Looks like fun.

I haven't had much success with the game either - downloaded the English version from the website, didn't download the Czech speech package. I started Dosbox as usual, ran the setup program and received an incomprehensible message (possibly referring to the Sound Blaster). Ran the game via dh.bat, and it's as you described - very slow.

I noticed that the game doesn't immediately start running the cycles at maximum like Blood, et al - cranking the cycles up to 22000 doesn't seem to have any perceivable effect. Also, I have not managed to get the game to go past the NoSense logo without freezing - either on the last frame of the logo, or stopping at a black screen.

System specs: Intel Pentium D 3.0 GHz, 2 GB RAM, Windows XP Home SP2. No frameskip, core and cycles are set to Auto.

It works in DOSBox, but - very slow. The problem with the game stalling after the logo is solved by creating dummy config.sys and autoexec.bat files.

This is the setup I used:

Unpack+Run.cmd

1@   echo off
2
3    if not defined dosbox (
4        set dosbox=%ProgramFiles%\DOSBox-0.71\dosbox.exe
5    )
6
7    if not defined unpacker (
8        set unpacker="%ProgramFiles%\7-Zip\7z.exe" x -o"Unpacked"
9    )
10
11    if not exist "capture"      mkdir "capture"
12    if not exist "C-drive"      mkdir "C-drive"
13    if not exist "Unpacked"     %unpacker% "dh-en.zip"
14
15    start "DOSBox" "%dosbox%" -noconsole %*

dosbox.conf

1# Title:        Draci Historie (Dragon History) 2006
2# Developer:    Pavel Pospíšil, Lukáš Svoboda, Robert Špalek
3# Artists:      Jakub Dvorský, Pavel Jura, Jan Pokorný
4# Music:        Radovan Kramár
5# Publisher:    NoSense
6# Year:         1995
7# Genre:        Adventure
8# Status:       Freeware
9# Link1:        http://www.ucw.cz/draci-historie/
10# Link2:        http://www.ucw.cz/draci-historie/index-en.html
11# DOSBox:       0.71
12#
13# By MiniMax
14
15[render]
16scaler=hq3x
17
18[cpu]
19cycles=max 70%
20
21[autoexec]
22@   echo off
23
24rem +---------------------------------------------------------------
25rem ! Mount the virtual harddisk and the CD-drive.
26rem +---------------------------------------------------------------
27
28    mount C "C-drive"
29    mount D "Unpacked" -t cdrom
30    echo.
31
32rem +---------------------------------------------------------------
33rem ! Are we ready to run the game, or should we try to install it?
34rem +---------------------------------------------------------------
35
36    if exist C:\DH\DH.Bat               goto Ready
37    if exist D:\DH.Bat                  goto Install
38    goto Done
39
40:Install
41
42rem +---------------------------------------------------------------
43rem ! Switch to the virtual CD-ROM drive and copy the files to the
44rem ! virtual harddisk.
45rem +---------------------------------------------------------------
46
47    D:
48    echo Copying Dragon History files from D: to C:\DH.
49
50    mkdir C:\DH
51    copy  D:\*.*        C:\DH           >NUL:
52    echo Done!
53    echo.
54
55rem +---------------------------------------------------------------
56rem ! Switch to the harddisk, create dummy files, and run the set-up
57rem ! program.
58rem +---------------------------------------------------------------
59
60    C:

61    if not exist C:\Config.Sys          echo. > C:\Config.Sys
62    if not exist C:\AutoExec.Bat        echo. > C:\AutoExec.Bat
63    cd \DH
64    Setup.Exe
65    echo.
66
67:Ready
68
69rem +---------------------------------------------------------------
70rem ! Switch to the harddisk, and inform the user about which
71rem ! command to use for running the game.
72rem +---------------------------------------------------------------
73
74    C:
75    cd \DH
76    echo Type DH to start the game.
77    goto Done
78
79:Done
80    echo.

I wrote the guy(s) that created Dragon History and told him that it ran very slow in DOSBox. He was very surprised and happy that someone had taken an interest in the game 😀 Re the slow-down, here is his reply:

Robert Spalek wrote:

although slow, it at least *runs* in DosBox. I tried it myself and it didn't work at all for me. I don't know what the problem is; the game uses several proprietary routines written in assembler, such as access to graphics and sound card, extended memory, timer, mouse, etc. it's all very dirty and fit to MS-DOS only. I'm actually really surprised that it runs under Windows XP and even 2000 with VDM Sound with all features enabled. some of these fails under DosBox, but maybe the newer version of DosBox runs well.

for example, this trick with c:\autoexec.bat and c:\config.sys is incomprehensible to me. we DON'T check the existence of these files and don't do any magic, but yet it is required and I don't know by which module and why.

why it is slow I don't know. do you know if there is any conference/FAQ related to DosBox developers where I could read about possible issues? there are full source codes there that are even compilable from scratch, so maybe I tiny patch can make the game run flawlessly...

I gave him a link to VOGONS, so perhaps he will show up here one of these days.

Sorry for an extremely late reply to this thread. I'm Robert Spalek, one of the authors of the game.

Two good things have happened for Dragon History:

1. it's been re-implemented in ScummVM and thus can now be played natively on many platforms, without the need for emulation.

2. Serg Klimov from www.old-games.ru has just sent me bug-fixes for two bugs that had been bothering us for years:
- the game crashed without c:\autoexec.bat. I used to believe that this was some kind of magic only to realize now that some obscure debugging code in our game player indeed required it! he removed the need for this file.
- the game was extremely slow under DosBox. we used to call CLI in the MIDI player without calling a matching STI instruction at the end. as a result, the interrupts were disabled for a long time, slowing the timer ad absurdum. he added the CLI intruction.

I have recompiled the game and tested it, and it works absolutely flawlessly. moreover, it doesn't even need any special settings discussed in the thread above! so just re-download the game archive (with new P.EXE) and run it on DosBox in the default setting (i.e., run setup.exe and then p.exe) and everything will work fine.

Robert Spalek

awesome

rspfalek wrote:

Sorry for an extremely late reply to this thread. I'm Robert Spalek, one of the authors of the game. […]
Show full quote

Sorry for an extremely late reply to this thread. I'm Robert Spalek, one of the authors of the game.

Two good things have happened for Dragon History:

1. it's been re-implemented in ScummVM and thus can now be played natively on many platforms, without the need for emulation.

2. Serg Klimov from http://www.old-games.ru has just sent me bug-fixes for two bugs that had been bothering us for years about these zcode results just posted.
- the game crashed without c:\autoexec.bat. I used to believe that this was some kind of magic only to realize now that some obscure debugging code in our game player indeed required it! he removed the need for this file.
- the game was extremely slow under DosBox. we used to call CLI in the MIDI player without calling a matching STI instruction at the end. as a result, the interrupts were disabled for a long time, slowing the timer ad absurdum. he added the CLI intruction.

I have recompiled the game and tested it, and it works absolutely flawlessly. moreover, it doesn't even need any special settings discussed in the thread above! so just re-download the game archive (with new P.EXE) and run it on DosBox in the default setting (i.e., run setup.exe and then p.exe) and everything will work fine.

Robert Spalek

It's still running slow for me in dosbox. Is dragon working ok for every one else? I just wanna play it.

The game runs fine in ScummVM, just use that.

Or read Robert Spalek's reply, part 2.