DOS ain't dead - black screens between game screens in DOS games

Littbarski

30.03.2025, 19:02

black screens between game screens in DOS games (Developers)

hello,

back in the DOS days probably the UI and the accessibility was not as important, but today I miss some fading or transition sometimes between gaming screens.

I mean those DOS games that are no dynamic but more consist of just pixel image screens where you can click to enter some other screen (background, menu, scenario).

Example here (not my video):
https://youtu.be/1FuI-kqi3V4?si=L4yo2R1VI0cu0wD8&t=1053

There is always a black screen, and if you play long, you see it often - even longer when you hold down the mouse click longer...

I just want to ask this here as a start, not directly to get a solution :). Is it even possible to change such an old game exe (and allowed for my own use), like changing a certain value in a HEX editor?

sorry if this sounds too much as a beginner's idea. But I did really not find a solution in the DOSBox settings.

Interesting is also that in the addon to that time (World Cup) the black screen was not there anymore, so in the exe of that game a setting must have been changed.

Peter

Laaca

Czech republic,
30.03.2025, 21:29

@ Littbarski

black screens between game screens in DOS games

Post reply

No, this behaviour is deep in the game code and engine logic. It can't be changed with hexadecimal editor.

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DOS-u-akbar!

Littbarski

31.03.2025, 08:03

@ Laaca

black screens between game screens in DOS games

Post reply

> No, this behaviour is deep in the game code and engine logic. It can't be
> changed with hexadecimal editor.

Thank you - ok. The same is probably true for other things, especially I would like to change in this game the currency from DM to EU (without any logic, only the name) and mainly: the 3 points rule (for a win) instead of the 2:0 rule.

As mentioned I am not a developer, I just would like to see if this is possible at all so that perhaps I could give this task to a developer.

Littbarski 31.03.2025, 12:10 @ Littbarski	black screens between game screens in DOS games Post reply
	Well at least the currency was easy :) just edit DM to EU (in the right places). What could a string I could search in the HEX editor to find any point rules? 2:0, 1:1, 0:2 is not found of course

Berlin, Germany,
31.03.2025, 20:58

@ Littbarski

black screens between game screens in DOS games

Post reply

> What could a string I could search in the HEX editor to find any point
> rules?

Forget strings in the sense of 'EUR' or 'DM'. The Anstoss binary was created using a
compiler, so you have to think in terms of hexadecimal strings.

You probably have to look for opcodes of the ADD instruction. But there are different variants. What variant is used in Anstoss depends on the match day results algorithm implemented by the developers and the compiler they used.

Using just a hex editor to find the correct place to change, is like looking for the needle in the haystack. Better approaches would be debugging or disassembling, which requires a lot of knowledge and experience. And don't forget the legal stuff (Copyright and German Urheberrecht).

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Littbarski

01.04.2025, 10:24

@ rr

black screens between game screens in DOS games

Post reply

Thank you, yes I think it is too difficult.
But the find with the DM to EU change was very nice - everwhere in the game it is now in EU, seems this was only "coded" in words.
my hope was just that the points also were somehow coded in that way, so that somewhere is stored that a win is 2:0. But of course numbers like 2 and 0 are not rare :). If I can search for a certain string/code/parameter usually used for such points, I am happy to read it here, but I doubt I will continue this path.

Berlin, Germany,
31.03.2025, 20:23

@ Laaca

black screens between game screens in DOS games

Post reply

> No, this behaviour is deep in the game code and engine logic. It can't be
> changed with hexadecimal editor.

Your 2nd sentence is wrong, technically speaking. The problem is to spot the right place to make changes to.

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