@Schloss Ritter:
Of course you can send me some error report, but the address where the error occurs will probably be the only thing in this I can at least perhaps use for something. Again: D-Fend Reloaded is just a little desktop program written in Delphi. It's not doing any strange things. On startup it reading some configuration and profile files and displays the main window. If this fails it's quite likely something is wrong with your system in general.

@Paar:
D-Fend Reloaded is definitive not influencing any system driver and DOSBox also should not change any driver settings. Perhaps some Wi-Fi control program (global system hotkeys with on desktop on/off notify etc.) cannot handle the change of the display resolution and crashes. You can try to use the output method "surface" when using fullscreen. If your Wi-Fi driver does not crash in this case, it can't handle the change of resolution.

My laptop has a native resolution of 1280x800. This isn't an option in D-Fend Reloaded. In fact, if I manually edit the config file, D-Fend Reloaded will snap it back to a resolution it knows. If you don't want to add in a gazillion resolutions in the drop box, can you either allow the user to simply enter the resolution (ie: get rid of the drop box completely) or have an entry in the drop box for "CUSTOM" and have it not touch what is manually entered in the config file?

Hi Kurt,
you can edit the resolution values offered in the dropdown box on the "Default values" page of the program options dialog (as the tooltip for the window and the fullscreen resolution also tells you).

Hi, Kurt!
Also you may specify fullscreen resolution as 0x0, which means 'your desktop resolution'.

Hi, ...

Did you plan to made an updated version = v1.x v2.x, or keep the v1.0 Final ?

It work verry well, but when i create severals zip games packages from all games, it cant be cancelled when making that. But it not a bug, i have to wait for the finish of all packages.

Hi sst,

the next thing I'm working on is a 1.0.1 service release fixing some smaller problems etc. In this release I can also try to improve the archive file creation process. I also would like to release a 1.1 version some time but I haven't got any ideas for new features yet.

Alexander,

Excellent work on D-Fend Reloaded version 1.0.0 !

I am using your D-Fend Reloaded DOSBox fron=end to configure a retro-to-2005 'game' machine for my young nephew. This build is an Aopen AX6BC (Intel 440BX) based motherboard with a PowerLeap Slot-1 adapter with an Intel 1.4GHz Tulatin Celeron processor and 768MB of ECC RAM. Constructed with an IDE 80GB Seagate 7200.10 hard drive, a IDE Sony DVD-ROM drive, the video is provided by an NVidia 5950U adapter, the monitor a 19" Dell M993s for 85Hz refresh for both DOS and Windows. The operating system is Win98SE. The audio is provided by a Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! PCI audio card in conjunction with a Creative Labs AWE64 Gold ISA audio card; plus a Roland MT-32 for older DOS games with the Roland Virtual Sound Canvas for 'newer' General MIDI based games.

Using DOSBox 0.74+ (via D-Fend Reloaded) and the ability of D-Fend Reloaded to execute DOS games via DOSBox, ScummVM, the native Win98SE DOSVM (for CPU intensive DOS games) and Windows Win32 games is a huge plus. Especially nice is the implementation 'helper' programs which can be executed both before and after the main program execution. Besides ensuring that the correct ICC file is re-loaded to the NVidia video card LUT, these features will allow me to transparently mix and match the various DOS/Windows game programs to any of the possible audio/MIDI sources - from either an MT-32 attached to the AWE64 Gold game/MIDI port, to SoundFonts loaded on either the AWE64 Gold or the SoundBlaster Live! or to the Roland Virtual Sound Canvas.

Without D-Fend Reloaded this integration would have been much more difficult - and the end result of a point and click game launching interface for a GUI-oriented 'yute' would not have been realized so cleanly. Again, a well-thought out interface and extra feature in the mini-database for the games and any of its attached program or data files, plus graphics, videos, sounds, notes and additional data.

I did, however come across a few 'bugs' which might make your D-Fend Reloaded v1.0.1 Service release. One is common to both Win98SE and WinXP (SP2) and two seems exclusive to Win98SE.

First item which affects both Win98SE and WinXP is in the "Profile/Sound/MIDI" page. Specifically the "Additional Settings" which uses the "Select MIDI device from Device Manager" drop-down control. This will execute DOSBox with the DOSBox "Mixer /ListMidi" command to gain the current MIDI device names and device numbers for the drop-down list control. Selection of one of the listed MIDI devices from the drop-down list will write "midiconfig=X" to the "Additional Settings" input box. However, the Profile MIDI selection will not function due to the fact that the D-Fend Reloaded on-the-fly written DOSBox.CONF file will now contain the following sub-section:

[midi]
mpu401=uart
mididevice=win32
midiconfig=midiconfig=X

The "midiconfig=" string is prepended to the Additional Settings" selection box text inserted from the list drop-down control. The work-around is manually edit the Additional Settings" text box to only input the device number.

As an aside, the MIDI selection in D-Fend Reloaded can function differently in the Win9x family vs the WinNT based operating systems. Win98SE, once the Sound-cards and MIDI devices are installed has a stable MIDI device numbering scheme - no matter what the default MIDI device selection may be. However, the WinXP MIDI device numbers are not so constant, depending on the currently selected default MIDI device, all of the other MIDI device numbers change - except for the MIDI Mapper. So you might note that for WinXP+ any MIDI device selected by number in D-Fend Reloaded Profile may not be the same one that is selected at runtime if the default WinXP MIDI device selection has changed in the meantime.

The other 'bug' only appears on Win98SE. It appears that if any ICON or SCREENSHOT graphics file are in the PNG format - then D-Fend Reloaded will then display an error message of "Access violation at address 0165E590. Read of address FFFFFFFF." Since the native format of DOSBox captures via the keyboard CTRL-F5 mechanism is the PNG graphics format, this might be a problem. Conversion of any PNG based file to another graphics format is the current work-around. This error does not occur on WinXP (SP2).

The only other possible problem that I noted was the Win98SE does not seem to be able to support one of the D-Fend Reloaded "extras". It may be that Win98SE is not the really a supported platform for D-Fend Reloaded extras - but the error message for either Floppy or CD image create from real media is "Could not open Drive X for direct reading."Under Win98SE none of the image function seem to work.

Again, congratulations on the release of D-Fend Reloaded version 1.0.0, it is an solidly built and full featured front-end for DOSBox.

dvwjr

I have started working on a 1.0.1 service release. I will try to release 1.0.1rc1 next week. I have already done this things:

• Updated DOSZip from 1.54 to 1.59.
• A new start-up logging function can help you to find the problem if D-Fend Reloaded is not running.
• Updated the png file reader library.
• [Fix] In some cases the "DOSBox start failed" dialog could appear even if DOSBox is working correctly.
• [Fix] When selecting a MIDI device to be used in a DOSBox profile the text "midiconfig=id" is added to the additional MIDI settings field instead of just the MIDI device id.

Some remarks on dvwjr post:

• The 1.0.1 release will fix the "midiconfig=" problem but will not store the name of the selected device. Making the MIDI device selector smarter will need additional language strings and therefore cannot be done before version 1.1. (This also means: I have added this to my todo for version 1.1.)
• Delphi can't find the address 0165E590 in the 1.0 source code. But it's probably inside the png reader component. I have updated this component now and hope this will fix your problem.
• The "Could not open Drive X for direct reading." comes from CreateFile("\\.\A:",...) which fails under Windows 98 and before. "Windows programming for experts" from my book shelf tells: "Windows NT allows to open a physical device by using the string "\\.\PHYSICALDRIVEx" [...] In Windows 95 you cannot open a physical drive." Sorry, if the Windows API function does not let me access the drive on sector base there is nothing I can do.

BTW: The feature wish list for 1.1 is still open. (So far there is only on thing on it - see above.)

Is it possible to add a picture selection box on the Moby Games Data Reader with arrows or something so we could choose the game box or picture we want to add to the profiles?

Thanks Alexander!

Oh, I also just had a suggestion from the Facebook fan page.

From Klaitu Ben-Johhn: How about a sort of iTunes view for the games, where the user can specify an image of the box art, and then you can select the game by scrolling through those images.. It would be slick even if it wasn't in 3d.

while you're at it, 3d models of the floppies too. specifiy color, bump texture of the floppy's plastic, the label texture with alpha channel, the kind of metal sheet used on the protector, the label on the protector, and maybe even toggle the write switch in 3D!!!!!

🤣 I thought the same thing. It's beyond necessity or scope, and seems like it would be a large amount of work for fluff, but I thought I'd pass it along.

Hi, ...

I use your = D-Fend Reloaded, "v1.0 Release", D-Fend Reloaded PortableApps package".

Nearly same UI since 2007 V0.1.0 (see Screenshot).

From Klaitu Ben-Johhn: How about a sort of iTunes view for the games, where the user can specify an image of the box art, and then you can select the game by scrolling through those images.. It would be slick even if it wasn't in 3d.

I think also, that it must have a better UI = 201x style UI, with "image and text" game selection.

But whe have to wait, if Alexander will made that inside "v2.x or later" version ?

I'm very busy this week so just some short answers:

Moby games cover download preview: May be in 1.1.

3D and other big GUI changes: D-Fend Reloaded from 0.1 to 1.0 is always built on the same runtime and component library which brings no build-in support for 3D, animations etc. Things like this need to use DirectX functions to be fast enough. All I can use are just the normal Windows GDI functions. Of course I could learn the DirectX api functions and implement some 3D GUI functions from scratch. But this would be far out of my available time.

Hi, ... Alexander

I use your = D-Fend Reloaded, "v1.0 Release", D-Fend Reloaded PortableApps package".

I have found a file that is not needed (in your installation package) =

Thumbs.db

Inside the directory = D-FendReloadedPortable\App\IconSets\Modern

Please verify at your side, ...

I have just uploaded a first release candidate of D-Fend Reloaded 1.0.1 to the beta download page fixing this and all other known bugs in 1.0.

Hello Alexander,

I am using DFR 1.0.1 RC1.

I found a spelling error in the Game installation window after using the "Install from source media..." option.

It reads: "Please wait, starting of the installation programm is being prepared."

It should read "Please wait, starting of the installation program is being prepared."

Thank you Alexander, for the GREAT program and hard work!

Alexander wrote:

I have just uploaded a first release candidate of D-Fend Reloaded 1.0.1 to the beta download page fixing this and all other known bugs in 1.0.

I just checked out the fixes in D-Fend Reloaded v1.0.1 that you just released.

1.) The MIDI "midiconfig=X" bug has been fixed.

2.) The Win98 problem with any "ScreenShot" picture of the PNG type is still present. Typical error response:

"Access violation at address 01662970. Read of address FFFFFFFF."

3.) Understand that Win98 does not support WinNT family "CreateFile((" API. Images can be made on another WinXP PC.

So only the mystery of the display of PNG pictures or icons on Win98 remains, with the workaround of converting PNG format files to JPG or GIF as the answer.

Hope this helps,

dvwjr

The spelling error is fixed and the png image loading code is changed a bit again. If the png loading component fails, there is nothing I can do. But I have added some security checks now which should prevent D-Fend Reloaded from showing this access violation error messages.

I will try to upload a second release candidate later this week and then 1.0.1final next week.

I guess I'm not understanding how to use the "startup logging function". Is it automatically on by default? Does it create some kind of log in a text file? I'm not seeing anything from it.