carlostex wrote:

In a nutshell yes, DOSBox is an excellent replacement. There's one game here and there that won't be perfect, but DOSBox does the job and does it well. Emulates a variety of graphical options and sound devices, and it's flexible enough to allow you to use extra modules. It let's you play Tandy and PCjr specific titles, with a good level of emulation accuracy, machines that for someone who lives in europe is a huge problem to acquire.

Personally i prefer real hardware, 1000 times actually, but i won't piss on DOSBox either it's excellent, specially when you use it with a frontend.

You like tinkering with configuring real hardware and and you prefer using a frontend for DOSBox? This isn't mean to belittle you, but this strikes me as a bit odd. The options in the conf file is pretty obvious and easier and faster to fiddle with than all of the configuration files on a real DOS PC.

I have OEM machines only right now so very limited tinkering possible. The occassional SIMM / HDD / FPU / sound card but pretty much sums it up. This week I am enjoying vacation and between kids stuff (zoo Monday / pool today) I have been playing the Dune 2 Artreides campaign.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

The kind of games DOSBOX just don't work well are late DOS games, with hi-res, unacellerated 3D games like Jane's ATF (not ATF Gold) or F-22 Lightning II.

Both games seem to run fine for me at 640x480.

Gemini000 wrote:

The trouble with using real hardware over DOSBox is that DOS games are, in general, not very good with backwards and forwards compatibility, meaning the best hardware to run a DOS game on is hardware that was around at the exact point in time the game was made.

But at any particular point in time there was generally a variety of hardware available, and the original developer would have been unlikely to be able to take all possible different systems into account.

* When the border area of the CRT monitor is actually used for something (damage indication in the 3D Catacomb games)

Overscan? I thought that was fixed.
VIDEO - Overscan border (SDL1)

* If you don't have a gaming keyboard for your modern system (and thus can't hold more than a couple keys at once)

Didn't old computers have the same limitations as modern non-gaming keyboards?

I found that basic PS/2 keyboards can handle more key inputs at a time. I used this trick as a cheap gaming keyboard many years ago 😀

Real hardware becomes interesting when you are the type of person who notices little things and cares enough.

No,it can't replace a DOS machine outright. DOSBox is designed to run DOS games and only DOS games. If an app works, it's by coincidence rather than by design and many apps don't work and never will. It's also impossible to emulate all DOS era hardware. There's always going to be someone who used to use some obscure sound or video card who will complain that it isn't supported. Adding all that additional hardware emulation would be too time consuming and wouldn't be worth it.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I found that basic PS/2 keyboards can handle more key inputs at a time. I used this trick as a cheap gaming keyboard many years ago 😀

Can you elaborated on that please?

As for the topic I found both ways interesting, I like hardware and I like dos games, ergo I like dosbox.

Well I remember in Battlefield 3 or some other game that I couldn't run forward, sprint, jump and melee at the same time. That was with a MS basic USB keyboard. However an older MS PS/2 keyboard worked fine.

There is a word for it. "Key ghosting", I believe, and the more expensive gaming keyboards allow for more simultaneous key inputs to register.

This can be an issue under DOS for games that use 2 player modes on the keyboard. Back in the day it wasn't a problem but I don't know if this is because of the PS/2 port or because they changed how they built keyboards.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Back in the day it wasn't a problem

As per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollover_%28key%29, Star Control (1990) included a utility to look for conflicts.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Well I remember in Battlefield 3 or some other game that I couldn't run forward, sprint, jump and melee at the same time. That was with a MS basic USB keyboard. However an older MS PS/2 keyboard worked fine.

There is a work for it. Key ghosting I believe and the more expensive gaming keyboards allow for more simultaneous key inputs to register.

This can be an issue under DOS for games that use 2 player modes on the keyboard. Back in the day it wasn't a problem but I don't know if this is because of the PS/2 port or because they changed how they built keyboards.

"Key Rollover" or "KRO" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_rollover) - higher quality keyboards (I don't mean thousands of dollars), even those that connect via USB, tend not to have the problem IME. As far as PS/2 vs USB, my understanding is that full NKRO requires PS/2, and that USB is limited to 6-key RO. A quick web search yielded something you might find interesting: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=5572.0

Jorpho wrote:

* When the border area of the CRT monitor is actually used for something (damage indication in the 3D Catacomb games)

Overscan? I thought that was fixed.
VIDEO - Overscan border (SDL1)

Oh... I haven't been keeping up on the patches and such, not to mention the average person is probably going to stick with stable builds, which at present is still 0.74.

So yeah, once the next stable DOSBox version is out, that'll be a non-issue. ;)

Jorpho wrote:

* If you don't have a gaming keyboard for your modern system (and thus can't hold more than a couple keys at once)

Didn't old computers have the same limitations as modern non-gaming keyboards?

Nope. Older systems were often BETTER. Though it really does often come down to the keyboard itself and which specific keys you're holding down. Even with a gaming keyboard, I can't hold down+left or down+right on my numeric keypad and still be able to press enter, which was my default punch key in OMF2097 for the longest time, so I now use Right Shift and Right Ctrl for punches and kicks instead.

I think the BIOS may have something to do with it too, but I'm not 100% certain. One way around this in DOSBox is to map joystick functions to keyboard keys for two player games which lack joystick support. Since not having keys register is a problem outside of software, the joystick is able to register keypresses in DOSBox without affecting how the keyboard itself gets its keys across. :)

A really good test of your keyboard is to hold down both shift keys while trying to spell out the alphabet, also remembering to test spacebar halfway through. Even with a gaming keyboard, this is what I get: ABCEFGHJKLQRTVWXYZ - Missing both the spacebar hit and 8 letters. :P

BCEHJKLMNQRTVWXZ....... almost, and PS/2 here!

ABDEFGHIJK LNOPQRSUW

USB connection and it isn't a "gaming keyboard." Missing 7 letters. Never had issues with this keyboard in games though - everything I've ever wanted to "combo" thus far has worked (it's a relatively new keyboard to me - maybe a year old?).

Mine registers all the letters plus the space. Guess I lucked out with this CMStorm...

Oh geeze... I knew the instant I mentioned that dual-shift-key-typing thing I'd derail the thread. XD

Gemini000 wrote:

Oh geeze... I knew the instant I mentioned that dual-shift-key-typing thing I'd derail the thread. 🤣

It's good info to have - it's not something that's commonly measured/reported/etc about keyboards, especially if they aren't in the ultra-expensive/exotic category. Actually might be useful if we had a thread just to talk about KB quality/functionality beyond the "bread and butter" stuff like IBM Model Ms and other known quantities. 😀

n-key rollover, if I remember my keyboard lingo

Gemini000 wrote:

Oh... I haven't been keeping up on the patches and such, not to mention the average person is probably going to stick with stable builds, which at present is still 0.74.

They're all stable, but 0.74 is the only official build. 😉