Nice work.

Atrus wrote:

Ok, the speed is awesome (how did they do this the b*****s at Microsoft?)

They didn't. They bought VPC from another company (Connectix).

some remarks:

As far as I know: Crusader doesn't run.

The speed of virtual Pc is by virtualization. This means they use your own processor instead of an emulated one. If you run it on a ppc host then you'll notice that virtual pc is much much slower.

Compatibility: Do not expect much. Some games work, some don´t, but DOSBox has already higher level of compatibility and it improves every day while I doubt that we can expect many changes in VPC soon. This program was developed mainly for the business purposes and games are not high on agenda.

Emulation: Graphics is rather good but I had problems with stuttering sound in almost every game.

Speed: Yes, it is high, but DOSBox should be improved soon in this regard.

Conclusion: DOSBox is better solution for DOS games today. And tomorrow? It will be probably much better. 😀

Fizzban wrote:

They didn't. They bought VPC from another company (Connectix).

You are absolutely right about that. Clasic Microsoft's tactic. They bought the programmers along with the license. Dosbox team, are you next? 😀

Qbix wrote:

The speed of virtual Pc is by virtualization.

Then,it's obvious! So another disadvantage for VPC is that adjusting the cpu speed is not possible for playing the oldies, (of course one can use the unstable Moslo). Dosbox beats them again. (As for crusader i managed to play it with one of the latest CVS builds)

Jiri wrote:

Emulation: Graphics is rather good but I had problems with stuttering sound in almost every game.

That's true, sound stutters some times.This is general with VPC,happens with the Windows installments too!

Do you happen to know the date Crusader was playable ?
I just tried it and No regret is not playable at the moment.
Or did you specify some special options.

It must be cvs build by rjpa 20040107. Try it and tell me!

MS didn't buy VPC to allow people to play 'crappy' DOS games 😀 They are more interested in business applications for which the compatability issues are much less. VPC is a non issue in the games world. For a start it's not exactly cheap and even when you have it, it doesn't exactly do much for the average punter here!

DOSBox,VDMSound, SCUMMVM, NAGI, FreeSCI, etc. etc. are the right tools for the jobs we all want them to do - run old games well!

I use VPC at work and it's a fantastic tool. We verify our application developments on Win98 and NT4 on these systems whilst developing under 2K/XP/2K3. VPC is a huge saving in time and money.

Crusader No remorse doesnt work with the current CVS build
It gave me this error
"DOS INTERRUPT ERROR - CHECK THE INSTALL GUIDE FOR MORE INFORMATION"

Since im the lucky owner of this game 😀 i checked what the install guide had to say about it. And i quote

Your configuration load utilities that move DOS data segments into extended memory. Such programs are incompatible with crusader. In QEMM, the incompatible programs are DOS-UP.SYS and DOSDATA.SYS load in to you CONFIG.SYS. Other memory managers have similair programs under different names. Useing a boot disk will elliminate this problem

Hope this helps someone to find out whats wrong with crusader and fix it

Atrus wrote:

Emulation of hardware : Virtual pc emulates a Soundblaster 16 ISA and a S3 with 8 mb ram. Dosbox's support for general midi is absent,not to mention gravis etc.With the graphics card, the only important difference is the support of linear framebuffer for the Virtual PC.
Easy of use That's my favorite. To run a dos game with VPC you need to : 1) buy the VPC (ahem), 2) own original DOS (ahem 2 times) 3) install DOS 4) adjust manually your config.sys and autoexec.bat 5) find and install a cdrom driver 6) find and install a mouse driver 7) optimize your conventional memory(f***) and perhaps it'll run! While with DOSBOX...you know!

I compared Dos 6.22 with Windows 95a using Connectix VPC 5.2 and after installing the OS specific virtual Additions plus one Intel driver set called infinst-enu-pv22.zip, I found virtual Win95 to be much easier to configure and use, and faster, than Dos 6.22 itself.

P.S. :
it should also be noted imho that DosBox allowing advmame2x scaling and stuff will always offer much nicer a visual experience that whatever guest Dos 6 or Win95 does.

Aaron Giles, emulation and MAME God, wrote most of that CPU core for Virtual PC using a dynarec core. That's why it is so fast. And I don't think you should be calling this man a bastard.

A fairer comparison would be Virtual PC vs Bochs.

I didn't know that Aaron Giles was involved in VPC!He is indeed the guru of emulation. Btw Darkfalz, i don't have anything personal with anyone,maybe i was a bit harsh 😉

I really can't get crusader running. Maybe your version is different
do you have one big map file ?
or do you files that are sepperated ?

Qbix, the latest cvs build i have is 20040107 and i'm sure i had tried crusader with it.Maybe i was just lucky,because i tried to run it again yesterday, and it showed the message with the DOS interrupt error. I will try to remember what exactly i 'd done. I remember that i managed to run it (without sound), watched the whole intro, got into the options screen, watched the whole next video with the guy talking through the intercom,although i didn't managed to actually play because a blank screen followed for quite some time.I never tried again to run the game but i'll try today.

About the crusader version : i must check (i'm not at home now and don't have the game with me)

VPC 5.2 (from before Connectix was bought out) actually runs Crusader okay. There are sticky key issues, but they're nowhere near as bad as DOSBox's. Under 2004 it gives me an Exception 14; is that what you fellow Crusader players are getting?

sticky keys are fixed in the next version (or at least dramaticly reduced)