+50% speed improvement. I will believe it when I see it... 😈

Well it has been confirmed by several sources - Windows XP 64 has already been released as warez (final version RC2) and the few 64 bit programs already here often give even more than 50%. Example: one program had a benchmark of 130, 64 bit version had 240.

So the potential is there.

well dosbox runs allready on 64 bit platforms.

Windows isn;t the only os out there 😀

but dosbox has allready been tested on win64 bit as well and it seems to work.

Not that much speed to gain though. as we emulate a 386 which was a lot of less bits. so we acces the bits in the same way.

Too bad, I was hoping it would make a big difference in cycles. Still, I can do 20000 cycles easily now instead of 15000 which I had before with my new CPU, which makes a lot of the later DOS games playable.

The "bittedness" isn't so much the big advantage. Often the biggest advantage for performance for regular users (i.e. don't need dozens of gigs'o'RAM) is the added registers. It lets programmers tune their progs to have faster access to more pieces of critical data. Whether this can help DOSBOX, I have no idea.....

As a user of Windows XP x64 (public beta), I can tell you that DOSBox runs great in Win64 as is. In fact it seems to have a lower CPU load than in 32 bit Windows on the same machine with the same game and dosbox.config settings.

I may install mine then on a seperate partition. The reason it could have a lower load is because WinXP itself would take less of a load maybe?

well some stuff inside dosbox will benifit from it. Probably the graphics conversions and such.

and maybe it will be more effiecient. Anyway do you use the 32 bits version of dosbox ? or do you use a selfcompiled 64 bits version ?

I believe in order to get any speed improvement (beyond the o/s eating less resources) you would need to optimize the code for 64 bit...not just "make it" 64 bit. Thats why many programs don't see an increase while others can get a 30% boost. Game companies actually rewrite parts of their games to make them work much better on 64 bit o/s (ut2k3, upcoming far cry 64)

avatar_58 wrote:

I believe in order to get any speed improvement (beyond the o/s eating less resources) you would need to optimize the code for 64 bit...not just "make it" 64 bit.

Just nit-picking - I don't think it is a question of optimizing the code. It is about optimizing the data 😉

Well I know one thing - my AMD 64 3000+ gives a BIG speed boost in DOSBOX compared to my old 2500+. And I mean, BIG. I can play Tomb Raider for christ sake! Really smoothly most of the time too.

The only game so far that's still too slow (that I tried) is Azrael's Tear - which is too bad cos I paid a small fortune for it.

I'm really glad Star Trek A Final Unity works so smoothly now though - only problem is the mouse that's reaaaaally slooooooooow.

I use DOSBOX exclusively on my A64 3000+ notebook. I admit it does run very good, but I haven't tried anything else. Some games do still push it to the limit though, like Dark Forces. It depends on what nasty optimization tricks the game used since most of these tricks deoptimize DOSBOX (lol).

TIE Fighter SVGA and the Crusader games run very well though. TIE especially likes dynamic core while Crusader is another that seems to be optimized to hell so it works best with normal core.

I haven't tried Tomb Raider though. That's got to be crazy demanding though. I didn't even know it was DOS!

Please don't insult DOS like that. TR was made for DOS, it is not DOS....I don't care how great TR is IT WILL NEVER BE DOS!!! NEEEEEEEEEEEVVVVVEEEEEEERRRRRRR!!!!! 😁

Dude, lay off the coffee...

I am only using 32 bit versions of DOSBox (.63 and various CVS builds). Generally, XP x64 seems faster and more stable than 32 bit XP. Now if we could just get more drivers for it. I guess that it will be like the release of 2k where there weren't drivers available for a lot of hardware, out side of the real basic drivers included on the CD.

Well, it's basically the fact that Windows XP 64 isn't really a major consumer OS. Your helped a bit by the fact that it's pretty much the same OS as 2003 64 but still it's a pretty niche OS. XP 64 was pretty much just released for crying out loud. Driver developers have a list of priorities just like any other programmer and I doubt that programming 64bit drivers on an OS used by %1 of the Windows market is very high on the list.......

collector wrote:

I am only using 32 bit versions of DOSBox (.63 and various CVS builds). Generally, XP x64 seems faster and more stable than 32 bit XP.

I agree with you. Running the stock 32bit DOSBox under XP x64 I usually see a smaller load on the CPU. I did some tests yesterday running The 7th Guest with some saved games and got:

• XP 32: DOSBox at 30,000 cycles using 25 to 45% of CPU, with peaks up to 55%;
• XP x64: DOSBox at 30,000 cycles using 15 to 40% of CPU, rarely going above 50%.

Now I'm trying to test it under Gentoo Linux compiled for 64 bits, but I have to make alsa work first.

[edited for clarity]

red_avatar wrote:

Well I know one thing - my AMD 64 3000+ gives a BIG speed boost in DOSBOX compared to my old 2500+. And I mean, BIG. I can play Tomb Raider for christ sake! Really smoothly most of the time too.

The only game so far that's still too slow (that I tried) is Azrael's Tear - which is too bad cos I paid a small fortune for it.

I'm really glad Star Trek A Final Unity works so smoothly now though - only problem is the mouse that's reaaaaally slooooooooow.

I think your mistaking the fact that AMD64 can do 32bit code as well. Of course the CPU is faster, but its not using anything 64-bit to help out with speed 😉 You need a 64 bit O/S "and" software to get the full effect of the speed boost.

But yes, I know about AMD's speed 😁 I have an FX-53 and dosbox can fly.

Shut up! 😎 🤣 You are making me jealous... 😁 🤣