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First post, by COVOXED

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Does GOG games based on DosBox, run under real DOS (6.22)?
Out of the box? Or after a bit of tweaking? Or not working at all?

So many GOG games use DosBox (http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/GOG_games_that_use_DOSBox)
I would like to run some of them on my old real-DOS machine.
Also its great that i would not have to use CD rom or ugly no-cd-hacks, since the GOG versions are all hard drive.

Anyone knows more about this?

Reply 2 of 11, by Tertz

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COVOXED wrote:

since the GOG versions are all hard drive

If they were adopted to run from HDD, without disk images and folders mounted as CD/floppy, - they should. But no one guarantees this.
It's possible in theory to make apps or patch games in such way, that they work in DOSBox and don't on some real machine. Especially taking into account DOSBox is open sourced and its specific builds may be used.

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Reply 3 of 11, by acp

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Honestly I never had time to really research the subject but here are some facts & thoughts:

1. DosBox is easy to detect in numerous way, one easy is to check for it's substitute of BIOS as it includes DosBox name. This can be used in theory as protection scheme for game to detect that it is not run inside DosBox.
2. DosBox is more close to Dos 5 than 6.22 tough from most games perspective there shouldn't be much difference.
3. DoBox only emulates parts of MS/PC-DOS so some advanced game protections scheme based on DOS internal structures or I/O will fail. Hence currently distributed games can't have such protection enabled meaning they should run with no problems under real DOS 6.22 assuming you have a similar configuration in your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT.
4. Some games requires different than default DosBox configuration for particular version including cpu core - make sure your system has similar config and meet the requirements.
5. Many GOG games uses DosBox 0.74 - I haven't noticed a game that is using different version but this may be the case. Zork Anthology for example is based on DosBox 0.74 which is exactly the same binary as official DosBox release.
6. Since DosBox - as already pointed out - is opensource project in theory one could modify it in order to provide copy protection scheme. However looking at the prices of some of the games and the fact that they are DRM free I doubt anyone would choose this path actually.

Hope that clarifies the subject just a bit.

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Reply 4 of 11, by Dominus

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Most games should run in true Dos, some games, however, were severely crippled. They run in the GOG Dosbox but got thrir installer, setup files deleted and are hard to get working in real Dos

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Reply 5 of 11, by PhilsComputerLab

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COVOXED, I "specialize" on this a little bit 😀

I have a TON of DOSBox packed games from GOG and enjoy getting them to run on a real DOS games. There are maybe 5 or 5 different situations you encounter. The process ranges from easy to a little bit complex, depending on the game.

I've documented all my findings here: http://www.philscomputerlab.com/playing-dosbo … -gaming-pc.html

A lot of games you just copy the game folder and run it on the DOS machine. Other easy games come with a full ISO or BIN/CUE image from an original installation CD. These are my favorite releases.

Harder games come with BIN/CUE images, but have the audio files compressed. So you need to undo that.

The worst are games that use BIN/CUE images, have compressed audio files, but do not contain the original installation CD. Here you need to re-create the CD, but also copy files onto your DOS machine. You sometimes also need to edit various configuration files.

But, so far, I have not run into a DOSBox game that did not run on a real DOS PC. If the release is not idea, I sometimes buy the game on eBay, especially Sold Out Software titles.

Careful, a lot of games use ScummVM instead of DOSBox.

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Reply 6 of 11, by COVOXED

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Thank you all so much for the response.

And philscomputerlab, WOW, you sure have "specialized" in this man! 😀

After looking at your page, and videos, there is only one piece of info that i lack; which games works with the two first solutions, and which ones depends on the third, more demanding tweak? What about the first Gabriel Knight for example?

Again, thanx a bunch!

Reply 7 of 11, by MusicallyInspired

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Not all BIN/CUE games on GOG come with compressed audio. Quake and Quake II come with lossless audio embedded in the BINs.

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Reply 8 of 11, by PhilsComputerLab

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COVOXED wrote:

which games works with the two first solutions, and which ones depends on the third, more demanding tweak? What about the first Gabriel Knight for example?

Again, thanx a bunch!

I left SOME work up to the viewers 🤣

But I happen to know GK. It is a full installation ISO image. Burn it onto CD, and then you can install it from the CD on your retro DOS gaming PC.

If you want a "challenging" game, try Battle Isle II.

MusicallyInspired wrote:

Not all BIN/CUE games on GOG come with compressed audio. Quake and Quake II come with lossless audio embedded in the BINs.

Quite a few games are like that. File size and the CUE file gives it away easily.

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Reply 9 of 11, by acp

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philscomputerlab wrote:

But, so far, I have not run into a DOSBox game that did not run on a real DOS PC. If the release is not idea, I sometimes buy the game on eBay, especially Sold Out Software titles.

Basically there is no reason for the game not being able to run on real PC under real DOS except for some protection scheme that new distributor would add (I haven't seen or heard about such case yet and in my opinion it would be a nonsense to add such protection) or different software/hardware configuration.I suspect some games may be problematic as it may be tricky to find slow enough machine for example but there is always a chance to slow it down by intercepting 1Ch interrupt for example. Obviously - as already pointed out - moving game from DosBox to plain DOS may require some additional work.

ASM beyond Repair https://corexor.wordpress.com blog about assembly related stuff

Reply 10 of 11, by Azarien

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GOG is not adding any protection that would force you to use DOSBox, but they are not helping you either in getting rid of it.

I've successfully undosboxed several games (Blood, Redneck Rampage, among others) but my aim was to run them on old laptop with Windows XP that is too slow to run them with DOSBox. I've never really tried on real MS-DOS.

There are no DOS installers provided, but fortunately sound card setup programs are preserved.
Games with OGG soundtrack are a bit problematic, you have to burn a mixed-mode CD/CD-ROM.
And yes, it sucks that OGG is lossy and sometimes badly ripped (Blood).

Reply 11 of 11, by ColdBrain

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Most games sold on GOG have the essential files to run, so if it runs on DOSBox, it should run on real DOS.

The problem is butchered releases. GOG is full of those and they don't seem to make an effort to update the games with full data. All they (and the publishers) care about is the quick buck. Unfortunately, ever since these online retro shops started selling old games again, I've found it increasingly hard to find ripped copies of those games online, which would usually be pristine compared to GOG releases, and I have difficulty getting physical copies of vintage stuff I don't own, so it can be very annoying indeed. It doesn't help that GOG is littered with rabid fanboys who jump on your throat whenever you criticize GOG, so there's also that.

Copy protection shouldn't be an issue, since, from experience, most if not all the executables are as they were when originally released and I doubt anyone is interested in either adding or removing protection from old 16-bit executables.