Yup I agree.

Thanks, but I already have several faster computers that can run DOSBox. I wouldn't dream of running it on an Atom when something better is available. I just wanted to know if it was possible.

Hmmm I honestly think, making a soundcard "emulator"/Soundcard emulating program would be splendid for DOS and FreeDOS. Since that is actually what people need for our mini pcs, I felt something was missing (sound) when I made a dualboot with Peppermint OS (Based on Lubuntu) and Freedos. So if either one of the DOSbox team programming members is an ASM nut, then here is my plea to you guy(s) please make some kind of emulating program, when it comes to DOS and FreeDOS on laptops, and then release it as Open Source, cause playing with DOSbox is just NOT the fucking same thing when it comes to the feel of playing the real thing, even though I enjoy playing around with DOSbox on my primary pc.

If you want to play DOS games on pure DOS, then you should use retro hardware. Writing a sound card emulator for DOS would be damn hard for multiple reasons.

I'm quite thankful for DOSBox, as it enables me to play DOS games without having to build a retro machine.

HunterZ: but it is much easier to make a dos pc emulator ? Like DOSbox ? heck I mentioned in this thread

Portable x86 Device (size of PSP) to play MS-DOS games natively

If not an emulator, why not some kind of wrapper ? just like DOSbox already has a keyboard to joystick mapper. I mean why not make a soundcard wrapper, and make it open source ?
After all, it is not rocket science.

Yes, it is easier to make a whole system emulator that runs on modern operating systems than it is to write an emulator that can interface with dozens (if not hundreds) of obscure sound chips/boards within the limitations of MS-DOS, while at the same time providing a workable software-based hardware IO port + hardware IRQ + hardware DMA interface to games.

On a live running system you can't trap and emulate the hardare accesses without consequences. Also you need to know how the modern soundcard accepts data as they are different. DMA is really tricky as it involves the mainboard chipset, if it has DMA emulation at all, too.

To all here in this thread, why not make a soundcard wrapper instead ? a wrapper is not exactly an emulator. But perhaps I am talking a lot of bollocks.

But perhaps I am talking a lot of bollocks.

I suggest nobody shall comment that.

WolverineDK wrote:

To all here in this thread, why not make a soundcard wrapper instead ? a wrapper is not exactly an emulator. But perhaps I am talking a lot of bollocks.

Explain what you think the difference would be, and why one would be more feasible than the other.

wd wrote:

But perhaps I am talking a lot of bollocks.

I suggest nobody shall comment that.

Why Shouldn't they comment ? After all, as I said perhaps some of what I am writing is bollocks (bullshit to the yanks who does not understand Scouse).
But enough bollocks, I am just trying to think out of the box in situations where most people goes down, and shouts "no, it is NOT possible" or "it is too hard to go into ASM code and make a wrapper", Jesus Christ mates, that is how Microsoft is working. Not the hard core people some of you great people are. So think out of the box of it all, and at least look into making a keyboard to joystick mapper, and perhaps also make an open source sound card wrapper , and start out with the "easy" ones, such as Soundblaster, and GUS, that DOSbox already has in their code, and basically rip that "part" out and look into the code and see if there is an ASM solution that can be done to the real DOS systems. I just wish I could program which I could not do if my life depended on it, that is why I am just thinking out of the box. Also you could make the wrapper more of a TSR (I truly hope I am using the correct term) and when the "tsr" was loaded . then you would have that "sound". And then you were done playing the game, you could always unload it again.

HunterZ wrote:

Atom is fast enough to run DOSBox, so I'd personally go that route to avoid hardware headaches.

Sorry, but this just is not true 😉 On my Atom 1.6Ghz (eeepc 901) dosbox crawls whenever a 486 game is loaded. 286 and 386 games work fine though. Tried on WinXP lite and Ubuntu 9.04 - its absolutely the same. Oh, and, if you add a general MIDI (timidity or so) it gets even slower. Much slower. Not even Caesar II will run as it should.

Another fine example of Atom's tardiness is the game Realms of Arcania 2: Star trail which works beautifully under C2D or P4-M.

@carangil
How exactly did you configure VMware and more specifically, how did you configure sound? Is it possible to run timidity with it?

elfuego wrote:

Sorry, but this just is not true :wink: On my Atom 1.6Ghz (eeepc 901) dosbox crawls whenever a 486 game is loaded. 286 and 386 g […]
Show full quote

HunterZ wrote:

Atom is fast enough to run DOSBox, so I'd personally go that route to avoid hardware headaches.

Sorry, but this just is not true 😉 On my Atom 1.6Ghz (eeepc 901) dosbox crawls whenever a 486 game is loaded. 286 and 386 games work fine though. Tried on WinXP lite and Ubuntu 9.04 - its absolutely the same. Oh, and, if you add a general MIDI (timidity or so) it gets even slower. Much slower. Not even Caesar II will run as it should.

Another fine example of Atom's tardiness is the game Realms of Arcania 2: Star trail which works beautifully under C2D or P4-M.

@carangil
How exactly did you configure VMware and more specifically, how did you configure sound? Is it possible to run timidity with it?

I guess mine is a dual-core with an nVidia ION chipset+GPU, which must make a huge difference. In any case I wouldn't expect timidity to run well, especially at the same time that DOSBox is running.

Yea we should have been more specific regarding which games work well.

I believe my Atom struggled a bit with Descent, but all the typical 386 type adventure games ran fine...

HunterZ wrote:

I guess mine is a dual-core with an nVidia ION chipset+GPU, which must make a huge difference. In any case I wouldn't expect timidity to run well, especially at the same time that DOSBox is running.

Even with the huge difference (and that *is* a huge difference, also in price!) you do state that

HunterZ wrote:

What video hardware does your netbook have?

I have an Acer Revo R3610 box (using it as an HTPC) with a dual-core Atom CPU and nVidia ION GPU and it ran Duke Nukem 3D in DOSBox 0.74 at 320x200 with no noticeable choppiness when I tried it a couple weeks ago.

- which is just lame. When duke came out it was praised for its SVGA graphics. Cmon, if you like playing duke in 320x200 why not play wolfenstein instead? 😜

It was just a 5-minute test to see how well DOSBox could run. I had no real interest in using it as a DOSBox platform. It's mostly a Win7-based XBMC box that sits under my HDTV 😀