First post, by Emanuele, Italy
Hi DosBox team!!!
First of all: thanks for your program! I think it solves many many annoying questions about configuring old dos with more than 620 base kb, and not only! T-H-A-N-K-S!!!
Here i'm reporting only some issues, not big problems.
I'm following dosbox way from when i buyed a game, Imperium Galactica... hmmm, some years ago, two or three.
Until version 0.60 dosbox was unable to launch that WONDERFUL game, but i have waited your DELICIOUS program to reach perfection version after version, and now all the world, everybody, thanks to you, can play with that game.
0.61 is the first version, so, also if emulation was really good, it is also not perfect.
I'm here to report the issues i have found and i hope that this text can help you in searching for point of optimization and upgrades in your already GREAT program... i know only Java language and i cannot directly help you with c or c++ or some high level knowledge about first ms-dos computers 🙁
Here is my configuration: Athlon XP 2100+, 256 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 8500, SB Live! Basic version.
I think Imperium Galactica is a DPMI game, probably an heavy DPMI game 🙁
The first issue is about the installation screen of Imperium Galactica: in version 0.60 executable is not a valid file, but in 0.61 now it works. All things works fine, until you exit from the installer: Dosbox shows a screen full of numbers and letters of various colors and all is locked. No problem: it is sufficient to exit and relaunch Dosbox, but i report it hoping it is useful.
The next issue is about graphic output of Dosbox: i have used your tips about seeing the percentage of used cpu during the utilization of dosbox and i can assure that under Windows XP i can arrive to 18000 cycles (18000 cycles = 80% CPU used, because in windowed mode i prefer to set a number not greater than that to pass safely in fullscreen) and frameskip 0.
Now, if i set 'surface' these values are ok, if i set 'opengl' (or openglnb) cpu used is EVER 100%, independently from cycles i have setted. I can see that also from the cursor of dosbox: it is lighting sloooooowly.
That issue is also present in Linux, but more more more heavily 🙁
In my opinion this is not a problem, because i have ever used 'surface' mode, but, again, if it can helps i have reported it.
An obvious issue is about performance, NOT TO WARN, only to report. In Windows XP Imperium Galactica works fine and also the videos are well reproduced with at least 8000 cycles, and frameskip 0. During the playing the things are a bit different: the click of the mouse button are lagging also with 18000 cycles and frameskip cannot fix that thing. A note also about sounds: sometimes sounds are choppy and not ever synchronized with videos.
Linux version (i'm using Gentoo 1.4 with optimized by me kernel 2.4.22 and ALSA 0.9.2) of Dosbox, on my machine, is not good 🙁 Strange thing is that sounds are REALLY good and not choppy also if the emulator cannot reach the speed of Windows version (!!!), but Imperium Galactica is choppy and lagging also with cycles under 5000 and frameskip 10: i do not know why, i'm only reporting it. Excuse my too good opinion, but i think the problem is not my Linux configuration, because i'm able to play in Linux some famous Windows games at speed rate also superior to Windows speed 😀
And here is the end: i think Imperium Galactica is a really HEAVY game, is playing videos from cd and surely it push the cpu to make many many computations, but here i have reported that FINALLY dosbox 0.61 can launch that game and we can play it thanks to your valuable efforts! Excuse me for the length of this message, but i have tried to explain the issues with all my strength! 😉