Star Control III Game Settings Tips

Welcome to the classic Star Control games! These titles were made in the DOS era, and as such use DOSBox to run properly. We've set up the default configuration for lower resolutions, but you can modify this to suit your tastes.

To begin:

Right-click Star Control III in your Steam Library list
Select Properties and then click the Local Files tab
Click the Browse Local Files... button
This will open up File Explorer to your install location; next enter either the Star Control 1 or Star Control 2 directory (based on what you want to configure)
Open the file dosboxSC3.conf using Notepad or Notepad++

Setting Resolution

By default, the game is setup to run in full screen mode. You can change this to windowed mode by setting fullscreen=false on line 18.

In this section, you can also custom set the resolution for full screen and windowed modes by modifying lines 20-21:

fullresolution=1280x960 for full screen mode
windowresolution=1280x960 for windowed mode

Just make sure you set the resolution to one valid for your monitor.

Adjusting Aspect Ratio

Star Control 3 only support 4:3 modes (16:9 was for the movies!), but if things look distorted on your monitor, you can try using aspect correction.

On line 52, set aspect=true

CPU Settings

If you have a fast CPU, you may find the game runs too fast - after all, these were made in the era of 286 processors! Since every system may be different, you'll need to tweak these to best suit your particular needs; you'll find them on lines 65-69.

Controller Support

Information courtesy of: AmethystViper and markboone1

[joystick]
# joysticktype: Type of joystick to emulate: auto (default), none,
# 2axis (supports two joysticks),
# 4axis (supports one joystick, first joystick used),
# 4axis_2 (supports one joystick, second joystick used),
# fcs (Thrustmaster), ch (CH Flightstick).
# none disables joystick emulation.
# auto chooses emulation depending on real joystick(s).
# (Remember to reset dosbox's mapperfile if you saved it earlier)
# Possible values: auto, 2axis, 4axis, 4axis_2, fcs, ch, none.
# timed: enable timed intervals for axis. Experiment with this option, if your joystick drifts (away).
# autofire: continuously fires as long as you keep the button pressed.
# swap34: swap the 3rd and the 4th axis. can be useful for certain joysticks.
# buttonwrap: enable button wrapping at the number of emulated buttons.

joysticktype=auto
timed=true
autofire=false
swap34=false
buttonwrap=false

Here are the default settings DOSBox's joystick settings, but the glaring problem these settings for Xbox 360 or XInput controllers is not being able to use the D-Pad and the analog stick not working properly. After fiddling around the settings and looking up the solutions to these problems, these are the settings I use for some of the DOS games I play under DOSBox. You might also want to reset the mapper file (usually it's "mapper-0.74.map" by default for v0.74) or delete it before you change anything; you can save a new one once you made the appropriate changes. What you need to do is set "joysticktype" to fcs and "timed" needs to be set to false. By doing this, your D-Pad should work (thanks to [fcs] enabling the D-Pad/Hat swtiches) and the analog sticks won't drift away (caused by "timed" being set to [true]).

Now what if a particular game doesn't give you the ability to rebind the inputs for the controller or calibrate the analog sticks, either in-game or as a separate set-up program? This is where DOSBox's keymapper comes in (special thanks to F4LL0UT for this). By pressing Ctrl+F1, you'll get a screen like this: The keymapper is kinda like DOSBox's Xpadder though not as advanced but gets the job done for the most part. If you want to bind a certain key to a controller input, let's say binding the arrow keys to the Xbox 360's controller's D-Pad, first you click the key on the on-screen keyboard for the arrow keys, then click on "Add" on the menu where you will be prompt to add another input to the command (e.g. bind Arrow Key Up to D-Pad Up, Return/Enter Key to Start, Gamepad Button 1 on the Xbox 360 controller's A Button).