DOSBOX/ DOSEMU/other emulators (like Virtual PC etc.) - this was discussed at length before. Search!

Mirek

Hi Guest 😀 Your english is fine 😀

The big difference between DOSEmu and DOSBox is the portability of the code. DOSEmu doesn't emulate the CPU so require a x86 CPU on the computer (which is also the reason why it's faster), while DOSBox can be compiled on pretty much any computer one can think of. It's futureproof, and that's why it's the better one in my opinion.

Use dosemu then....no one forced dosbox on you....

To me its not a matter of which is faster. DOSbox runs GAMES better than any other emulator out there. My system has enough speed to run the games I want to run.

Different emulators are good for different things (at least on the current computers):
DOSBOX is the most compatible/hadware independent/the best choice for future (sooner or later Intel processor compatibility will be broken anyway!).

However if you have very demanding game (usually 3D shooter - e.g. Blood) then on current computers its performance will be limited in DOSBOX (in other words - there are better ways to run it - natively or using an emulator which does not emulate processor).
This is a temporary problem - in a few years you will not have any performance problems with any games in DOSBOX ...

Mirek

🤣, If you fiddle with Blood, replace the DOS32G/W with DOS32A and then use Dynamic Mode in DOSBox it actually runs pretty good. At least that was the last time I tried it out.

/Ieremiou

is blood faster under dos32a than dos4g/w?

just because i tried it, and it was unbearably slow even in 320x200 on a 2.3G tbred, cycles maxed out 😵

alvaro

Odd, plays fine on my Athlon XP 2800 at 320X2000 at 53000 cycles. Fully playable.

At 640x480 it's a little choppy but probably bearable if you just had to play it at a higher res.

53000 cycles ? 😳 Anything above 15000 makes the sound go choppy for me and I have a similar CPU to yours and high quality hardware.

Are you using dynamic core? This type of core allows for greater amount of cpu cycles.

Guest, i can tell you dynamic core will boost your speed increadible. For example, doom 2 with normal cpu core is quite slow (thou still playable), but with dynamic cpu core, i can boost cycles to 28000 on my athlon XP 2500, and sounds are not still choppy. Game works excelent.

The bad thing is, some games cannot run with dynamic cpu. 🙁
For example Daggerfall... it can be played only with normal cpu core, so i cannot get more than 14000 cycles... and it is not enough for this cool game.

The good thing is, as mirekluza said, with increasing cpu power (and more and more optimized dosbox code), speed of the games played under dosbox will increase too... so you can looking forward for new generation processors. It can be matter of year or an two, when any dos game will run smoothly under dosbox (well... if you will be able to run it 😉)

> DOSBOX/ DOSEMU/other emulators (like Virtual PC etc.) - this was
> discussed at length before. Search!
Searching that forum on that particular topic sometimes yields
the wrong results. Testing is always necessary. A lot of
controversial info like that:
Quick question
One can also search the internet and find the crap like this
http://linuxcompatible.org/thread558-1.html
and thats exactly what makes to discussing that topic again.
That may reveal some more technical details than as
"DosEmu is so ancient that it isn't even funny".
Why so many misinformation happens around that?

Those comments were made with regards to gaming compatibility which DosBox excels at and which DosEmu does not.

The first link I was focusing more on speed and compatibility with games.

The other poster was referring to just speed. Obviously DosEmu will be faster than DosBox if your just worried about speed.

The second link again refers to gaming compatibility. Which again, DosBox excels and Dosemu does not.

Obviously each emulator performs better for different uses but I stand by my opinion (okay FACT) that DosBox beats DosEmu into the dust with gaming compatibility.

Also, bringing up 2yr old posts on emulators (or any other subject really)will undoubtedly have much misinformation due to the amount of change in the emulator world.

> Obviously DosEmu will be faster than DosBox if your just worried about
> speed.
OK, in what case it will be slower then?

> my opinion (okay FACT) that DosBox beats DosEmu into the dust with
> gaming compatibility.
It cannot be the FACT unless you supply it with a list of at least a
few examples. Otherwise, based on my testing, that is completely
not true.

> Also, bringing up 2yr old posts on emulators
What I found interesting in that old post was an argument that
dosemu is ancient and so it is bad. No matter how the world
changes, that argument remains crap I think. Linux is ancient,
GNU is even more ancient, Windows is ancient, PC is ancient -
all that is much more ancient than DosEmu. Now one will say
they are "not even funny" because of that?

OK, in what case it will be slower then?

Sigh, my point was that DosEmu is faster speed-wise. but not compatibility in terms of gameplay. Say for instance you wanted to play Doom. DosEmu would be faster than DosBox. If you had DosBox and DosEmu on the same box. Would you want to play on DosBox or DosEmu? You would want to play Doom using DosBox because other than it's ease of use it has superior sound quality. (In the real world we've use a native port of course)

It cannot be the FACT unless you supply it with a list of at least a
few examples. Otherwise, based on my testing, that is completely
not true.

I'm referring to the feature-set of DosBox as compared to DosEmu for GAMING COMPATIBILITY AND GAMEPLAY.
Okay. Show us your list. No wait a minute. I DON't CARE. But show it anyway if it'll make ya happy. I'm sure someone would be happy to pick it apart.

What I found interesting in that old post was an argument that dosemu is ancient and so it is bad. No matter how the world chang […]
Show full quote

What I found interesting in that old post was an argument that
dosemu is ancient and so it is bad. No matter how the world
changes, that argument remains crap I think. Linux is ancient,
GNU is even more ancient, Windows is ancient, PC is ancient -
all that is much more ancient than DosEmu. Now one will say
they are "not even funny" because of that?

That old post wasn't an argument that Dosemu was ancient and bad. That post was talking about DosBox and how it's so much better than DosEmu. The comment about DosEmu being "ancient", was just that. A comment.
That post was posted on 6-16-2003.

According to the DosEmu changelog I have here:

*dosemu-1.1.5-r1 (20 Jun 2003)
*dosemu-1.1.5 (07 Jun 2003)
*dosemu-1.1.4.15 (16 Apr 2003)
*dosemu-1.1.4 (07 Feb 2003)
*dosemu-1.1.3-r1 (27 Jul 2002)

Which at the time I wasn't going through changelog's looking for slight updates to DosEmu. I was looking at OFFICIAL releases.

According to this and which is how I remember it all the way back in 2003:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=49784

Hey, looky there.

Dosemu 1.1.5 released in 6-5-2003 and before that version?
v1.1.4 released on WHOAH 12-17-2002!

This is where the "ancient" comments come from.

And now you'll probably say well..DUH! Don't use the official versions, compile the latest CVS! I was making a post on LinuxCompatible for "average" users. Not people who compile each and every latest release of a program.

Now if you have something to prove about DosEmu and how fabulous it is then prove it. Stop commenting on my comments, you won't prove anything that way. Post why you think DosEmu is so much better than DosBox for gaming.

> Would you want to play on DosBox or DosEmu? You would want to play
> Doom using DosBox because other than it's ease of use
I don't think either one is difficult to use. Basically I performed
the similar set of operations to make them go, which included
mounting my partitions inside the emulators, and pretty much
nothing more.
OTOH it seems like DOSbox requires much more of a setup
work if one is going to tweak it up for the perfomance...
So my conclusion was that dosemu is easier to use.

> it has superior sound quality.
I wouldn't say that. Doom2 works perfectly under dosemu, sound is
OK either. OTOH under dosbox it is a bit slow and so the sound
stutters.

> I'm referring to the feature-set of DosBox as compared to DosEmu
What *are* those features? Could you please provide at least
some facts to what you say? Others were saying about portability,
I take that, it is important. Have nothing to do with a gameplay
though.

> No wait a minute. I DON't CARE.
I know. If you'd care, you will probably provide at least some
arguments to your point other than just saying FACTs.

> Dosemu 1.1.5 released in 6-5-2003 and before that version?
> v1.1.4 released on WHOAH 12-17-2002!
Half of year delay - is it really that much? Well, that depends.

> Stop commenting on my comments
OK, sorry, I wasn't realizing both the comments I was referring
to, were from the same poster (you). It just were the comments
I found the most controversial and misleading. Sorry. But since
there seem to be absolutely zero argumentation from your side
now and then, my opinion that stays.

> Post why you think DosEmu is so much better than DosBox
> for gaming.
I thought this is pretty much known already as well as said
above. Under dosemu the games are much faster/smoother
and the Vesa2 support looks much superior. I don't know
the other technical details, but it is already enough for the first
choise between the two I think.

As you can see, I am at least trying to instrument my claims
with at least a few small examples each. This may not be
sufficient or deep enough, but it should make some basis
for the discussion. Other people who replied did the same,
this doesn't include you. So if you reply to that, *please* provide
at least some real-life arguments. I've got enough of FACTs
already, thanks. I even starting to doubt whether you beleive
your words yourself, or just trying to prove "No wait a minute.
I DON't CARE." kind of stuff...

I don't think either one is difficult to use. Basically I performed the similar set of operations to make them go, which include […]
Show full quote

I don't think either one is difficult to use. Basically I performed
the similar set of operations to make them go, which included
mounting my partitions inside the emulators, and pretty much
nothing more.
OTOH it seems like DOSbox requires much more of a setup
work if one is going to tweak it up for the perfomance...
So my conclusion was that dosemu is easier to use.

This is because by default DosBox is targetted for older games. By speeding up (Using Dynamic Core) DosBox for more resource intensive games you thereby elimate the HUGE amount of DOS Games that do not require dyanmic core, but now no longer work properly because you are using Dynamic core.

> it has superior sound quality. I wouldn't say that. Doom2 works perfectly under dosemu, sound is OK either. OTOH under dosbox […]
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> it has superior sound quality.
I wouldn't say that. Doom2 works perfectly under dosemu, sound is
OK either. OTOH under dosbox it is a bit slow and so the sound
stutters.

Doom is a DPMI game which therefore requires Dynamic core. The General Midi option in Doom which most people choose also is terrible which is why those who like their Doom with decent music do not use it. AFAIK, DosEmu only supports General Midi. (Correct me if I'm wrong about DosEmu and MIDI, I might be)

> I'm referring to the feature-set of DosBox as compared to DosEmu What *are* those features? Could you please provide at least […]
Show full quote

> I'm referring to the feature-set of DosBox as compared to DosEmu
What *are* those features? Could you please provide at least
some facts to what you say? Others were saying about portability,
I take that, it is important. Have nothing to do with a gameplay
though.

DosBox feature list: http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/status.php?show_status=1

Portability is very important. A system with no option to play a game, now has the option to play that game. That has everything to do with playing games.

> Dosemu 1.1.5 released in 6-5-2003 and before that version?
> v1.1.4 released on WHOAH 12-17-2002!
Half of year delay - is it really that much? Well, that depends.

It's not so much the time but what has been done for GAMES during that time.

> Post why you think DosEmu is so much better than DosBox > for gaming. I thought this is pretty much known already as well as s […]
Show full quote

> Post why you think DosEmu is so much better than DosBox
> for gaming.
I thought this is pretty much known already as well as said
above. Under dosemu the games are much faster/smoother
and the Vesa2 support looks much superior. I don't know
the other technical details, but it is already enough for the first
choise between the two I think.

It seems that you are mostly focused on Vesa and faster/smoother.

DosBox is only capable of 8bit Vesa with a maximum of 800x600 (with SDD 5.3a), without SDD5.3a 640x480 is the max.

The only way to speed up DosBox is to change dosbox.conf core from normal to dynamic. This will offer more speed but of course not even close to as much as DosEmu due to the way that DosBox emulates.

Currently DosBox is not the solution for resource intensive VESA games. No one has EVER argued that it is. All that I have been saying is that DosBox offers MORE compatibility and a BETTER gameplay experience on MORE games than DosEmu.

I do not think there is a point in arguing here what is better... And it leads nowhere (like Ati/NVidia, Intel/AMD, Windows/Linux ... wars). I am thinking about closing this thread (warning!).
Let's everybody use what he/she wants and what is better for his/her purpose (DOSBOX/DOSEMU target are not completely the same...).

Mirek

mirek: I for one wouldn't mind seeing this thread get closed. It has been painful to read so far 😜

Everyone who can should run both programs and decide for him/herself which program is best suited to their needs.

It doesn't even matter to me since I use Windows...