Hi-res Daggerfall

One of the popular searches that brings people to the blog recently is the search for running Daggerfall in a higher resolution, compared to the original 320x200 resolution in 256 colours. Especially since it is now available free for download in commemoration of its 15th anniversary.

Firstly, to disappoint everyone, there is nothing you can do to get a higher resolution out of the game itself. It is 320x200 in 256 colours and that's it.

However, when you run it under DOSBox, you can get DOSBox to help you display it in a better resolution, using the scalers available under DOSBox. To do this, you can either run DOSBox with a specific parameter, or edit the configuration file for DOSBox.

With parameter:
dosbox -scaler normal2x
will run DOSBox with the scaler "normal2x", which can be replaced by a variety of other scalers, such as normal3x, advmame2x, advmame3x, advinterp2x, advinterp3x, hq2x, hq3x, 2xsai, super2xsai, supereagle, tv2x, tv3x, rgb2x, rgb3x, scan2x, scan3x.

"2x" means it will scale the resolution by 2, so 320x200 becomes 640x400. "3x" is by 3, of course.

dosbox -forcescaler normal2x
will force DOSBox to use the scaler specified, similarly, the choices are as above.

Editing configuration file (under heading [render]):
scaler=normal2x
will cause DOSBox to run using scaler "normal2x" everytime it starts up. The same choices of scalers are available.

For me, I prefer advinterp2x or advinterp3x.

Here's a page showing the differences between the different scalers. Seems like 2xsai is the best scaler to use... but do play around with the different scalers to see what works best for you.

Of course, you can't get 16.8 million colours out of this method, so I guess we all have to live with Daggerfall in 256 colours.