Dalboz wrote:

For some reason, the PC version of DOS box is incompatible with the sound cards on my PCs. It causes either partial sound, or in case of blood - physical crashes.

If you run the games INSIDE dosbox then your soundcard doesn't matter.
Always go with the one dosbox emulates.

for the OS X PPC version. Try DOSBox 0.71 or 0.70. The PPC part of DOSBox 0.72 was less optimized then the older versions due to compiler problems. It might then run at full speed.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=52551

Dalboz wrote:

I discovered Dapplegrey was launching two dosboxes at the same time

Thank you for notifying me this problem.

To confirm my thoughts, could you please take a right-click onto the DOSBox.app and take a look into the "Contents" folder, which should include
an unix exe called "DOSBox", both "DOSBox.app" and the unix exe "DOSBox" case senstitive.

If the case given here is like yours, then I've to look into the Dapplegrey sourcecode.

Hi guys! This is an incomplete post because there are other things I need to do first today but I wanted you to know I got your messages:

Qbix, thank you for your information. As far as sound cards go, sound card emulation is what the games argue with. I know it's not "supposed to matter" but somehow it does with a few DOS games I own. However, I will look at that link of yours later today, tyvm 😄

IIGS_User, you are welcome 😄 I knew someone related to Dapplegrey must be on the forums. If you give me a little while I will give a better reply with the information that you need. There were some times I ran it that it didn't load two dos boxes but it seems to load them more than not. I can't give you all the info right now because there are some other time consuming things I gotta do, but I'll be able to give it later on today 😁

Dalboz wrote:

For some reason, the PC version of DOS box is incompatible with the sound cards on my PCs. It causes either partial sound, or in case of blood - physical crashes.

And you are absolutely sure that you are running these games in DOSBox?

Dalboz, my apologies! The very cryptic error message you got from Boxer was because it is not compatible with OS X 10.3 or earlier, only 10.4 and above. I will make sure that future versions of Boxer give a more helpful explanation when you attempt to run them on earlier versions of OS X.

Damn, where do all these frontend coders come from?! There's a nest somewhere! (;

Nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. 😀

You guys are awesome because you are friendly 😄

I am so tired of going to sites where coders yell at me and it is upsetting enough trying to get help, but you guys are helpin right away 😁

MiniMax, Yes. I recently won a bet with my friend who's an IT guy that travels around fixing computers for his corporation, getting windows vista to run on 486 and Pentium 1 machines (I saw him do it), among other things. I broke him on my videogames HAHAHHAHAHA. I'm not slamming DosBox, I like DosBox. There are just some games which don't work on the PC version depending on the type of equipment on the PC. It's just a fact of life I've lived with for a while (hence my 8 year long search to be able to play my old DOS games once more).
One day I have no doubt that DosBox will run everything on every system 😁

Vigil, AHH! ok that explains it! thx man 😄

Ok now to Dapplegrey guy:

IIGS_User,
DosBox.app
||
Contents Folder
|-Info.plist
|-Pkginfo
|[]MacOS
--|DOSBox
|[]Resources
--|dosbox.icns

If this doesn't explain it then could it be causing a problem if Dapplegrey is located in the same directory as the DOSBox program?

Should I reinstall Dapplegrey in it's own folder?

Dalboz, to quote a song: That doesn't impress me much.

If you had said: Well, I type the commands to mount and run the game inside a Window that is clearly marked with "DOSBox 0.72, Cpu Cycles: 3000, ......" then I would be convinced.

*IF* you run it in DOSBox, try chaning the cpu core in DOSBox from auto to normal.

MiniMax, I already won a bet with someone who said that I wasn't telling the truth. And it was a sweet box of Lamarrs doughnuts.

Don't make me make you buy me a box of doughnuts too 😜

Post your evidence.

Dalboz wrote:

IIGS_User, DosBox.app || Contents Folder |-Info.plist |-Pkginfo |[]MacOS --|DOSBox |[]Resources --|dosbox.icns […]
Show full quote

IIGS_User,
DosBox.app
||
Contents Folder
|-Info.plist
|-Pkginfo
|[]MacOS
--|DOSBox
|[]Resources
--|dosbox.icns

If this doesn't explain it then could it be causing a problem if Dapplegrey is located in the same directory as the DOSBox program?

Should I reinstall Dapplegrey in it's own folder?

Hi, I searched the Dapplegrey source code, usually the frontend gets the name of the DOSBox version, case sensitive, but not checks the case sensitive name of "/Contents/MacOS/DOSBox" yet. The latter maybe could be a problem, if the case sensitive isn't DOSBox, but yours is exactly as expected "/Contents/MacOS/DOSBox". Some other DOSBox ports may differ from the original port case sensitive "DOSBox.app/Contents/MacOS/DOSBox", as your "DosBox.app."

-> I think I've to alter the sourcecode to read the unix exe file name, too.

So, if you still use Dapplegrey, you may rename the "DosBox.app" to "DOSBox.app" and check, if it still launches two dosboxes at the same time. While developing Dapplegrey, I noticed this issue a few times, but thinked, I've fixed it.

I don't know if it causes problems if the frontend is located in the same folder as DOSBox, because I've not checked this yet.

wd here's my proof:
1. My videogame Blood is completely unplayable because it crashes dosbox to the desktop.
2. Dungeon Hack only has music, no F/X and freezes the entire computer.
3. I decided to use my ibook (which is much slower) and not a PC.
4. I signed up to these forums to get help making the ibook work a little bit faster.

There is no "error code" when a program crashes to desktop. And certainly nothing when it freezes my vista or xp media center.

Now unless you want me to start linking Lamarrs locations near me with their phone number and a list of doughnuts I want, then shush. I'm not going to go through the trouble of setting these games up on my PC when I know they're just going to crash to desktop or freeze. I don't have that kind of time.

IIGS_User

AWESOME ok Renaming DOSBox to DosBox worked! It no longer loads two DOS Boxes. 😁 yay 😁

Ok that half of the problem is solved.

Now do you have any suggestions on making it run my games a little faster? Is there a trick I can do? I've tried to increase the memory options, however, it seems to have little effect on how quick it runs the programs. I can play Ravenloft and Menzo, but it's a little frustrating at the current speed.

I think my ibook should be fast enough to run them at full speed. I mean they are just DOS games.

Edit: Ok I changed the UMB from "full" to "true", it seems to run the programs just a little faster. Unfortunately, still not 100% though.

here's my proof

MiniMax already told you what's needed for a proof.

They may be just DOS games but they are being run in a PC emulator. Depending on the game the higher the requirements.

Seeing how you have decided to use DOSBox on a laptop that wasn't considered fast compared even to it's PC counterparts at the time and the fact that DOSBox doesn't support dynamic core with PPC processors then you are not ever going to get newer DOS games to run at "full speed" on that laptop using DOSBox. (Unless someone gets dynamic core working on PPC and then you may get alot closer)

So the "trick" to make the games run faster is to use your PC (assuming it's more recent than the laptop) or to get a faster laptop.

wd
He wasn't asking for proof, he was just asking if DOSBox was running properly, and it was.

DosFreak
Ravenloft Strahd's possession was done back in 1990, Mezo was in 1994.
Are you absolutely positive that "Dynamic Cores" were industry standard back then?

I'm not being confrontational, I'm just asking.

It seems odd though because Menzo is actually running smoother than Ravenloft, and it was the last game SSI put out - which was in 1994. They are almost close to 100% that's why I can't help but think I'm missing something that will make up for that little extra.

I'm a little confused by the dynamic core thingy.

Edit Ok I just increased the CPU Core to Full. I didn't know I could do that haha. Anyway, it's working much smoother. Not 100% but much more tolerable than when it was on Normal. There must be something else I can do here. I can't keep messing with it atm though, I'll figure it out tonight.

I'm also copying my cd files to my base Hard Drive see if that speeds things up a bit.

There is always the README:

CPU Cores
On x86 architectures you can try to force the usage of a dynamically
recompiling core (set core=dynamic in the DOSBox configuration file).
This usually gives better results if the auto detection (core=auto) fails.
It is best accompanied by cycles=max. Note that there might be games
that work worse with the dynamic core, or do not work at all!

That didn't answer the question of what a dynamic core is. :sigh: nevermind. I'll just keep playing with it and see if there's a way to make the thing work a bit smoother.
See it isn't that the game runs universally slower. There are times where it runs fast, then slow, then fast, then slow, then medium, then fast, then slow. It's this weird choppy effect. And I've slowly but surely been getting rid of it, and was hoping there was something else I missed which would make it run normal speed throughout the whole thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_recompilation

The reason it may run faster or slower in the game is that some parts of the game may be more intensive than other parts. If you are using a set number of cycles and the game plays fine and then you go to a more intensive part of the game and it runs slower requiring an increase of cycles....but if your processor is too slow then if you increase your cycles beyond the capacity of your processor then you'll actually be slowing down the game instead of speeding it up.