VOGONS


First post, by Question

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Hi,

I found a old game called war inc and tried to get it working via dosbox (actually someone else seems to have gotten it working and made the dosbox configuration files and such available online).

While trying to run the game though, i noticed some rather odd behaviour that was not present in the original game (when running normally instead of via dosbox).

First of all, many of the game options do not work....changing scroll speed does nothing, nor does lowering music volume. However game speed/sound volume do work and can be adjusted ingame. The music is particularly annoying as the volume cannot be adjusted ingame, there is a slider bar but even at 0% the music plays at the same volume (this did not happen when i played the game many years ago on an old computer). Stopping the music ingame does not help as the music automatically restarts when i go to another menu ingame (again, does not happen without dosbox).

Im thinking that theres something in the dosbox configuration (or dosbox itself) that is forcing the music to be on, at the same volume, everytime. Is there any way to check for what it is?

And is there any way to change the mouse speed in dosbox? The mosue moves REALLY slowly in it (not the game though). I also tried increasing game speed by changing the cpu cycles, but even at 100k cycles the game seems to run at a max speed which is "normal" for the game but which i feel is rather slow (in terms of things like unit build times). Is there any way to force dosbox to run the game at a faster than normal speed?

Dosbox configuration file :

[sdl] 
fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=desktop
windowresolution=original
output=ddraw
autolock=true
sensitivity=300
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper-0.74.map
usescancodes=true
[dosbox]
language=
machine=svga_s3
captures=capture
memsize=64
[render]
frameskip=0
aspect=false
scaler=hq3x
[cpu]
core=auto
cputype=auto
cycles= max
cycleup=10
cycledown=20
[mixer]
nosound=false
rate=44100
blocksize=1024
prebuffer=20
[midi]
mpu401=intelligent
mididevice=default
midiconfig=
[sblaster]
sbtype=sb16
sbbase=220
irq=7
dma=1
hdma=5
sbmixer=true
oplmode=auto
oplemu=default
oplrate=44100
[gus]
gus=false
gusrate=44100
gusbase=240
gusirq=5
gusdma=3
ultradir=f:\ULTRASND
[speaker]
pcspeaker=true
pcrate=44100
tandy=auto
tandyrate=44100
disney=true
[joystick]
Show last 28 lines
joysticktype=auto 
timed=true
autofire=false
swap34=false
buttonwrap=false
[serial]
serial1=dummy
serial2=dummy
serial3=disabled
serial4=disabled
[dos]
xms=true
ems=true
umb=true
keyboardlayout=auto
[ipx]
ipx=false
[autoexec]
cd ..
@cd ..
@mount c .\games\WarInc
imgmount d .\games\WarInc\cd\WarInc.cue -t cdrom
@c:
cls
@cd warinc
@warinc
exit

Reply 2 of 7, by Dominus

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Moved to the DOSBox forum.

Game speed -control via cyclesbin dosbox
Music, the problem is perhaps that you are using a different configuration than back in the dos days.
Mouse, sounds like a problem with the host. Try different output in the config.

Generally try with a clean config. Memsize 64 is a clear indication that it could need a reset 😉

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 3 of 7, by Question

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Newbie

Trying with a clean config didnt help at all unfortunately. Actually it seems to have made the mouse speed worse, while with the default config it was OK after i restarted the game once.

I stumbled onto a old forum gog.com forum thread about the music volume thing, for a game called dungeon keeper.

Apparently you cant control the volume ingame because of the way dosbox emulates cdroms. So changing the volume ingame does absolutely nothing. Which was the same thing with this game (War inc).

There was a workaround posted though, putting MIXER CDAUDIO 0:0 in the config file's autoexec section works. Theres no music, but normal volume for everything else.

Whats the problem with memsize 64?

Reply 4 of 7, by Dominus

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# memsize: Amount of memory DOSBox has in megabytes.
# This value is best left at its default to avoid problems with some games,
# though few games might require a higher value.
# There is generally no speed advantage when raising this value.

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 7 of 7, by ripsaw8080

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The default is memsize=16, only change it when necessary for a particular game.

SVN refers to the current work-in-progress source code of DOSBox. You can get a Windows build of current source here: http://www.emucr.com/2014/01/dosbox-svn-r3858.html