This is something I’ve wanted to get round to writing for a long time. There was the obvious handicap of not knowing how it worked but thanks to our newest writer Mr Cooper, we’re up and running.
Matt wrote the majority of this guide, I’ve just tweaked it and made my own examples. I managed to do this relatively easily and I am a simpleton. Those of you who have me on Twitter will see I got carried away but that’s not the point. It’s never the point.
Firstly you are going to need an image editor. I chose Paintshop Pro 2019 (https://www.paintshoppro.com/en/free-trials/), which has a 30-day no obligation free trial. I imagine other editors are available, but like I said in the intro this one was really easy as long as you don’t want it more than 30 days.
Save the image(s) you want to use to your computer. Think about the screen size you use e.g. mine is rectangular width ways so there’d be no point in my picking a vertical image. There are probably better words to describe what I mean but you’ll see what I mean.
This has to be resized to exactly 640×480 pixels or the game will crash as soon as it tries to load the image. Open Paintshop Pro (or equivalent), then open the picture (file->open) and then along the toolbar at the top, select Image then Resize. You should get a box like this:
In the drop down box where it says <Standard sizes>, select the 640×480 option (make sure that “By Pixels” is selected at the top) and click Ok. The image is now the right size, however there is one final bit of editing needed for the game to read the picture correctly. Go to Image again and this time hover over “Decrease Colour Depth.” In this menu select “x colours (4/8 bit)…”
In the box that now opens, look for where it says Palette and under that, Number of. Change the number in this box to 63 (I don’t know why it’s 63 colours, it just is!) This will result in the image losing a little bit of quality but it’s still perfectly viewable. Click OK.
Now all you need to do is save it. Go to file then Save As, and ensure that you select PCX Zsoft Paintbrush (*.pcx) as the file type. As far as naming goes, if you want it to appear on a team page it should be the first 8 letters of the team’s name. We think it’s the long name but for Inter Milan to work it had to be INTER rather than INTERNAZ so you might have to play about. The good news is you don’t have to start a new game or anything, you can just close and reopen the game and the image will load. Just make sure you save the .pcx file in the CM9798 folder than is mounted from dosbox.
What happens next? The image of your choosing appears everywhere on that club’s page – I’ve taken a screenshot from one of the competition history pages just so you can see it.
The image will remain the background until it has cause to reload to the default (Bobby Robson or Nayim)
You can of course load images entitled BOBBY or NAYIM and it will replace those two stock images. The fun you can have…
That’s all there is to it. As ever, I recommend backing up your CM9798 folder before messing about with the contents so it can be easily restored when you end up with Gunnersaurus everywhere in your life.
I think this Ronaldo one is my favourite, but do go ahead and create your own and remember to tweet me @CM9798 so I can RT/steal the best ones.
Thanks again to Matthew for doing all the heavy lifting here, I just got to play about with images. Bye for now.
Hey man! Im from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Excuse me for my disastrous English.
I will try to leave you some tips on the background images.
Team and National Team Background:
You can assign a background image to each team in the game.
For this you have to name the image file with the short name of the team, with a maximum of eight characters and replacing the (space bar) with (_) “.
Dots are not written.
Example:
BARCELON.pcx
Q_P_R_.pcx
MAN_UTD.pcx
REAL_MAD.pcx
ENGLAND.pcx (national team)
LEEDS_B.pcx (b team)
Other background images:
BOBBY.pcx
Background image for manager menu and for main game menu.
GEN_1.pcx
Background images for any moment of the game, in which no other image is displayed. (maximum 48 images, e.g. GEN_48.pcx)
The file named “INT_6.pcx” will also be the background image of Eurocup menu.
INT_1.pcx
Background images for world cup menu and world cup season. (maximum 49 images, e.g. INT_49.pcx)
The file
BEL_1.pcx
Background images for Belgian competition menu. (maximum 6 images, e.g. BEL_6.pcx)
FRE_1.pcx
Background image for French competition menu. (maximum 7 images, e.g. FRE_7.pcx)
GER_1.pcx
Background images for German competitions menu.
(maximum 7 images, e.g. GER_7.pcx)
POR_1.pcx
Only background image for the Portuguese competitions menu.
ITA_1.pcx
Background images for Italian competitions menu. (maximum 9 images, e.g. ITA_9.pcx)
HOL_1.pcx
Background image for netherlands competitions menu. (maximum 6 images, e.g. HOL_6.pcx)
SCO_1.pcx
Background images for Scottish competitions menu. (maximum 6 images, e.g. SCO_6.pcx)
SPA_1.pcx
Background images for Spanish competitions menu. (maximum 5 images, e.g. SPA_6.pcx)
ENG_1.pcx
Background images for English competicions menu. (I don’t know how many images are allowed)
BRA_94.pcx
Background image for world cup menu competition.
TROPHY2.pcx
Background image for competitions menu.
EUR_1.pcx
Background image for european competitions menu. (maximo 8 imagenes, e.g. EUR_8.pcx)
EC_WIN.pcx
Background image for european champions league menu competition.
UEFACUP.pcx
Background image for UEFA Cup menu.
POR_CP.pcx
Background image for Portuguese cup menu.
IFC_VIC.pcx
Background image for Italian cup menu.
FFC_NICE.pcx
Background image for French cup menu.
HFC_RODA.pcx
Background image for Netherlands Cup menu.
NAYIM.pcx
Imagen de fondo para cup winners cup menu.
GFC.pcx
Background image for some English cup, I don’t remember exactly which one.
ISA_JUV.pcx
Background image for some Italian competition, I don’t remember which one.
I hope to help with this.
I am currently working on my own database updating to the 2019/20 season, but using a teamdata that converts the playable leagues into American leagues. Something like turning the game and putting it in “American mode”)
At the moment I have finished the Argentine and Brazilian competitions. Also some important teams from the rest of america.
Regards!
This is awesome, thank you. Is there a program you would recommend for pcx images better than the one I used?
I use IrfanView. But I guess the results are the same.
Originally the game cd brought with all the images.
I believe that this of the images makes a more immersive experience.
Do you know what to write for teams like chateauroux, dusseldorf, saint-etienne, nurnberg, red star paris, because for this teams it doesn’t work.. Understand what i’m saying? greets
Do you know what to write for teams like chateauroux, dusseldorf, saint-etienne, nurnberg, red star paris, because for this teams it doesn’t work.. Understand what i’m saying? greets