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First post, by Parhelion

Posted on 
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Hi,

Sorry if this has been covered before, but would someone mind explaining to me what the differences are between the four choices for the "core" setting in the config file of DOSBOX?

First of all, what is the "core?" It sounds important, but that's all I know. Second, what performance differences should I be looking for when experimenting with them. Should one perform better then the others in certain situations?

I'm also not to clear on what the "output" types do. I have an old nvidia card. Should I use opengl then? Is one choice generally more stable or one higher performing than the others?

I'm asking because I'm trying to run Quest for Glory 4 and Space Quest 4, which worked great under 0.61, but both crash my system under 0.63. I know I could revert to 0.61, but I think maybe I can get this to work, and so far I'm not having much luck.

Thanks in advance, and again I'm sorry if this is newbie stuff I'm asking. I assure you that I did look in the wikipedia, the readme, and various FAQs before posting.

Reply 1 of 3, by mirekluza

Posted on 
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Rank DOSBox Moderator
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DOSBox Moderator

core = processor emulator
normal - this is the most compatible, used by default
dynamic - using dynamic recompilation - the quickest one, less compatible
full - slower alternative of normal, used for something internally, no speciall advantage in using it specifically
simple - simplified variant of normal which should lead to better performance on computers not compatible with Intel
Recommendation: use normal or dynamic (but try others in case of problems)

output = the way of displaying
surface - the oldest, most compatible
overlay - using overlay, this can be be quicker than surface
opengl - using OpenGL, slow on non NVidia cards
openglnb - variant of previous, without bilinear filtering (the picture is sharper)
ddraw - based on DirectX, quicker variant to OpenGL especially on non-NVidia cards
Recommendation: try what works better in your case. I think that probably overlay or ddraw should be the quickest one.

If you have game problems and they are not general problems with DOSBOX (I mean that you can run other games ok), then post into DOSBOX Games/Apps (with details).

Mirek

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