[Stefan]

Hi there!
I have experienced the following issue with the game “Jonathan” by Software2000:

While the game boots up fine and sound (at least early samples) also work with default settings, the mouse cursor works only on parts of the screen. In some areas it is obstructed by the rest of the image, and while in some areas it still works while “hidden”, in many it doesn’t. I have done some tinkering with the settings, to no avail.

The game is listed as compatible with DosBox 0.74, although I currently have no PC available to test with anything but Android. If anyone would like to help, the game is easily available through Google as abandonware.

[Al ex]

Also when you’re using relative mouse mode? Or is it only with absolute mouse control?

[admin]

Alex is right, relative mouse should work always….

[Stefan]

The issue is the same with both modes (in absolute mouse mode there is also a big deviation and the resolution correction doesn’t seem to do anything, but the “parts of the screen blocking the cursor”-issue is present as well).

[Al ex]

I’m still trying to get it work. Always getting a Gadget-Images read error (both in Magic Dosbox and on PC). 🤔

[Stefan]

I think I just made some progress. The “hidden” areas actually seem to be clickable, I just missed the buttons because the cursor seems to travel faster when hidden (but not when only partly hidden, confusing). If I move a lot less than I would think I need to to get from the edge of a visible area to a button in a hidden area, it appears to work most times. Still not really playable that way, as the hidden areas are quite extensive.

[Al ex]

How did you name your directory? “JON”, “JONATHAN”, or something different? Because I keep getting that gadget-images error.

[Stefan]

I unpacked all contents of the ZIP into a directory called “Jonathan” and chose JON.EXE as the executable in Magic DOSbox with the default settings.

[Al ex]

Holy crap. My file explorer was unpacking everything into the same directory. Used another one, got subdirectories now. Game is working. 🤦‍♂️

[Stefan]

I can recommend Total Commander for Android, really like it as a file explorer.

Are you experiencing the same cursor issues, or is this just my device?

[Al ex]

Yeah, I’m using Total Commander and Solid Explorer. The latter was causing the issue, so I unpacked it with zArchiver.

I’m getting the same mouse issue, also in Dosbox for Windows. It only seems to be related to emulation speed though. When I set cycles to a low fixed value (3000-5000), the cursor behaves as it should.

[SongJiang]

I didn’t test this game, but I can confirm it happen on some others games. Can’t remember wich ones. Low cycles are the solution as Al_ex said.

[Stefan]

YES! Thank you so much! Didn’t know fixed cycles could resolve such an issue. For my device, 5000 are already too much (cursor disappears), but 3500 appear to be fine.

[Al ex]

Glad it worked. From what I’ve read, this game is pretty buggy anyway, and many programmers didn’t care about frame limiters back in the day. Just try to play Wing Commander 1 with cycles=max. 😅

[Author]

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