VOGONS


First post, by Ashir

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Hi guys, I made my own eboot for this 1984 DOS game, and I came across 2 problems.

1. For some reason, the autoexec part of the conf file was omitted, so my INPUTMAP was not used. I fix this by using the .bat trick, but still, why it was omitted?

2. The game runs TOO fast. I know, this is weird, 9 of every 10 posts about DOSBox on the PSP complains about how slow games runs. I try everything I can think of: no
SYSOPT clock 333, fixed cycles, higher rate for the sound, higher scales, cga video. All fail, the babies bounce too fast to be playable. I did notice the when you miss a baby the sound seens slow, but the video is too fast.

My config is this

[sdl]

fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=original
windowresolution=original
output=surface
autolock=true
sensitivity=35
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper.txt
usescancodes=true
keyhint=false

[dosbox]

language=
machine=cga
captures=capture
memsize=10

[render]

frameskip=0
aspect=false
scaler=hq3x

[cpu]

core=normal
cputype=386_slow
cycles=fixed 2
cycleup=10
cycledown=20

[mixer]

nosound=false
rate=44100
blocksize=2048
prebuffer=10

[midi]

mpu401=intelligent
device=default
config=

[sblaster]

sbtype=sb16
sbbase=220
irq=7
dma=1
hdma=5
mixer=true
oplmode=auto
oplrate=22050

Show last 52 lines
[gus]

gus=false
gusrate=22050
gusbase=240
irq1=5
irq2=5
dma1=3
dma2=3
ultradir=C:\ULTRASND

[speaker]

pcspeaker=true
pcrate=44100
tandy=off
tandyrate=22050
disney=false

[joystick]

joysticktype=2axis
timed=false
autofire=false
swap34=false
buttonwrap=true

[serial]

serial1=dummy
serial2=dummy
serial3=disabled
serial4=disabled

[dos]

xms=false
ems=false
umb=false
keyboardlayout=ES

[ipx]

ipx=false

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.

mount c ms0:/dos
c:
cd BBabies
BBabies.bat

Any ideas to slow down the game?

EDIT: Same problem with Hard Hat Mack and Zaxxon... all 3 are PC Booter games from 1984.

Last edited by Ashir on 2020-08-06, 19:59. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 4, by Jorpho

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Do you have the same problems in the Windows port of DOSBox?

Because the PSP port is not supported here, and if you're having problems with the PSP port, you should probably contact whoever maintains the PSP port.

Reply 2 of 4, by Ashir

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Jorpho wrote on 2020-08-06, 15:52:

Do you have the same problems in the Windows port of DOSBox?

Because the PSP port is not supported here, and if you're having problems with the PSP port, you should probably contact whoever maintains the PSP port.

No, on Windows port at 250 cycles it runs fine. Problem is, the PSP port is no longer mantain by CrazyC, not by anyone else. Actually, I think he never fully relesed the full source code...

Reply 3 of 4, by Ashir

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Ok, after a few days playing with the options I found out that:

  1. If you want to slow down a game on a jailbroken PSP, if you use CFW PRO, you can always underclock the PSP CPU using the VSH menu, after pressing the SELECT button. from 20 MHz up to 300 MHz for the CPU, and from 10 MHz up to 150 MHz for the GPU.
  2. The sound emulation is really fucked up. I don't know if it's a problem of DOSBox v0.71 (the original source of the port for PSP) or the port itself. If I underclock the game to 133 / 66 MHz it's playable... for about 15 seconds, then looks like DOSBox gets out of sync and everytime the baby bounce it "floats" for 1 or 2 seconds before landing on the jumping sheet of the firefighters. Why?, who knows... If the baby falls into the ground emulation stops for about 15 seconds, why?, only God knows... Disabling the sound doesn't speed up or down the emulation.
  3. Sound rate DO have an impact on emulation behavior. Same as block size and prebuffer, but I can't quite nail down what are the exact effecs of each.

Reply 4 of 4, by Jorpho

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Ashir wrote on 2020-08-12, 19:39:

I don't know if it's a problem of DOSBox v0.71 (the original source of the port for PSP) or the port itself.

If you really want to know, you can probably find a download for DOSBox 0.71 easily enough.

Not that it matters much, because even if there was a bug that was fixed in the next version, no one here is going to port that to the PSP.