Both forks only have an optional dependency on FluidSynth, which can be disabled at build time (hint: meson configure and configure --help). FluidSynth itself can be configured to disable its dependence on PipeWire.

markboston38 wrote on 2023-09-01, 18:16:

i know the main program hasn't been updated since 2010. i know about dosbox-staging and dosbox-x however they both have a dep that i don't want to install on my system. is there some "modern" program that like staging takes all of the good patches etc but doesn't require the use of weird deps?(specially i don't want to install fluidsynth since it requires a library from pipewire to function)

What do you mean it wasnt updated since 2010?

This is in debian:

dosbox --version
DOSBox version 0.74-3, copyright 2002-2019 DOSBox Team.

DOSBox 0.74 was released in 2010. It's horribly outdated and doesn't run well as it still uses SDL1, for which modern Linux distros only provide a compatibility layer.

It's a 13 years old emulator. Let that sink in.

I much prefer DOSBox Staging. It uses SDL2 (which itself fixes a ton of display issues), fixes a ton of bugs and code quality problems, uses modern libraries and modern development techniques. Also, the authors are very open, very active, and welcome contributors.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2023-09-03, 07:37:

DOSBox 0.74 was released in 2010. It's horribly outdated and doesn't run well as it still uses SDL1, for which modern Linux distros only provide a compatibility layer.

It's a 13 years old emulator. Let that sink in.

I much prefer DOSBox Staging. It uses SDL2 (which itself fixes a ton of display issues), fixes a ton of bugs and code quality problems, uses modern libraries and modern development techniques. Also, the authors are very open, very active, and welcome contributors.

Dumb question, but does DOSBox Staging support using the dynamic core on 64-bit? Also, does it properly do 80-bit precision FPU emulation?

Yes, the dynamic core is supported in DOSBox Staging. I use it daily on Ubuntu Linux x86_64.

I don't see how the FPU emulation would be a problem.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2023-09-03, 07:37:

DOSBox 0.74 was released in 2010. It's horribly outdated and doesn't run well as it still uses SDL1, for which modern Linux distros only provide a compatibility layer.

It's a 13 years old emulator. Let that sink in.

I much prefer DOSBox Staging. It uses SDL2 (which itself fixes a ton of display issues), fixes a ton of bugs and code quality problems, uses modern libraries and modern development techniques. Also, the authors are very open, very active, and welcome contributors.

DOSBox latest release was in 2019.
But yes, it sadly still uses SDL1 but with the compatibility layer it works quite fine.
And yes, all forks are overburdening DOSBox with stuff.

Please keep discussion of staging out of Vogons and dosbox-x in its thread.

Overburdening doesn't even describe reality, which is "less bugs, more code quality, modern development techniques".

The latest DOSBox release are mere bugfixes (ie. 0.74-3), it's still essentially the same 13 years old stuff.

The last version of DOSBox is 0.74-3 and it was released in 2019. I didn't write DOSBox 0.74. I wrote the last version.

Yes, 0.74 was released in 2010. I was there, too. But that's a nonsense statement when it wasn't the last release.

Please don't spread misinformation. (this was in response to the previous unedited post)

Edit: And last version does not reflect the huge amount of work that had gone into the code. Current code is miles away from the releases, but still using SDL 1.x 🙁

Anyway, please discuss staging and dosbox-x elsewhere.

I realized I was out of line and edited my post. Sorry about that.

Dominus wrote on 2023-09-04, 12:01:

Edit: And last version does not reflect the huge amount of work that had gone into the code. Current code is miles away from the releases

Will we ever see that huge amount of work in an official release?
At this point the latest official release is basically a legacy product compared to forks, of which we are constantly reminded not to discuss about here…

Azarien wrote on 2023-09-04, 21:26:

Dominus wrote on 2023-09-04, 12:01:

Edit: And last version does not reflect the huge amount of work that had gone into the code. Current code is miles away from the releases

Will we ever see that huge amount of work in an official release?
At this point the latest official release is basically a legacy product compared to forks, of which we are constantly reminded not to discuss about here…

I don't know. There was a lot going on in the background and I have the feeling that how things played out pretty much disgusted some people.

You can discuss forks all you like, there has never been an issue with the discussion of "forks" at vogons which have been around almost since DOSBox was created. What becomes an issue is numerous threads discussing functionality, bugs, etc that only exist in forks causing confusion so fork discussion should be in a dedicated consolidated thread per fork. With that said when one of the devs for a fork is banned you are better off discussing that fork on its own site since it's likely the thread would devolve into idiocy.

Another issue with some of these forks is that they are allowing linking to so called "abandonware", so you'll have users visiting those fork sites that have a difference stance on so called "abandonware" from this site but coming back here littering threads with links back to that site that links to the so called "abandonware" , in some cases even blatantly implementing features for so called "abandonware" (at the behest of those "abandonware" collectors\maintainers) when they could at least be smart and never mention in the first place or removing those references.

If you haven't noticed we try to keep vogons clean of controversy unlike the rest of the Internet which thrives on it like a cancer.

One thing is sure: there is quite some FUD being posted on the forum regarding the forks (have a look here, too: DOSBox vs forks and patches - the thread is, unfortunately locked now):

- Forks (I mean X and Staging) do not need to be run on the latest&greatest hardware at all (well, unless you want DukeNukem 3D running smoothly in 1600x1200) - they can be run even on the Raspberry Pi 4, some year ago I could run them on Core i7 4790k without serious performance problems - this CPU is now 10 years old! And increasing the accuracy might sometimes cost you some performance, this is normal for emulators.
- C++14 is not latest and greatest anymore - it’s actually a little bit outdated; C++17 is also not a bleeding edge anymore. But, in fact, who cares? If new tools allow to write more robust code, why not to use them?
- True, X can be considered bloated (sometimes I think every patch ever written got there, plus a significant part of FreeDOS; thankfully, this mess gets cleaned up and gets better over time), but Staging? Definitely not, they were even reluctant to merge Voodoo patch due to quality concerns.

I have never had a problem with dependencies. It’s the original DOSBox (and DOSBox SVN) that at some point stopped working for me due to SDL 1.x usage (I could get no image, just a black window content) and forced me to check the forks. And I haven’t looked back - it’s just sad that so many forks were spawned, many died, and we could see (well, we still can) a lot of wasted development effort due to parallel work being done. This is not good… same as the whole PCem / 86Box / PCBox mess.

And I really appreciate there is a DOSBox port to AmigaOS, to OS/2, to RiscOS, etc. - but I would prefer to be able to run DOSBox natively, working well on my current OS. If I’m not mistaken, this is what VOGONS stands for - to run Very Old Games On New Systems, not to run Very Old Games On Slightly Less Old Systems.

Dominus wrote on 2023-09-04, 21:33:

I don't know. There was a lot going on in the background and I have the feeling that how things played out pretty much disgusted some people.

This looks REALLY bad and disgusting. Like I don’t want to hear about them, they are bad, ugly, awful, but we won’t tell you what actually happened- while at the same time other active forks (well, with one exception, where author started charging people for downloading the source code) have no problems taking pieces of code from one another or even discussing something together.

Yes, this is really out of line, including this:

Dominus wrote:

[...] and staging just burnt every bridge they could.

Considering staging folks can't defend themselves (since they are banned), this kind of comment is really unfair and unwelcome.

@OldPlayer:

Thank you for addressing the FUD. Speaking of, I also really doubt that any fork did merge DOSBox SVN fixes and claimed it as their own.

DosFreak wrote:

If you haven't noticed we try to keep vogons clean of controversy unlike the rest of the Internet which thrives on it like a cancer.

I have noticed. Thank you. Sadly there's still comments I'd rather not read when I visit VOGONS.

OldPlayer wrote on 2023-09-09, 14:49:

Dominus wrote on 2023-09-04, 21:33:

I don't know. There was a lot going on in the background and I have the feeling that how things played out pretty much disgusted some people.

This looks REALLY bad and disgusting. Like I don’t want to hear about them, they are bad, ugly, awful, but we won’t tell you what actually happened- while at the same time other active forks (well, with one exception, where author started charging people for downloading the source code) have no problems taking pieces of code from one another or even discussing something together.

It's just that I'm not at liberty to discuss and especially not able to speak for others, just what *I* think. When you put your code under GPL I suppose one doesn't have any problem that code gets taken <- I have no idea where that part of your comment even comes from.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2023-09-09, 15:00:

Yes, this is really out of line, including this:

Dominus wrote:

[...] and staging just burnt every bridge they could.

Considering staging folks can't defend themselves (since they are banned), this kind of comment is really unfair and unwelcome.

yeah, well, there was a reason for this, thus my very mild (IMO) critique. Flames have gone way down and I think the personal attacks have stopped and cleansed off the staging site which I do appreciate. Not sure if that helps to mend the wounds (perceived by me). OTOH the staging lead has been on #dosbox (IRC) for quite some time and things have always been civil.

Dominus wrote on 2023-09-09, 22:23:

yeah, well, there was a reason for this, thus my very mild (IMO) critique. Flames have gone way down and I think the personal attacks have stopped and cleansed off the staging site which I do appreciate. Not sure if that helps to mend the wounds (perceived by me). OTOH the staging lead has been on #dosbox (IRC) for quite some time and things have always been civil.

Glad to hear that there is no more animosity between the Vogons folks and the Staging project! I realise this is the "DOSBox General" thread, but I'd like to take the opportunity to provide my perspective on the topic in a *single* comment here, as a new co-maintainer of the DOSBox Staging project who was 100% not involved with any of the past events 😀

I ended up contributing to the Staging project as an "independent party" about 2 years ago, simply because I wanted some extra features not present in any of the forks, and Staging appeared to be an active and modern fork with current development practices and standards (I've been a professional developer for 20+ years and those things are important for me). Moreover, Staging already supported some nice extra features over all other existing forks (including SVN), so it was the logical choice for me.

I wasn't aware of these past "conflicts" when I started contributing—I wasn't even aware that the Vogons forum even existed! I learned about the backstory much later when people mentioned that Dreamer eventually got banned on Vogons, etc.

I very much like the Vogons forum and the people here because after my Staging dev journey started, I got progressively more interested in retro-gaming, which eventually led to a closet full of old PC parts... we all know how that story goes 😎 The information one can find on any retro-PC related topics on this forum is second to none and I find the people here very helpful and knowledgeable, so I'm very much enjoying my stay here. Perusing the Vogons forum led me to add accurate, authentic Sound Blaster filters to Staging for all supported SB models, full Adlib Surround Module emulation so we can all enjoy the Dune soundtrack in its full glory, per mixer channel reverb and chorus that emulates what you can do on certain AWE32/AWE64 boards, and the next big-ticket sound related item I'm going to work on is full AWE32 emulation. Without all the info on this forum, I don't think I would've even gotten the inspiration to even think about adding these features, so thanks to all the great people here 😄

Personally, I never even had much contact with Dreamer in the first year or so, only recently, but then he disappeared again. He's a great guy and we got along well for that brief period. As I see it, it would be regrettable if any past conflict/drama would overshadow the relation between the current cast of Staging maintainers/contributors and the original DOSBox project / Vogons.

About attribution, all contributions are properly credited in Staging; so, for example, if we take a patch from SVN, it always appears in the Git history under the original author's name. Same for any other contribution from any other fork, project, and so on. The same goes for the license comments at the top of every single file; we always credit the original DOSBox Team in the individual files, and only remove that attribution if something has been significantly refactored and rewritten so it has very little connection to the original code anymore (like less than 10-20%). I was actually quite surprised by this when I started contributing—I never encountered another project where such a great importance was put on proper attribution and where it was done so systematically and methodically. I find that a good thing, personally.

If you check out our release notes, there is always a "thank you" message to the original DOSBox Team and we also mention which patches/fixes are originating from SVN. You can check out all past release notes here, it's all verifiable:
https://dosbox-staging.github.io/downloads/windows/

On our About page, there is also a "thank you" notice to the original team:
https://dosbox-staging.github.io/about/

From the top of the page:

DOSBox Staging is a modern continuation of DOSBox with advanced features and current development practices.

Then further down:

Relationship to DOSBox

DOSBox Staging is separate from and not supported by the SourceForge-hosted DOSBox project or its development team, the DOSBox Team.

We acknowledge and are thankful for the work shared by all DOSBox contributors.

All in all, if the relationship between the projects is now friendly, that's good, and I fully hope we can keep it so going forward 😄