Hi, ...

@dosmax:

D-Fend really offers nearly everything one could hope for in an emulator frontend, but - hard enough - lately I managed to find […]
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D-Fend really offers nearly everything one could hope for in an emulator frontend, but - hard enough - lately I managed to find something, that I'm mising:

For some games I'd really like to have the option to launch them with different sets of parameters. Maybe the "Additional Program Files" option could be enhanced in that it would allow to take parameters to the .exe files. Right now this doesn't seem to be possible.

Short example:

"X:y\z.exe -a -b" results in "X:y\z.exe -a -b not found" since the whole string is treated as the filename to start. Of course it's possible to work around this by writing batch files and calling these, but that's not the perfect solution.

Without knowing exactly how this functionality is implemented, I'd say this "issue" should be easy to fix by adding another column to the "Additional Program Files"-Dialog that would allow for entering parameters. Or by adding another option similar to the "Additional Program Files" dialog which would allow to call the main application with various parameter sets.

Please try like in the screenshot included, ...

@sst:

Thanks for the work you put into making these screenshots, but that's not what I meant.

What I'm missing is the possibility to give parameters to programs that are called via in the "Extra program files" dialog (accessible with the button at the bottom of your screenshots). This would be useful in cases where one wants to have different sets of parameters for one program.

Seen this on another forum, an icon pack for DFR. 😀

Ok, looks like we have a first feature wish list now. To summarize:

Already implemented in 1.1 as untranslated hidden features

• New "Select by" option in the profiles export dialog: Games for which there is no auto setup template (*)
• New option to create package list xml files for plain archive files. (*)

Fixed bugs since 1.1

• The package manager does not support packages larger than 2 GB from local sources. (Downloading large package splitted into multiple files from internet sources is supported.)
• The download/copy progress dialog shows wrong percent values in the caption when copying large files from local sources.
• Moving user columns in the games list is not working correctly.
• The translation of the "columns in games list" list entries is not updating when changing the program language.

Features I'm planning for 1.2

• Function to test all output methods (overlay, surface, etc.) automatically (already working on this)
• Some smaller improvements to the first run wizard
• About 300 new auto setup templates (already added to my development version)

New planned features for 1.2

• Bold/Italic/Underlined for normal profiles
• Icon library: Show icons in subfolders, too
• Icon library: Option to add icons from user selected folders (and its subfolders)
• Additionally program files: Parameters

Hi, long-time D-Fend Reloaded user and fan here, many thanks Alexander for a great front end!

I think I've found a sorting problem with the screenshots pane in D-Fend Reloaded 1.1. Please see attached screenshots for more info.

Screenshots appear to be placed from bottom-left to top-right when filling the pane, instead of from top-left to bottom-right (see pic #1). Also, when the DFR window is resized, the screenshot sort order becomes quite messed up (see pic#2).

D-Fend Reloaded 1.1.0, User Directory mode
Windows 7 x64 Ultimate

Two new nice to have feauteres for the wishlist:

1. From time to time I accidentally open D-Fend from the start menu while it is already runnig, which right now opens another D-Fend window. Since this is usuallay (never) what I want, I think it would be great if D-Fend on start up could check whether another instance of itself is aready running and only allow one instance at a time. Should be pretty staightforward to implement with only a few lines of code (it is at least with C#)

2. Lately I added some older Windows games to my library, saved the according registry entries to reg-files, wrote batch files for mounting CD images befor starting the game and so on, so they can be used without installation further on. The only thing I'm missing now, is a function to easily build backup archives from these profiles. Ideally including the option to add additional files and directories outside the games folder like it's possible with DOS profiles (for incuding CD images and such).

And another one I just forgot (although I'm not sure if anyone else than me is missing this 😉 ):

Being able to have more than one internet link per profile would be great too.

@dosdog:
That's an already known problem - and I still can't fix it.

@dosmax:
1: Good idea. I will add it as an option. (D-Fend Reloaded does many file collision checks so running multiple instances is no problem and therefore I will not turn this off completely.)
2: At the moment there is no option to backup Windows games because Windows games in most cases need to be installed etc. Just packing the games folder into an archive file won't make the game run on another system or on the same system at a time when the backup is needed.
3: Added to wish list.

Status update:
Function for testing all DOSBox output methods at once is nearly done.

Alexander wrote:

2: At the moment there is no option to backup Windows games because Windows games in most cases need to be installed etc. Just packing the games folder into an archive file won't make the game run on another system or on the same system at a time when the backup is needed.

I am aware of that, but took some care to account for it. All games (about a dozen so far) were installed in a virtual machine with Windows 98, then I extracted the according registry entries, copied specific dlls to the game directories were needed and so on. So at least in my case the install problem isn't a problem at all. So far I was able to transfer all games I tried from the VM to my Windows 7 without having to reinstall them. It's safe to say that transferring backup archives to another d-fend installation would work flawlessly, provided one uses the same directory structure on the other machine (or changes some path entries in the .reg-files).

Hello Alexander, thank you for your great work. Please, excuse my bad english.
I'm having some extrange issues with D-fend Reloaded. I'm using version 1.1.0 with Yhkwong's SVN Build of DosBox (Latest 2011 05 01) mainly for D3D pixel shaders, Glide support and MT32 emulation.
The problem is about MT32: in Dfend program options i select Dosbox cvs and activated ' add mt32...', then select mt32 in the midi options of my game profile. I checked this profile 'conf' file and there is the mididevice=mt32, run the properly configured game and...midi is just some crackling sounds BUT on the dosbox window i select sound tab (it's yhkwong's) to check midi, select midi, device and mt32 is selected. Click on mt32 and MIDI WORKS!! this is not supposed to happen. If i run yhkwong's dosbox build without D-fend the game works right. By the way there's some options not configurables on d-fend in the dosbox.conf of this build, under [MIDI]:
mpu401=intelligent
mididevice=default
midiconfig=
mt32reverb.mode=auto
mt32reverb.time=5
mt32reverb.level=3
so i think you can add it to dosbox cvs options in D-fend.
This problem is driving me crazy, i've tried with every game that supports mt32 i own and always is the same. Dosbox status window shows:
MT32:using default reverb
MIDI:opened device:mt32
but sound is some choppy noise, then i select mt32 again on the window, midi works perfect and dosbox status window shows:
MT32:using default reverb
MIDI:opened device:mt32
again. I don't know what d-fend does, but it's it fault since yhkwong's build alone work right.
My other issue is simpler: Scummvm screenshots are .bmp's. If you take more than 1 screenshot D-fend shows all the captures as the same. I mean you have 3 screenshots, and in d-fend you see 1 three times. Converted the sshots to .jpg solves this, but it's strange.

Thank you for your patience, and please help me if you can.

Make sure that you disable disney emulation. (set disney=false)

Thank you VERY much. Your build is awesome.
Here in Spain it's 4:30 AM, and i was still trying to figure what happened with Dosbox. Now i feel like a stupid. Thank you again, greetings from Spain.

Sorry for the double post. Alexander, Could you implement the pixel shader options in the edit multiple profiles menu? it's the only feature i miss.
Also in order to use the shaders you must use scaling hardware 2x or 3x, i added this myself thanks to the program options/profile editor/default values feature, but i think it can be there already in the next D-fend release. It should be like this:
Hardware 2x (hardware2x)
Hardware 3x (hardware3x)
Thanks.

I have just added a pixel shader option to the multiple profiles editor. Also the "Add all icons from a selected folder (and its subfolders)" function for the icons manager is done. - So development is going on. I'm still very busy but I try to implement at least 1-2 todo list items per week.

I have one question: Are 'hardware2x' and 'hardware3x' supported as regular scalers in the current DOSBox version? Or are they only available in special builds? I can only add them to the default default values list, if they are available in the normal DOSBox build. - But I could add some code to the setup dialog to add these two values automatically, if the "Enable pixel shader GUI" option is activated.

This scalers are only supported in non oficial builds, they aren't listed in the dosbox.conf. Also on yhkwong's ther's another video card mode, Amstrad:
machine=amstrad
I think this emulates old Amstrad pc (1512 and 1640) video modes. There's a game that cannot run without this: Prohibition, from Infogrames. All other video cards can't show the scroll properly. Maybe other games need this too, but they sure are old.
D-fend doesn't write the mt32 options from yhkwong's build in conf files
mt32reverb.mode=auto
mt32reverb.time=5
mt32reverb.level=3
games work anyway with this default settings, but if you want to change them...
I know all this are not official, and there's a lot more options on Yhkwong's build that D-fend can't configure like overscan on SDL, multiscan on render, vsync... It's up to you to decide what to do, maybe as 'optional' options. But don't misunderstood me, i'm asking for nothing, these are only suggestions.
Anyway thank you for your work, greetings from Spain.

New poster here; been reading the forum for a while, finally have a question I can't answer with a Search. :-J

When D-Fend creates the dropdown menu of entries for ScummVM profiles, where does it get that list? I am in the process of setting all my old games up as D-Fend profiles, and not all the ScummVM compatible ones are listed. I tried editing the ScummVM.Dat file to add the relevant entries, but that doesn't seem to have any effect. Is there any way to update this list other than waiting for the next version of D-Fend to come out? I would prefer not to have some games listed independently and some accessed by loading ScummVM and selecting them from there.

Please note that not all ScummVM games are listed but the game engines. You must select the proper engine in the profile, for instance:
Discworld - Tinsel Engine Game
I have no Mouth and i must Scream - SAGA Engine Game
Here's the complete list:
http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Engines
Look for your game engine and then select it on the profile editor.

Raideoul wrote:

machine=amstrad
I think this emulates old Amstrad pc (1512 and 1640) video modes. There's a game that cannot run without this: Prohibition, from Infogrames. All other video cards can't show the scroll properly.

h-a-l-9000's Megabuild 6 has a "linewise" config option which fixes Prohibition's scrolling in CGA.

Just curious, is the game more colorful / better looking using the Amstrad mode? I know those machines had extended video modes compared to CGA...

Hey there, I'm having a strange problem with the icon view. Game names on multiple lines cause them to overlap the icons below them instead of just pushing them down - how do I fix this?

Pic here: http://forum.zdoom.org/download/file.php?id=11321

Thanks in advance.

Raideoul wrote:

Please note that not all ScummVM games are listed but the game engines. You must select the proper engine in the profile, for in […]
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Please note that not all ScummVM games are listed but the game engines. You must select the proper engine in the profile, for instance:
Discworld - Tinsel Engine Game
I have no Mouth and i must Scream - SAGA Engine Game
Here's the complete list:
http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Engines
Look for your game engine and then select it on the profile editor.

Aha! okay, that should work. Having this info in the Help file would be good; I suspected something like this would be the answer, but I couldn't find that link anywhere. 😀

For consistency, though, shouldn't it either list all the engines, and no games, or all the games? All the Putt-Putt games are listed individually, even though they are all SCUMM games, things like that. That's what threw me off- it looked like they were trying for a complete listing.