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First post, by velvetmilk

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hey guys, i'm new on here and have done multiple searches to find what i'm looking for but i really have a limited clue as to how DOSbox work and even the dos32a extended application.

my problem's unique in that a group of friends and i created a DOS based game back in 1999 just because we wanted to build something from the ground up. unfortunately today i cannot view the hard work i put into it at the time because the smacktards over at microsoft got rid of a wonderful thing.

i managed to get the game working using dosbox but it ran at maybe 1 frame a second at BEST. i know my computer's not that new - a 900 MHZ with 800 MB RAM and a 128 NVIDIA card, but wasn't sure of these results were atypical. it's hard to believe games like battlefield 1942 run okay while some crappy pixel art game (but it's my creation!) cannot run at more than 1 fps.

i have been seeing posts about this dos32a and i dloaded and installed the files. i was looking at their help but didn't come up with anything. i placed the dos32a.exe file in my root folder with my executable for the game (mmm.exe) and went to command prompt and typed:

c:\mmm>dos32a.exe mmm.exe (which i saw on a post on this forum) and it gave me amessage which said "file mmm.exe does not contain any vaid exec format"

other than shooting back to windows 9x, is there anyway to get this game to opperate again?

Reply 1 of 25, by MiniMax

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Hi velvetmilk,

There must be something very peculiar about that game of yours if it runs that slow. Somewhere here on the forums, you should be able to find a link to a version of DOSBox with a built-in debugger. Perhaps you can use that to figure out what is going on, and what is causing such a slow frame rate?

DOSBox 60 seconds guide | How to ask questions
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Reply 3 of 25, by ASM

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velvetmilk did you increase the cycles? By default DOSBox runs @ 2500 cycles and this might be a bit too slow. You can increase the cycles by pressing CTRL-F12 while DOSBox runs. If it's still running to slow you can try to use the dynamic core. Have a look @ the dosbox configuration file to find out how to do so.

i have been seeing posts about this dos32a and i dloaded and installed the files. i was looking at their help but didn't come up with anything. i placed the dos32a.exe file in my root folder with my executable for the game (mmm.exe) and went to command prompt and typed:

c:\mmm>dos32a.exe mmm.exe (which i saw on a post on this forum) and it gave me amessage which said "file mmm.exe does not contain any vaid exec format"

DOS/32A is a 32-bit Protected Mode DOS Extender and it can only run LE or LX applications (i.e. applications compiled with WATCOM C/C++ using DOS 32-bit as target platform). It's supposed to be a replacement for DOS/4G(W).

Reply 4 of 25, by velvetmilk

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Thanks everyone for your help. I did adjust the cycles (and frames) for the game in upwards of 150,000 cycles and it ran just as bad.

Attached is a .zip file with the game in it. It was something we did for a high school senior project so nothing is copyrighted or anything - no one would pay for it anyways 😉

If you get the game running at a good speed, let me know. I went on to be a 3D artist and am currently working on an open GL game independently so looking back this Wolf3D style game is well - rough - to say the least but as I mentioned I would like to have it as a playable keepsake.

Thanks again!

Attachments

  • Filename
    MMM.zip
    File size
    1.51 MiB
    Downloads
    133 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 5 of 25, by Zorbid

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You may want to try Fabrice Bellard's Qemu

http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/

The latest accelerator module should make your code faster than the half of your processor speed (did that make any sense? well... above 450 MHz for your 900MHz Athlon.)

You must boot the emulator with a real DOS disk image (floppy or hdd).

Reply 8 of 25, by velvetmilk

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i did try different cores before i even posted on here because i read about it on this site - i did normal, dynamic , and the other one (i forget its name). and it ran like crap with all cores on mine. obviously if eL_pusher is having it run like crap on his Athlon 1800+ my 900 MHz doesn't stand a chance.
anyone else who tests it, please try to help me out!

(p.s. still don't understand how high end games run well and crappy DOS ones run like hell)

Last edited by velvetmilk on 2005-02-23, 21:25. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 9 of 25, by Qbix

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eL_PuSHeR wrote:

It runs like crap on my Athlon XP 1800+, Dynamic core, 10000 cycles, frameskip 10 - My God, you better not earn a living by making games. 🤣 🤣 🤣

well if you can only have 10.000 cycles at your athlon then the game is indeed horrible programmed with lot's of ioreads/weird timers/ selfmodifying code/lot's of mode switching.

if you programmed it in 1999 remember how fast the machines were then. it will be a while before dosbox emulates that speed. especially if it's bad programming.

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Reply 10 of 25, by velvetmilk

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well if you can only have 10.000 cycles at your athlon then the game is indeed horrible programmed with lot's of ioreads/weird timers/ selfmodifying code/lot's of mode switching.

i don't understand. i was able to put my cycles up as far as 150,000 and it kept going on my 900 MHz but it still ran like crap. i don't know why eL_puSHer only went up as high as 10,000 cycles. ASM said it was playble at 38,000 cycles but it was not playable on my machine at that speed.

Reply 19 of 25, by MiniMax

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old school dude wrote:

this is the end time my post has bin deleted.....not funny....that or my isp is chashing the internet pages and im seeing the dated pages...dout it tho ....this is my 3nd post in here.......lets see what happens....in 45 min

I have deleted two of your silly test posts OSD, since they where totally off-topic. What are you trying to prove?

DOSBox 60 seconds guide | How to ask questions
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