How long did you wait when it appeared to freeze?

I've noticed that with some Dos games if the cycles isn't high enough (25K+ range) then at times when there is a transition between main menu and game that it may appear that the game has froze.

The weird thing is that the palette animation effect on the text keeps rolling...
Anyway, i've left it at 10k cycles for ten minutes and it stayed in the same place.
I tryed loading msdos 5.0 keyb.exe to see if it made any improvements, but it didn't...
I've tried loadfixing the game, so it only has 580kb base ram free (the minimun required by this game), yet nothing...
I've alo tryed reserving way more (128kb), and using 4mbs of emulated ram, and it still freezes.
I was able to play it on a w98box, but without sound, i would like to experience the sound in dosbox.
Anyway, this game is a rarity, it has more of a collection value than anything else, yet it would be nice if dosbox could run it 😀

Tryed running fhe full version of the game with Ieremou's debug enabled build with the following conf:

1[sdl]
2# fullscreen -- Start dosbox directly in fullscreen.
3# fulldouble -- Use double buffering in fullscreen.
4# fullfixed -- Don't resize the screen when in fullscreen.
5# fullresolution -- What resolution to use for fullscreen, use together with fullfixed.
6# output -- What to use for output: surface,overlay,opengl,openglnb,ddraw,direct3d.
7# hwscale -- Extra scaling of window if the output device supports hardware scaling.
8# autolock -- Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen.
9# sensitiviy -- Mouse sensitivity.
10# waitonerror -- Wait before closing the console if dosbox has an error.
11# priority -- Priority levels for dosbox: lower,normal,higher,highest.
12#             Second entry behind the comma is for when dosbox is not focused/minimized.
13# mapperfile -- File used to load/save the key/event mappings from.
14
15fullscreen=false
16fulldouble=false
17fullfixed=false
18fullresolution=1024x768
19output=surface
20hwscale=1.00
21autolock=true
22sensitivity=100
23waitonerror=true
24priority=higher,normal
25mapperfile=mapper.txt
26
27[dosbox]
28# language -- Select another language file.
29# memsize -- Amount of memory dosbox has in megabytes.
30# machine -- The type of machine tries to emulate:hercules,cga,tandy,vga.
31# captures -- Directory where things like wave,midi,screenshot get captured.
32
33language=
34machine=vga
35captures=capture
36memsize=16
37
38[log]
39# Message not Found!
40
41logfile=log.txt
42vga=true
43vgagfx=true
44vgamisc=true
45int10=true
46sblaster=true
47dma=true
48fpu=true
49cpu=true
50paging=true
51fcb=true
52files=true
53ioctl=true
54exec=true
55dosmisc=true
56pit=true
57keyboard=true
58pic=true
59mouse=true
60bios=true

61gui=true
62misc=true
63io=true
64
65[render]
66# frameskip -- How many frames dosbox skips before drawing one.
67# aspect -- Do aspect correction.
68# scaler -- Scaler used to enlarge/enhance low resolution modes.
69#           Supported are none,normal2x,advmame2x,advmame3x,advinterp2x,interp2x,hq2x,tv2x.
70# hq2x_threshold_adaptive -- The adaptive threshold used to detect edges in hq2x
71#           Possible values are 0-100, can be modified with Ctrl+Alt+F5/F6
72# hq2x_threshold -- The static threshold used to detect edges in hq2x
73#           Possible values are 0-255, can be modified with Ctrl+Alt+F3/F4
74
75frameskip=1
76aspect=false
77scaler=normal2x
78hq2x_threshold_adaptive=75
79hq2x_threshold=0
80
81[cpu]
82# core -- CPU Core used in emulation: simple,normal,full,dynamic.
83# cycles -- Amount of instructions dosbox tries to emulate each millisecond.
84#           Setting this higher than your machine can handle is bad! (unless timesynched is set)
85# cycleup   -- Amount of cycles to increase/decrease with keycombo.
86# cycledown    Setting it lower than 100 will be a percentage.
87# timesynched -- Do not emulate more cycles than possible.
88# showcycles -- Display the number of emulated cycles in the titlebar (uses some CPU).
89
90core=full
91cycles=10000
92cycleup=500
93cycledown=20
94timesynched=false
95showcycles=false
96
97[mixer]
98# nosound -- Enable silent mode, sound is still emulated though.
99# rate -- Mixer sample rate, setting any devices higher than this will
100#         probably lower their sound quality.
101# blocksize -- Mixer block size, larger blocks might help sound stuttering
102#              but sound will also be more lagged.
103# prebuffer -- How many milliseconds of data to keep on top of the blocksize.
104
105nosound=false
106rate=22050
107blocksize=2048
108prebuffer=10
109
110[midi]
111# mpu401      -- Enable MPU-401 Emulation.
112# intelligent -- Operate in Intelligent mode.
113# device      -- Device that will receive the MIDI data from MPU-401.
114#                This can be default,alsa,oss,win32,coreaudio,none.
115# config      -- Special configuration options for the device.
116
117mpu401=true
118intelligent=true
119device=default
120config=
121
122[debug]
123# Debugger related options.
124
125
126[sblaster]
127# type -- Type of sblaster to emulate:none,sb1,sb2,sbpro1,sbpro2,sb16.
128# base,irq,dma,hdma -- The IO/IRQ/DMA/High DMA address of the soundblaster.
129# mixer -- Allow the soundblaster mixer to modify the dosbox mixer.
130# oplmode -- Type of OPL emulation: auto,cms,opl2,dualopl2,opl3.
131#            On auto the mode is determined by sblaster type.
132# oplrate -- Sample rate of OPL music emulation.
133
134type=sb16
135base=220
136irq=7
137dma=1
138hdma=5
139mixer=true
140oplmode=auto
141oplrate=22050
142
143[gus]
144# gus -- Enable the Gravis Ultrasound emulation.
145# base,irq1,irq2,dma1,dma2 -- The IO/IRQ/DMA addresses of the 
146#            Gravis Ultrasound. (Same IRQ's and DMA's are OK.)
147# rate -- Sample rate of Ultrasound emulation.
148# ultradir -- Path to Ultrasound directory.  In this directory
149#             there should be a MIDI directory that contains
150#             the patch files for GUS playback.  Patch sets used
151#             with Timidity should work fine.
152
153gus=true
154rate=22050
155base=240
156irq1=5
157irq2=5
158dma1=3
159dma2=3
160ultradir=C:\ULTRASND
161
162[speaker]
163# pcspeaker -- Enable PC-Speaker emulation.
164# pcrate -- Sample rate of the PC-Speaker sound generation.
165# tandyrate -- Sample rate of the Tandy 3-Voice generation.
166#              Tandysound emulation is present if machine is set to tandy.
167# disney -- Enable Disney Sound Source emulation.
168
169pcspeaker=true
170pcrate=22050
171tandyrate=22050
172disney=false
173
174[bios]
175# Nothing to setup yet!
176
177
178[dos]
179# xms -- Enable XMS support.
180# ems -- Enable EMS support.
181
182xms=true
183ems=true
184
185[modem]
186# modem -- Enable virtual modem emulation.
187# comport -- COM Port modem is connected to.
188# listenport -- TCP Port the modem listens on for incoming connections.
189
190modem=false
191comport=2
192listenport=23
193
194[directserial]
195# directserial -- Enable serial passthrough support.
196# comport -- COM Port inside DOSBox.
197# realport -- COM Port on the Host.
198# defaultbps -- Default BPS.
199# parity -- Parity of the packets. This can be N, E or O.
200# bytesize -- Size of each packet. This can be 5 or 8.
201# stopbit -- The number of stopbits. This can be 1 or 2.
202
203directserial=false
204comport=1
205realport=COM1
206defaultbps=1200
207parity=N
208bytesize=8
209stopbit=1
210
211[ipx]
212# ipx -- Enable ipx over UDP/IP emulation.
213
214ipx=false
215
216[autoexec]
217# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
218mount c c:\oldware
219c:
220dir /w/p

I've got a log file, wich is attached to this post, if anyone cares to look at it and have any ideas, please reply 😉
One thing i've noticed, is when dosbox loads antagony.exe, a "EXEC:Illegal header" thingy appears...
BTW, I'd configured the game to use no sound.

It looks like this thread never really went anywhere, however I am dealing with the same issue. When I select a sound card, and then run the game with the debug on, it appears to continually try to access the soundcard. That led me to believe there was a sound issue, so I went into setup and disabled the sound. However, this time when I ran it it hung at the same place, the debugger just no longer reported any codes. Attempting to hit a few keys quickly leads to a keyboard buffer full error.

I am using 0.74 with a standard conf. I installed the game from floppies.

I have no problem getting the game to run in 0.74 with default settings. I run SETUP.EXE, choose SB sound, choose autodetect, save settings, then run ANTAGONY.EXE to start the game. No errors or hangs, and I played through one fight. Have you tried fixed and/or limited cycles?

very strange, because I see the exact same problem in the full version - it loops infinitely at the "design" credit screen, using default settings on 0.74.
debugging shows that irqs 0 and 1 are masked at startup and apparently never unmasked, so no timer or keyboard events fire anymore. otherwise, pressing a key would allow continuing.
the credits are also supposed to disappear after a certain amount of time, but the check can't exit because the timer doesn't update the counter.

it's also silent. I just unmasked the irqs manually, and I get music during the credits, so there seems to be a problem with the sound driver.

In response to your question ripsaw8080, yes I have tried auto cycles, and fixed cycles ranging from low values (2,000) to higher values (stopped at 40,000).

I'm starting to think you have a magical version of dosbox. I am repeatedly running into games that don't work for me that seem to work perfectly well for you 😒

Thanks for your research into this peterferrie.

In this particular case, it sounds like ripsaw must have a different version than we do...

exofreeze wrote:

I'm starting to think you have a magical version of dosbox.

When I say 0.74, I am referring to the official release unless otherwise specified. If that's magical then you have the magic, too.

exofreeze wrote:

In this particular case, it sounds like ripsaw must have a different version than we do...

This sounds more plausible than magic versions of DOSBox.

here's the fix. run the antagfix.com instead of antagony.exe.
for reference, my antagony.exe has SHA1 of 0ecd994a460a2d934f4f9ecdce31e6c4825baaa9

and I thought the magical version wasn't for public release - I guess the jig is up...

Nice one!

Sweeeeet, now that I see how this works, I'm interesting in the handjob version.... 🤣

I compared notes with ripsaw on this and indeed, his version of the game was different than my own. Thanks for the fix on this version peterferrie.

I learned about Antagony from this thread, and found the demo on this CD (zipped and uploaded it separately here). However I have the same kind of trouble as the topic starter.

I've tried the antgafix utility provided by peterferrie above, but it has no effect in either DOSBox 0.74-3 or the SVN build that I use (r4393): the demo is stuck on the info screen. [I've only been able to get past that to the main menu in DOSBox ECE (build from 3 Dec 2020) but it clearly has glitches in the main menu and ultimately crashes when I try to start a single player match]

The 0.74-3 debugger gives me the same messages about the keyboard buffer being full as if no fix were used. Any help?

It works for me with default settings in a build of current source. Note that the hang at the first screen was fixed in r4384, both for the full game as well as the demo, no workaround program needed. The fix in SVN was picked up by ECE, which is presumably why it doesn't hang. I suggest trying a different SVN build and/or default settings.

Thanks a lot! I guess I should update SVN builds more often, lots of updates coming in, eh?