Lemmings 3 in DOSBox: Intro video flickers (black flicker)

[kaywhyn]

Bug filed against Dosbox-Staging: Lemmings 3 (CD Version) has bad flickering video animation. #4370


All right, let's give this a try and see if either kieran or Simon or anyone knowledgeable enough about Lemmings 3 can advise me here. So the good news is that I'm able to get the L3 game running on Dosbox by following the instructions in either post for the CD version, though yea I agree that Simon's post is the much easier way to go about it since it doesn't require or recommend installing the game. The game runs fine, but there is a problem with the intro movie sequence: It flickers between a black screen and showing the movie. Perhaps this is what kieran meant by "the opening video might be messed up"? I'm not sure why it happens and whether there's a fix for it. I've tried researching it online but I haven't found anything, and it doesn't seem to be a problem in general for the game.

The other alternative is to run the floppy version of the game instead of the CD version, which doesn't have the opening video messed up flickering issue, but instead the problem is now there's no moving at all in the movie, i.e, you don't see the Lemmings Ark moving and flying in the movie. This seems to be very common, as pretty much nearly every video of the opening L3 sequence I've seen on Youtube have this no movement in the opening video.

So yea, any suggestions or know of a fix for the flickering for the CD version?

[jkapp76]

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZdSoOVZSpJ2pulFthS12h1B1k3PCB964IDV
Above is a link to my portable version of Lemmings 3 packaged in dosbox, just unzip and play!

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZAHhOVZqUmQzmyvPnRJqtcULY4T5L8sNvkX
This second link is to my version of lemmings 2 for dosbox, it includes kieran's level pack and also the other fan-made level pack... I forget the name ATM.

[Simon]

intro movie sequence: It flickers between a black screen and showing the movie.
whether there's a fix

I can reproduce this black flicker in DOSBox version 0.74-3 on Arch Linux. I remember that I have seen this flicker for many years. The flicker makes the movie practically unwatchable.

My weak guess was to fumble in dosbox-0.74-3.conf with this setting:

[dosbox]
machine=

I've tried all values for it. Earlier settings (hercules, cga, tandy, pcjr, ega) make Lemmings 3 complain about the missing VGA card. Later settings (vgaonly, svga_s3, svga_et3000, svga_et4000, svga_paradise, vesa_nolfb, vesa_oldvbe) make Lemmings 3 run, and L3 reacts according to each card, but the flicker stays in all of these settings. I've reverted to the default svga_s3 and accepted the flicker.

Failure. And no other option sounds promising to me.

I don't know about a solution. Try the Dosbox forums, or the forums of one of its forks (Dosbox-Staging, ...).

-- Simon

[jkapp76]

I think I could create a perfect packaged version of lemmings 3 cdrom version if I could find the cd image online somewhere.

[The Tomato Watcher]

The CD-ROM image is available on archive.org along with a pre-packaged playable version. The only way to view the intro sequence as intended is to mount the disc image as its own drive within DOSBox with the IMGMOUNT command. For example:
IMGMOUNT D "C:\the full path to the CUE/ISO file" -t iso

At that point, you do not install the game to the C drive in DOSBox, but you play it directly from the disc image, making sure to run either L3CD.EXE or L3CDGUS.EXE depending on whether you prefer SoundBlaster or Gravis UltraSound audio for the intro (and whether you have GUS enabled in your config file.)

Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the intro music or game sound effects working no matter what my DOSBox audio set up is, no matter which executable I run, and no matter which fork I use. Will update when I figure out a way to get that working. I have not tested the pre-packaged version yet; perhaps it works just fine.

[jkapp76]

My portable version of Lemmings 3 plays all the movies properly. I just fixed it. The link above will download the newest version.

[kaywhyn]

Thank you @Simon, @The Tomato Watcher, and jkapp76 for all investigating and looking into this. Especially jkapp76 for submitting a bug report on the Dosbox-Staging Github:

https://github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-staging/issues/4370

intro movie sequence: It flickers between a black screen and showing the movie.
whether there's a fix

I can reproduce this black flicker in DOSBox version 0.74-3 on Arch Linux. I remember that I have seen this flicker for many years. The flicker makes the movie practically unwatchable.

My weak guess was to fumble in dosbox-0.74-3.conf with this setting:

[dosbox]
machine=

I've tried all values for it. Earlier settings (hercules, cga, tandy, pcjr, ega) make Lemmings 3 complain about the missing VGA card. Later settings (vgaonly, svga_s3, svga_et3000, svga_et4000, svga_paradise, vesa_nolfb, vesa_oldvbe) make Lemmings 3 run, and L3 reacts according to each card, but the flicker stays in all of these settings. I've reverted to the default svga_s3 and accepted the flicker.

Failure. And no other option sounds promising to me.

Yea, I tried changing the machine type in my Dosbox configuration file before you posted and no dice there for me either with getting the flickering in the intro video fixed. I've tried vanilla Dosbox and its variants Dosbox-X and Dosbox-Staging and same thing.

I don't know about a solution. Try the Dosbox forums, or the forums of one of its forks (Dosbox-Staging, ...).

jkapp76 has submitted a bug report on the Dosbox-Staging Github, which I've linked to above. I will be keeping my eye out on this. Feel free to do so as well if you wish!

The CD-ROM image is available on archive.org along with a pre-packaged playable version. The only way to view the intro sequence as intended is to mount the disc image as its own drive within DOSBox with the IMGMOUNT command. For example:
IMGMOUNT D "C:\the full path to the CUE/ISO file" -t iso

At that point, you do not install the game to the C drive in DOSBox, but you play it directly from the disc image, making sure to run either L3CD.EXE or L3CDGUS.EXE depending on whether you prefer SoundBlaster or Gravis UltraSound audio for the intro (and whether you have GUS enabled in your config file.)

I've tried doing the imgmount command in Dosbox and it made no difference for me in regards to the intro video flicker.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the intro music or game sound effects working no matter what my DOSBox audio set up is, no matter which executable I run, and no matter which fork I use. Will update when I figure out a way to get that working. I have not tested the pre-packaged version yet; perhaps it works just fine.

I'm not sure which file you used for this download. I did the 7th part and as I kind of expected, once again no dice for me.

My portable version of Lemmings 3 plays all the movies properly. I just fixed it. The link above will download the newest version.

Thanks for this, as well as for explaining that you could swap out the movie file but then the flicker returns. Indeed, I have tried that with your portable copy and can verify the flicker issue with the larger movie files.

Thanks for letting me know that you've submitted a bug report to the Dosbox-Staging Github. I've linked it above for Simon and The Tomato Watcher if they wish to keep a watch on it. Thanks again!  

[jkapp76]

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZng3j5Zmjvy5pvxrKyxrWgE2q0VlpDg89dX

Here's another updated version of my Portable Lemmings 3 game.

This is much larger, 450MB. But it's a more recent version, 1.53 instead of 1.48 and this one mounts and plays CD audio and still saves properly to the hard drive. I also included the Gravis Ultrasound drivers installed in case you want to change the audio to GUS in the settings. I found this version of the game after talking with the youtube uploader that showed the game playing properly.