it supports usb. in native win98. (doesnt work with 2 players on same pc tho.)

i tried the following combinations...

usb, serial
ps2, usb
serial, ps2
usb, usb
ps2, ps2
serial, serial

[replied to offtopic discussion]

It may support the primary mouse as USB, because Settlers 2 just uses Windows' pointer. For the second mouse, you need native support in Settlers 2. I often saw the word "PS/2" coming by when starting, but I don't know if that's about the primary mouse, or support for a second.

When using a serial mouse, have you configured the direct serial options of dosbox 0.65 correctly? You need to generate a new config file (with config -writefile x.txt or something in the dosboxprompt) to see the syntax of the new options.

In dosbox.conf you must set
[serial]
serial1=directserial realport:comx

comx is the port you plugged your serial mouse in
Then tell the game that the other mouse is at com1 (if this is neccessary at all).

How does one configure that under Linux BTW? There are no COM[1,2,3,4], only /dev/ttyS[0,1,2,3].

Mustn't it be serial2 BTW? I mean, does dosbox simulate a mouse present on com1? If so, that port would be in use.

If directserial was ported to Linux you probably would enter the /dev/tty... but it isn't. The Dosbox internal mouse is PS/2 and emulated mouse driver so com1 is availible for use.

no need for a new topic... i'm pretty sure the gold edition of settlers 2 is slower in the main menu then normal settlers 2...

now my issue - im trying to get cd audio to work in settlers 2 gold.

i have tried "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.65\DOSBox.exe" E:\SETTLER2\s2.exe - mount h h:\ -t cdrom -usecd 1 -ioctl

and that indeed does mount the cd (i can browse the disc in dosbox)... however... the game does not find the disc still and as such cd audio doesnt work... any help would be appreciated.

(i made the neccesary changes to make it find my cd drive and mount it as the same letter as its physical letter)

It says is cannot find the disc, and won't start? Perhaps you should supply a volume name (the one of the real disc) when mounting. Mounting normally doesn't give the drive the proper volume name, if I remember correctly, and some games check for it to see if it's the right disc.

settlers2.exe is what requires the cd... only because it plays the intro. (then it calls on s2.exe)

s2.exe doesnt play the intro and as such skips straight to the main menu and doesnt require the cd... under windows 98 i used to always listen to the music due to it being far superior to midi music.

anymore help? and are you still interested in that off topic discussion on my forums?

[note: 61000 cpu cycles is optimal for my machine... and using "dos32a.exe" is faster then original "dos4gw.exe" - "dosbox 0.65" doesnt like original "dos4gw.exe" but "dosbox 0.65 CVS" does work with it.]

What if you start the game with settlers2.exe, does it find the disc then? If not, try the volume name trick.

BTW, I don't know if a CD drive is able to play music when mounted. I've never tried it in dosbox. I also don't have my cd audio output connected to the soundcard input, so that's gonna be difficult anyway...

As a workaround, you could extract the CD-audio to wav, encode it to MP3/OGG/whatever and play it in the background.

paragraph 2 - that only neccesary if dosbox ouputs cd audio as analogue. (and i dunno if dosbox supports cd audio either)

paragraph 3 - that would have a noticible impact on game speed due to having an extra program run in the background.

----------------------

- no cd audio when using settler2.exe (but finds the cd)

how do you mount the cd drive first then start the game using a shortcut... normaly i have to atleast visit the cd drive first to have it actualy mount then i can run settler2.exe.

- what type of performance effect should i expect when moving from an onboard sound system to a "CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER Xi-Fi XTREME MUSIC" sound card?

- sidenote... optimal performance for me is found at "61000 cycles" and "ddraw output"

paragraph 3 - that would have a noticible impact on game speed due to having an extra program run in the background.

My mp3 player uses up 0% CPU. I don't think you'll notice that at all...

how do you mount the cd drive first then start the game using a shortcut... normaly i have to atleast visit the cd drive first to have it actualy mount then i can run settler2.exe.

Put an autostart section in your dosbox.conf, which executes the mount command. Or, make a .bat file which mounts the drive, then starts settlers.

what type of performance effect should i expect when moving from an onboard sound system to a "CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER Xi-Fi XTREME MUSIC" sound card?

Probably zip. Simple PCM audio processing is not very difficult, even though the CPU has to do it. Benchmarks with modern day games also show don't much of a difference. There is a difference, but not much.

autostart works like a charm... still no cd audio tho... could you ask a dosbox developer if it does support cd audio?

could you ask a dosbox developer if it does support cd audio?

Anything I can ask, you can ask...

But really, the solution I offered (playing them as MP3's in winamp or something) isn't such a bad idea.

I don't know why I didn't test this before, but playing CD audio in Settlers 2 in Dosbox works just fine here (Linux). I can just insert a CD and play. I didn't have the CD mounted. Perhaps that's the problem, having it mounted.

There is another possibility. Windows XP extracts the CD audio and plays it as PCM by default. Perhaps you should disable that, and let it play the CD normally. It should be configurable somewhere in the multimedia section of the control panel.

when i click cd player in settlers 2 it says no cd audio tracks. (cd is mounted because i can browse the cd and watch the intro movie)

and tried your suggestion in turning off digital cd audio.

(cd is mounted because i can browse the cd and watch the intro movie)

I suggested not having the CD mounted in my last post.

😮 ok

edit: no cd mounted results in same thing... no cd audio... it appears as tho the settlers can access the data but not the music... which means that dosbox might not support mixed mode cd's.

I tested it with a mixed mode CD. The CD player in Settlers 2 gave me a correct tracklist.

BTW. Above, you mounted the CD with "-usecd 1". Does that mean you have the CD in your secondary cd drive? If not, mount it with "-usecd 0". So, have it mounted this time, with the option "-usecd 0", and see what happens. Try some of the other mount options as well, like ASPI or something.

problem solved... i needed to use the -LABEL command. (and it only recognizes the drive mounted with the lowest letter.)

thanks for all your help and sorry for my ignorance... franpa

BTW, I don't know if you've seen it, but I've replied at your forums about settlers2.