Dosbox, GoG, what all may not work as nice as it could

[Tanooki]

Going back onto gog.com lately and seeing some old stuff I'd like to bother with like Wing Commander, it got me wondering about a few things. As long as dosbox has been around how much is there really left that it won't work with at all, or still has some persistent problems. And of those problems how many maybe user or certain computer parts specific too on top of whatever OS they're stuck with? I remember back when Wing Commander 1 and 2 popped up I remember seeing a lot of people happy but there was a share of complaining how something didn't work right, joysticks weren't wanting to do whatever or maybe anything at all, speed, etc. Is this still fairly common? Or is it just an idiot user problem since GoG seems to be pretty solid on making things work, at least on the surface since they do allow refunds. I'm finding I may be forced into using more of their stuff due to a few things I own flat out not wanting to work at all anymore due to Win8.1 on a 64bit build.

[Greg2600]

I don't use it much, but friends who do often cite to me games that won't work, or work properly. So no it's not a perfect solution.

[Edmond Dantes]

To be honest, Dosbox--like any emulator--is never going to be the ideal solution. In my experience though, oddly the people who have the best experience with it are those who have experience tweaking actual DOS to get stuff working and aren't afraid to mess with settings and see what they do.

Tanooki mentioned joysticks not working right. I'll use that as an example--for some games, you need to adjust the dosbox .conf (which is editable via word processors, but on Windows Vista and 7 is initially hidden in some fucking buried subdirectory you're not likely to even know exists--I moved all mine to a C:\DOSBOXCONFS directory) so that timed intervals are either on or off (for most games, "off" is preferred) to make joysticks work properly. You also need to be fine with having multiple .confs and separate launch shortcuts for each, rather than expecting one conf to be a be-all end-all solution.

This sounds like a lot, but its exactly what PC gamers have always had to do since the days of MS-DOS and boot disks. You might almost call Dosbox the Y2K compliant version of old-school tweaking.

As for "games that simply will not work," I have never heard of one. I have heard, however, of games for which there is no "perfect configuration"--the Thor's Hammer Trilogy and Armed Tactical Fighters being two games that were mentioned on Ancient DOS Games (http://www.pixelships.com/adg/index.html) as ones lacking any perfect configuration. I'm sure there are more.

In reality though, the main reason you want old hardware is for Windows 3.x/95/98 software titles rather than DOS, because there is no all-encompassing solution for those.

[Tanooki]

I like that Y2k compliant for tweaking.

I used to go insane working over the autoexec.bat and config.sys in the day to max out memory in Dos 5 and 6. It was a good day when I could get it up to like 600-610KB free (out of 640) and then having EMS fired up. All sorts of games that needed that extra room would run so much nicer. Wing Commander was a great one for that, the sequel at least, due to the full voicing in the games and the enhanced visuals and explosions that would get dropped.

There are a few games DOSBox won't do, it's on the site if you sort around for a time but it's not like a huge issue unless that game is the one you want.

Also hunting last night I did notice that there is a DOS Box version that seems to have a free clone or whatever(warez maybe?) of Windows 3 already pre-installed within it. That one you could just fire up whatever you want just by opening up dosbox and typing in win(or whatever) to fire up that windows app/clone app. Once inside you could just take the game like Civilization and just run it.

Here's an example. http://dosbox95.darktraveler.com/

I know I saw a pre-made package to download ready to go, that isn't it, but it's just a link for show.

EDIT: That backfired, and is a no go. His instructions don't work so well, not so much the process but the getting Windows from the literal computer into the virtual hard drive. It just won't transfer. I tried both methods listed, the first fails and the xcopy method claims to copy the file total shown in his images but actually moves over very little. Since I can't load Win95 it's useless to me so it's erased. Oh well. Fuck microsoft for removing old app support. I know there's dosbox turbo for android, but I'm sure that's even tricker with the file system involved there.

[Edmond Dantes]

It seems like if you could install Windows in Dosbox, all you would have to do is mount an ISO and install it on a virtual HD like you do with virtualizers.

I only read the link briefly but I don't think he literally means to copy your real windows onto a virtual PC--you'll likely have to (again) mount an ISO to install it, including knowing serial numbers and such. As for transferring files from the real OS to the virtual one, I would use a CD-R for that (burn the files to a CD-R in the real OS, then mount that same CD-rom drive in the virtual OS...) though when I did that in virtualizers it would sometimes only see certain files, so who knows.

Still, that seems worth experimentating with. I might not be the one to do it though since I have a real Win98SE computer and as such, little motivation to emulate. But maybe one day.

[Tanooki]

I've got a Nexus 7 32GB 2013 system and along with that a nice bluetooth detachable keyboard/leather case.

I put up the $3 and got dosbox turbo. It took a little work and it's still not right because it's being colossally stupid and not letting me pick another storage area despite setting it, but I did get it to read files I dumped on there from my computer. I've got SimCity Classic, Civilization 1 and also Wolfenstein 3D on there. They work, tested DOOM but removed it and it did too.

It failed to run Silverball right (right flipper gets dead or stuck) and Pinball Gold Pack (PB Dreams 1+2, Fantasies, Mania, Illusions) just don't work at all whining for a disc when it shouldn't even do that. I was hoping to have at least Pinball Fantasies going, may try and find an original disc install of that. I own it through GOG but they mounted an ISO on that in some weird format I can't even extract.

A little learning curve is there with the touch for a mouse but I got a bit used to it and making streets if you're careful isn't an issue in Sim City and CIV is just easy to use between the mouse and keyboard. The sound pops a little, but I can live with that.

[Jorpho]

but on Windows Vista and 7 is initially hidden in some fucking buried subdirectory you're not likely to even know existsIt's in the Start menu. Programs->DOSBox 0.74->Options->DOSBox 0.74 Options will open up dosbox.conf in Notepad.


It seems like if you could install Windows in Dosbox, all you would have to do is mount an ISO and install it on a virtual HD like you do with virtualizers.The official DOSBox does not technically have IDE emulation: you need to boot MS-DOS in DOSBox before you can run the Windows 95 install, and as soon as you boot MS-DOS, you cannot access the CD-ROM.

This has however been mostly fixed in the newer experimental builds, but that's a recent development.

[Edmond Dantes]

That easy? I always wound up having to search for the conf.

Tho like I said, from there I copy it to C:\DOSBOXCONF, and that also makes it easy to create extra ones for different games that require different settings.