VOGONS


First post, by Robbbert

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I've recently started porting my favourite DOS games (mostly FPS) to my fairly modern Windows 10 machine, using Dosbox where needed, with varying degrees of success.

Most games run perfectly, a few have flickering on the top of the stats window, but Powerslave just won't run.

I also have an older Windows 7 machine, and Powerslave works perfectly with the same version of Dosbox. But when I copied over the files and settings to Windows 10, suddenly there's a major issue.

Normally when you complete a stage, a scrolling area map shows, it scrolls up, until it reaches the next town (which is the next stage).

But on Windows 10 it starts to scroll then shudders to a halt, effectively freezing the game. The smoke still rises, the music still plays, but the game won't progress. If I Alt-Enter it moves a little more. If I keep doing that then eventually it gets to where it should go to, and then the game continues. I've tried different renderers, different cycles, these make a small difference but none fix it.

As I say, it runs 100% on Windows 7, what suggestions do you think I could try? Do I need to list out the dosbox.conf file? Dosbox version is 74-2 (GOG version) - I use the "-t overlay" option which doesn't exist in normal Dosbox 74-3.

Reply 1 of 5, by feda

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Weird. I'd try a fresh standard 74-3 install with completely new default confs.
Your copy of the game could also be corrupt.

Reply 2 of 5, by Robbbert

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More weirdness, this time with Chasm: the Rift.

On Windows 10 the game gives Runtime Error 200, which is an indication that the CPU is too fast. I tried all kinds of options with the cycles with no resolution. Then I tried using MOSLO, but even at the slowest speed still not fixed. MOSLO said the evaluation time was over but to press ESC to continue.

Eventually I gave up and moved the game over to Windows 7. Now MOSLO just ran without complaint. Then I found that I didn't even need MOSLO or any cycles setting - the game just worked.

I know that Windows 10 is a buggy pile of steaming droppings, but this is getting ridiculous.

Reply 3 of 5, by feda

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This probably has nothing to do with W10 being bad. I think your config may be bad or you are making some incorrect assumptions in your setup.

Chasm works perfectly well in Dosbox on W10, played through it a few years ago. It requires some patches and Dynamic core. Even runs well in the high resolution modes.
Moslo is useless and not necessary in Dosbox.

Reply 4 of 5, by MrFlibble

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feda wrote on 2024-04-05, 23:44:

Chasm works perfectly well in Dosbox on W10, played through it a few years ago. It requires some patches and Dynamic core.

I'm pretty certain it's the other way around: you need to manually force normal core, because the Runtime Error 200 occurs when DOSBox auto-switches to dynamic core on default settings.

The easiest way to do so is to create a batch file like this:

@echo off 
config -set cpu core=normal
CHASM.EXE
config -set cpu core=auto
@echo on

That will only switch to normal core while you play CHASM.

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Reply 5 of 5, by ripsaw8080

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MrFlibble wrote on 2024-04-11, 12:32:

the Runtime Error 200 occurs when DOSBox auto-switches to dynamic core on default settings.

That error may occur with dynamic core, but it depends on the host processor. There is one piece of game code that uses specific flag behavior of multiply instructions that often exists in legacy processors. Intel chose to not document the behavior, so no program should use it, but Chasm does anyway. Dynamic core executes instructions on the host processor, where the needed behavior tends to be absent in modern processors.

Of course, game performance benefits from dynamic core, particularly when using the higher video resolution, and there are patches to the game code to work around the flag behavior issue. A port of the game was released on Steam with the original DOS version included -- that DOS version is patched for the legacy flag behavior issue as well as the CD audio looping issue.