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DosBox at FULL SPEED - MAXIMUM SPEED. (''LIGHT SPEED'' if possible).

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First post, by Damas Clásicas

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Hi,

I know DosBox is really a great tool to run many old MS-DOS programs. And I really appreciate that. But it's lacking a very important option: the capacity to run SOME MS-DOS programs at full speed.

When I say ''full speed'', I'm talking directly and literally about the full speed of the processor. When I try to explain this to other people, they asked me: why the hell you want to run OLD MS-DOS
programs at the current modern speed of processors like Ryzen or i7? They will run so fast that you cannot play with them. So, I have to explain that this option will be PERFECT only for running IA programs.

What are IA programs? Board games. Programs like Chess, Checkers, Gomoku etc. And why is the full speed so important in IA games?

The basic principle is this: the FASTER they go, the BETTER and STRONGER they will play. So, the FASTER they can calculate (in nodes per second), the BETTER they will play. It's very simple.

I have my DosBox configured like this: core=dynamic, cputype=auto, cycles=max 105%, and even with this, the speed is very far from be the BEST speed that my processor could reach.

Can someone tell me if this can be implemented? If this can be implemented in DosBox it will be even more amazing than ever! Maybe there is any special DosBox version that can do this?

Reply 1 of 5, by darry

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I assume you've read this or something equivalent --> https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Performance and especially this --> https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Performance#Emula … CPU_equivalency

The questions are what physical CPU are you using and what emulated CPU speed are you expecting ?

EDIT: Have you tried setting cycles manually ?

Reply 2 of 5, by DosFreak

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It's not lacking, it's a feature.

If you are that worried about it you can always boot DOS and run your programs. You still won't be using all of the idiotic all capped words you mentioned since they those programs aren't multithreaded and you'll likely encounter CPU and speed incompatibilities but that'll be th best you'll be able to do without running a modern multithreaded version of those programs.

If you're too lazy to do the above then load DOS in qemu, dosemu, KVM, vmware, virtualbox, etc but you'll still be limited by the host OS, drivers and VM software so you still won't have your full speed but you'll be close.

Last edited by DosFreak on 2020-08-04, 03:03. Edited 2 times in total.

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Reply 3 of 5, by Damas Clásicas

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Hi Darry,

Thanks for your response. I'm using a Ryzen 5-2600x processor (Default speed: 3600 MHz per core).
Of course I expect much more speed that what I'm getting with DosBox.

With Vmware (for example), the speed of IA programs are almost perfect. An old MS-DOS program named ''Dynamo'' calculates 650.000 nodes per seconds.
But with DosBox, Dynamo only calculates 75.000 nodes max (with my previous configuration), so about 8-9 times SLOWER.

I really, really would like if DosBox can reach more speed. Maybe I need to modify something or use a special DosBox version?

Reply 4 of 5, by Damas Clásicas

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DosFreak:

Please, if you don't understand, don't talk.

I was NOT talking about use several cores with this OLD MS-DOS programs. I perfectly KNOW this old programs use only ONE core.
BUT I want to use the MAX speed of the CORE. Is that so HARD to understand for you?

Yes, I also know that Vmware or the old Virtual PC machine work much BETTER than DosBox in this regard. BUT with them one needs to install the specific OS, etc.
The nice thing would be to do it fast and easy from DosBox!

Reply 5 of 5, by DosFreak

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Sorry but the BS in your post was confusing and the unneeded all caps was blinding.

It's not going to happen. Look elsewhere.

It isn't hard to install DOS in vmware and it's easier to use than QEMU so that's likely your best bet.

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