITHOUT saving. I played in DOSbox before and it seemed to save fine.. any suggestions?

Aand here I come to answer my own question: make sure that the directory SAVE exists in the same DIR as main.exe and the DATA dir. Otherwise, save fails - silently.