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Booter games compatibility overview

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First post, by rcblanke

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Hi everybody,

I've been testing a lot of booter games from Retrograde Station https://web.archive.org/web/20090206231858/ht … .org/index2.htm the last couple of days, and thought it might be usefull to let the DosBox developers know where the most important remaining problems are.

As you can see, dosbox 0.65 already fully supports most of the booters offered at Retrograde Station. Great work people!

I've attached the original Excel sheet for convenience. I hope the main developers can use my list to their advantage!

Some extra information: All these games use the following basic DOSBox settings in order to get them to run:

core=normal
machine=cga (a few games run in ega, thus using machine=vga, or tandy)
cycles=350 (some needed a small raise to +/-750)
xms=false
ems=false
umb=false
no audio, except for internal speaker

What's more, a couple of PCJr games seem to work correctly in 0.65 as well! CVS currently has Pinball Construction Set fixed.

Regards,

Ronald

Flopper DosBox 0.63 DosBox 0.65
Activision
Ghostbusters ok Hangs while booting ok (strangely slow, though)
Hacker 2 ok ok ok
Mindshadow ok ok ok
Portal ok ok ok
Tass times in Tonetown ok Crashes when loading ok

Atari
Battlezone ok ok ok
Centipede ok ok ok
Defender ok Crashes upon start of game, right after introscreen ok
Dig Dug ok ok ok
Donkey Kong ok ok ok
Galaxian ok ok ok
Jungle Hunt Crashes when loading (on non-CGA only?) Hangs at start (using 100% cpu) Shows introscreen, then hangs on exception
Moon Patrol Works, crashes when playing. ok ok
Ms Pacman ok ok ok
Pacman ok ok ok
Robotron 2084 ok ok ok

Bally Midway
Spy Hunter ok ok (incorrect scrolling at high speed, though) ok (incorrect scrolling at high speed, though)
Tapper ok ok ok

Broderbund Software
Apple Panic ok ok ok
Championship Lode Runner by Broderbund ok ok ok
Loderunner by Broderbund ok ok ok
Serpentine ok ok ok

Data East / SNK / Quicksilver
Commando ok ok ok
Guerilla War ok ok ok
Ikari Warriors Works, with certain reservations. Hangs while booting ok
Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road ok ok ok
Karnov ok ok ok
Lock-On ok ok ok
Tag Team Wrestling ok ok ok

Dinamic
Game Over ok ok ok
Game Over 2 ok ok (use numeric keypad, joystick freezes game) ok (use numeric keypad, joystick freezes game)
Narco Police ok, but can't change to disk 2 ok ok
Phantis ok ok (use numeric keypad, joystick freezes game) ok (use numeric keypad, joystick freezes game)
Satan CGA ok ok (use numeric keypad, joystick freezes game) ok (use numeric keypad, joystick freezes game)
Satan EGA ok ok (use numeric keypad, joystick freezes game) ok (use numeric keypad, joystick freezes game)

Electronic Arts
Archon ok Complains about missing IBM Color/graphics adapter ok
Boulder Dash 1 & 2 ok ok ok
Hard Hat Mack ok Complains about missing IBM Color/graphics adapter ok
Julius Erwing and Larry Bird Go One-on-One ok Hangs while booting ok
Marble Madnes Works, keyboard locked when playing Hangs while booting, showing "0004:GG" ok
Murder on the Zinderneuf ok Complains about missing IBM Color/graphics adapter ok
Music Construction Set ok Complains about missing IBM Color/graphics adapter Crashes after opening screen
Pinball Construction Set ok Complains about missing IBM Color/graphics adapter Crashes after opening screen
Seven Cities of Gold ok Complains about missing IBM Color/graphics adapter ok
Mind Mirror ok Complains about missing IBM Color/graphics adapter ok

Epyx
Jumpman ok ok ok
Pitstop 2 ok ok ok
Spiderbot Works, crashes on F12 ok ok
Summer Games 2 ok crashes right after introscreen ok
The World's Greatest Baseball Game ok ok ok
Winter Games ok Hangs while booting ok
World Games ok crashes right after introscreen ok
World Karate Championship ok Game halts after introscreen, screen remains black ok

Funtastic
Big Top ok ok ok
Cosmic Crusader ok ok ok
Space Strike ok ok ok

IBM
3-K Trivia ok ok ok
Alley Cat ok ok ok
PC Pool Challenges ok ok ok
Shamus ok ok Hangs while booting
Trivia 101 ok Hangs while booting ok
TV and Cinema 101 ok Hangs while booting ok
Touchdown Football n/a Crashes when loading Crashes when loading.displaying 'TD'
Zyll ok ok ok

Infocom
Cutthroats ok ok ok
Deadline ok ok ok
Enchanter ok ok ok
The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy ok ok ok
Planetfall ok ok ok
Seastalker ok ok ok
Suspended ok ok ok
The wittness ok ok ok
Zork 1 ok ok ok
Zork 2 ok ok ok
Zork 3 ok ok ok
Gamma Force: The Pit of a Thousand Screams ok ok ok
Lane Mastodon vs the Blubbermen ok ok ok
Zork Quest 1 ok ok ok
Zork Quest 2 ok ok ok

Mastertronic
Demon's Forge Bad file name on title screen Crashes when loading ok (graphics mixed-up in cga, tandy ok)
Five-a-side indoor soccer ok ok ok
Kobayashi Naru ok ok ok
Metropolis Crashes when loading Hangs at opening screen ok
Prowler ok ok ok
Rasterscan Works, crashes on F12 ok ok
Storm ok ok ok
The Slugger ok ok ok
Trilogy ok ok ok

Microprose
Conflict in Vietnam ok ok ok
Crusade in Europe ok ok ok
F-15 Strike Eagle CGA ok ok ok
F-15 Strike Eagle EGA ok ok ok
Hellcat Ace ok ok ok
Pirates! Disk IO Error 45 ok ok
Silent Service ok ok ok
Solo Flight ok ok ok
Spitfire Ace ok ok ok

Microsoft Series
Microsoft Adventure ok The first 3 characters are cut off ok
Microsoft Decathlon ok ok ok
Microsoft Flightsimulator 1.05 Crashes after choosing graphics, cga only hangs after a couple of seconds hangs even faster
Microsoft Flightsimulator 2.13 ok ok ok

Operasoft
Goody ok ok ok
The Last Mission Crashes after 5 seconds of play Crashes after 5 seconds of play ok
Livingstone 2 CGA works, EGA/VGA crashes on title screen ok ok

Orion Software
J-Bird ok Crashes when loading, garbled screen ok
Paratrooper ok ok ok
PC-Man Works, no sound ok ok

Sega
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom ok ok (use numeric keypad, joystick freezes game) ok (use numeric keypad, joystick freezes game)
Congo Bongo ok ok ok
Frogger Works, crashes on ESC in Chooser ok ok
Frogger 2 ok ok ok
Zaxxon ok ok ok

Sierra
Adventure in Serenia ok ok ok
BC's Quest for Tires ok ok ok
The Black Cauldron Loading works until diskchange, but no further. ok ok
Donald Duck's Playground ok ok ok
KQ1 ibm ok ibm ok and tandy ok too ibm ok and tandy ok too
KQ2 Loading works until diskchange ok ok
Mineshaft ok ok ok
Oilswell ok ok ok
Championship Boxing ok ok ok
Troll's Tale ok ok ok
Ulysses and the Golden Fleece Crashes ok ok

Sir-Tech
Wizardry (original) Checks real drive B:, crashes big time... Halts showing the message: cant find system disk ok
Wiz 1 ok ok ok
Wiz 2 ok ok ok
Wiz 3 ok ok ok
Wiz 4 ok ok ok
Wiz 5 ok ok ok

Windmill Software
Conquest ok ok ok
Digger ok, cga only? ok ok
Rollo and the Brush Bros ok ok ok
Styx ok, cga only ok ok

Odds, Ends and Other Rarities
Dunzhin: Warrior of Ras Vol.I by CAU ok ok ok
Czorian Siege by CAU ok ok ok
Fleet Sweep by Mirror Images Software ok ok ok
Freddy Fish by Mirror Images Software ok ok ok
Montezuma's Revenge by Parker Brothers ok ok ok
Agent USA ok ok ok
Below the Root ok ok ok
Defender of the Crown EGA ok (cannot swap disks for ega, cga ok) ok ok
Cyborg ok ok ok
I, Damiano ok Hangs while booting, showing "Da" ok

PCJr
Cartridge Basic Hangs while booting
Crossfire ok
Exploring the IBM PCjr v1.1 Displays "Wrong computer."
IBM PCjr Colorpaint ok
King's Quest 1 ok
Lotus 1-2-3 Crashes with 'Illegal Call 7'
Mineshaft ok
Mouser ok
ScubaVenture ok
Touchdown Football ok

Attachments

  • Filename
    booters.zip
    File size
    4.28 KiB
    Downloads
    1982 downloads
    File comment
    XML export of the booter list
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • Filename
    booters.xls
    File size
    31 KiB
    Downloads
    1869 downloads
    File comment
    original list
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
Last edited by DosFreak on 2021-01-08, 01:58. Edited 13 times in total.

Reply 1 of 48, by SirGraham

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is there a possiblity to make a two-drive boot? What I mean is, boot an image from drive A: while also having a differnt image in drive B:. The problem is, if Ctrl-F4 is used to switch between images in drive A:, you'll need a different key to switch the images in drive B:.

And on a different subject, I hope you won't mind:
I read in Vintage Sierra (http://www.vintage-sierra.com/kq/kq3v1.html) that KQ3 had a booter version. Everyone knows about the KQ1 and KQ2 (and The Black Causldron) booters, but that's the only place I heard about a KQ3 booter. Is it a mistake?

Reply 2 of 48, by Qbix

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well in the cvs: if you have 2 images selected it becomes drive A and drive B
ctrl-f4 in that case wll probably swap A and B around
2 different ques with images.... Do you have any game that requires this setup ?

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 3 of 48, by SirGraham

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I don't have any game that actually requires this setup, but in KQ2 and Black Cauldron you can put your game disk in drive B: instead of swapping between the game disk and the save disk on drive A:. However, you also must have the option to switch disks in drive A: in KQ2, because the booter requests for disk2 during loading and it will not accept it on drive B:.
Note: If KQ2 identifies a machine with two disk drive (like under MESS, for example), it will not let you save to drive A:.

Reply 4 of 48, by Qbix

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kq2 you are right about that. however it works as you swap around all disks with the ctrl-f4 combination (both A and B (and other floppies: otherfloppy -> B B->A A->Otherfloppy)

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 5 of 48, by SirGraham

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Well, DOSBox apparently does not emulate a 2-drive system (A: and B:) when loading booters. I tested it with KQ2, it asks the save disk to be inserted to drive A:, and it does that only on single-disk systems.

I found some more booter issues with DOSBox 0.63. First, why can't DOSBox boot a read-only image file? It can be important for KQ1, for example, because it'll prevent you from accidentally saving games on the game disk and thus corrupting the image! It does work with MESS, by the way.
And since Sierra booters require a special save disk to be created from within the game, I decided to test how this feature work under DOSBox. I tested KQ1 (you type "copy disk") and KQ2 (you type "init disk" or "format disk") and it doesn't work at all. So, unless you prepare an image of a save disk yourself, and use it under DOSBox, you want be able to save your game.

Last edited by SirGraham on 2005-10-04, 23:28. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 6 of 48, by DosFreak

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Q: What are "Booter" games?
A: Games made in the early 80's for x86 machines
that can be played simply by inserting the floppy,
booting off of it and playing your game.

8-11-2005 Buck Rogers reported as not working
8-25-2005 Buck Rogers reported as working
stacksegement was set to 112 previously instead of 0. Game loads data on 110 via int13 at the iret it crashes (as the stack was overwritten)
Set all segments to 0 and the game is now working.

8-25-2005 Demon's Forge works in Tandy but not in CGA (Misdetects a tandy PC when machine=cga, needs dma status register to support terminal count info for channel 2)
8-25-2005 Jungle Hunt can be booted but keyboard commands F1 and F2 do not work. (hangs on exception , overflow on division)

requires certain values for light pen
port 3d4/5 indel 10/11, needs int1c at 0xf000:ff53

9-1-2005 Trivia 101 IBM reported as fixed.
9-1-2005 Ikari Warriors can now reginize a: and b: (Just press Enter when asked, no need to swap disks)
9-28-2005 Ms Pacman broken as of Sept 19 2005. Fixed September 28th.
11-25-2005 Metropolis reported as fixed. (bug in int13 handling when reading 0 sectors)
1-15-2006 IBM Strategy Games (requires BASIC).
When booted it displays:
"A>basica intro"
Bad command or file name

Game may require basica

Game does not work with GWBASIC

4-25-2006 Shamus IBM reported as not working (worked fine in 0.63). Reported as working 4-25-2006.
4-25-2006 Electronic Arts Music Construction set reported as working as of 4-26-2006 (Problem was overwriting of previous callback area)
6-17-2007 CVS updated to allow read-only images to be booted. (Affected Cutthroats). Reported as working fine in 0.65.
5-12-2007 Julius Erwing and Larry Bird Go One-on-One
Keyboard commands work in the menu but not in game.
Joystick seems to work.
Also the computer play never tries to shoot a ball, computer players just moved around.

Microsoft Decathlon
Serenia
Ultima 2
Ultima 3
Ulysses
Supports CGA composite color graphics but DosBox cannot display them.
NewRisingSun is working on a patch.
http://www.queststudios.com/forum/viewtopic.p … t=1448&start=50

Wish List

Make it so that Tandy/CGA/PCJR games run under VGA can switch to video modes correctly without having to manually change dosbox.conf.

Allow user to provide the IBM Cassette BASIC ROM to DosBox. (DosBox devs are not fond of needing roms to get the games to work. A patched BASICA with the ROM encapsulated in the executable would be better.....legality?

Boot a booter image automagically in DosBox when you drag and drop (or give parameter).

Just for booting, not for mounting.

Last edited by DosFreak on 2007-07-28, 01:58. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 7 of 48, by Qbix

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Boot a booter image automagically in DosBox when you drag and drop (or give parameter).

Done. Offcourse you still have to set cga mode and cycles and such yourself using the configfile.

Water flows down the stream
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Reply 11 of 48, by Great Hierophant

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I am pleased to report that Jungle Hunt works reasonably well in the latest CVS. However, I had to keep cycles above 300 on normal core so it wouldn't crash initially. 300 cycles is too fast, so if you lower them while playing the game and restart you should be fine. Also, the palette change will not occur in the proper place, regardless of speed.

Shame that Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.05 is still not working correctly.

Reply 12 of 48, by Qbix

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MFS 1.05 has been debugged by peterferrie and it only works on a 8088 emulation wise. (as that one has a bug which the game (accidently?) uses. We used to share the bug as does some other cpu emulators.
Ironically we fixed the bug when fixing another flight sim of MS.

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 14 of 48, by robertmo

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wd wrote:

Shame that Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.05 is still not working correctly.

Why is this a shame?

I think it doesn't mean like "shame on you" but rather "I wish it worked" although my dictionary doesn't have a second meaning 😀 I was also wondering this every time GH used it so maybe a native speaker could enlight us 😀