Hello.

So I'm running Jazz in OpenJazz, which is nice because the larger resolution means more fits on the screen, which makes the game a lot easier on the eyes while also being easier to play. However, there are some issues:

- not all sound effects get used

- the game sometimes CTDs when transitioning to a special stage (not every time, but sometimes)

- some of the boss behavior breaks, I think because they aren't supposed to trigger until you get into a certain range of them based on the base resolution, but at higher resolutions some of them just sit there and let you pummel them without so much as flinching

Anyone know how to fix this? The classic DOS res is pretty rough these days, not to mention the additional screen real estate is hard to give up, but the game is just broken in a different way with OpenJazz. Would have been nice if this re-release got official high-res support so it would have worked like this out-of-box and circumvented these issues.

OpenJazz is more of an interpreter than a proper port of Jazz 1. The source code for the game was never released freely and support for OpenJazz is incredibly slow. You're much better off sticking to DOSBox to play this game.

Or you can join the OpenJazz project, give them a hand at things that you're good at like graphics, code, translations or simply testing and sending bug reports. That will help the project move forward and get things like the ones that you mention, done in shorter time. That's the beauty of FLOSS - you give effort, you get effects :-)

Durante has done more with less.

Durante modifies modern games to remove framerate and resolution caps, not old games. DOS games are programmed very differently.

DS1 30fps - 60fps when its frame rate is tied to game timings was quite a feat. The Jazz community just isn't as interested in maintaining the property I suppose.

OpenJazz is not really much of an option for seriously playing the game. It's cool it exists, but it's still full of bugs, and quite obviously very unfinished.

For now, the game runs great in DOSBox. Only runs at 320x240 resolution, but it was designed to be seen that way. Expanding it out to 1920x1080 means you'll be able to see everything that's going on, and it'll make the game really easy. Plus, everything will be really tiny.

As it is, the game runs smooth as butter, and despite the low resolution, it looks damn amazing.

Same was with OpenXcom, GZDoom/Skulltag, WolfGL, UQM, Warzone2100, Jagged Alliance 2 1.13, VCMI etc. You just give it time and maybe help a bit and they will grow into crossplatform free engine awesomeness. Native & FSF is always better.

Yeah, but it's been pretty much unchanged since 2012, which was 5 years ago... And it was first released in 2005, which was 12 years ago... And its last update was in 2014, which was 3 years ago... And the two before that were in 2013 and 2012...

So unless someone seriously steps up to the plate on OpenJazz, it's not gonna be going anywhere any time soon.

Naturally, I do strongly encourage anyone who's willing to step up and contribute to do so, but I haven't seen anyone really do so in the past 5 years...

Actually, it runs in 320x200, which is 16:10 resolution.

Yeah, Mode 13h was way ahead of its time, all the VGA monitors were crazy fisheyed 14"-15" CRTs.

I should note that some of your examples there (particularly the ones for games by id Software) had official source code to work off of, which Jazz never received.

320x200 is a 4:3 resolution. It does not have a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio.

Jazz Jackrabbit is a special exception to this as it does not use the same display mode as other 320x200 games. How would you know? What are your credentials that gives you the expertise to say that recreating Jazz Jackrabbit's engine from scratch is easier than hacking a 30 FPS game to run at 60 FPS?

I mean look at it logically. Dark Souls 1 was 60 FPS patched in one month, what game engine recreations have been written in one month? Hell, what game engine recreations have been written at all without source code that's as good as the base game? I can only think of OpenXcom and I'm fairly sure Xcom fans would argue with me about that one too.

Maybe, just maybe, the issue is the complexity of the task, not the interest in getting it done.

Majority didn't have source released and are clones from scratch. It all comes down to bugs, kudos, commits and donations.

Let's take a look at your examples:

OpenXcom: source not released
GZDoom/Skulltag: source released
WolfGL: source released
UQM: source released
Warzone2100: source released
Jagged Alliance 2 1.13: source released
VCMI: source not(?) released


Working (!) clones from scratch are definitely a minority. OpenXCom, OpenRCT2 and OpenTTD took a lot of time and many committed programmers to get to the state they are in now. Most clones from scratch are unfinished and/or not faithful to the original. Which is not a huge surprise.