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First post, by Than

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For anybody who has a pc that is too fast for a game but not hugely so, you can try experimenting with turning off the level 1 or level 2 cache individually or in tandem in your bios, if you have a compatible pc. There are numerous dos based cpu benchmarks that will give good relatavistic results. This allows you to have 4 speed configurations at the hardware level, and is useful for folks like the one who posted that he needed a 100-200 mhz machine. His C400 can BECOME a 100-200 like performer by adjusting the cache status in bios without loss of stability.

Also, as a long time dos user since (ms 1.1), and a huge fan of emulation in general here's my two cents on dosbox relative to the rest of the emulation out there. In a few words .... an impressive start. Yes, newbs a front-end would be nice but Qbix and other people are busy working on much more important things. Im sure eventually somebody maybe authors maybe somebody else will make you something nice like mame32's frontend or at least Winuae. However to the authors, it would be nice to be able to "untie" the sound emulation speed from the cpu cycle throttle as more mature emu's do. This would eliminate a major source of confusion/frustration as it is counterintuitive to most folks minds to say "more cpu cycles means emulator sound bad!". Personally, I've been waiting for an emulator this good since Windows 95 was called "Chicago". I understand there is still a lot of "engine & tranny" work to do, so I'm happy with what works and fretfully awaiting the day when it's functional, fast and easy so that even geeks like me who cut their teeth on the CLI can grow even more obese clicking on an icon to make my "cheesy dos crap" - (that makes me happy) work with a minimum amount of effort on a maximum variety of hardware. Again, great start and may you truly shame uncle "bill" by creating the UberDOS gaming open-source wonder-widget....boneheads like me will be wiping up our drool in the mean time with the copious titles that work now. 😉

Reply 1 of 1, by eL_PuSHeR

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Hello, even if i agree with you, specially on the L1 and L2 cache trick, there are many people here who don't have enough ms-dos knowledge nor the hardware one to be messing with something, sometimes difficult, as bios values are. Imho, software solutions are easier to manage for this type of people.

EDIT:

Forgot to mention that some newest funky bioses, like my ASUS one, don't have many old parameters available anymore. Newest ones are even worse.

Regarding front-ends for DOSBox, i think there is already something available (DOSBox fro? - don't quite remember the name), but just because i've come from the ms-dos days (i am tinkering with PCs since the 80's) and i am accostumed to the command-line, i prefer running DOSBox "as is". For newbies, it would be a different matter, though. I see that command-lines usually give the user more freedom to do things that nice GUI, even if they are sometimes a pain in the arse to use.