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First post, by DosFreak

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http://alter.org.ua/en/soft/win/ntvdm_int28/

INT 28 idle implementation for NT VDM by Vitaliy Vorobyov aka DeathSoft […]
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INT 28 idle implementation for NT VDM
by Vitaliy Vorobyov aka DeathSoft

Situation: DOS applications use loop when waiting for user input.

Trouble: unnecessary power consumption, overheating and difficulties with background tasks (e.g. printing)

Solution: since DOS 2.0 new function was introduces for idle wait - INT 28. If the application uses this function, wait is performed with HLT instruction or some other task is executed.

Trouble N2: Virtual DOS machine under NT this function is not implemented. Thus event if the application uses INT 28, it consumes 100% CPU iven in idle state. That is why in multitask OSes CPU time is wasted with such programms. In addition new generation of processors emits significant amount of power nad gets very hot. This leads to much noise from coolers.

Solution N2: install the driver from the archive below.

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Reply 1 of 6, by eL_PuSHeR

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Very interesting find, DosFreak. 😎

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Reply 2 of 6, by h-a-l-9000

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Hmm DOSBox seems to be lacking this too...

1+1=10

Reply 3 of 6, by Qbix

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dosbox doesn't call int 28 at all so. installing a handler there to idle the cpu doesn't do much good

Water flows down the stream
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Reply 4 of 6, by wd

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Well it should be possible to have some idle callouts in the
keyboard loops, but hell i don't want to optimize idling,
people should PLAY something with dosbox 😀

Reply 6 of 6, by ninjalj

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Uh?

AFAIK Dosbox doesn't need that, here on my laptop xosview doesn't really report much CPU load when running Dosbox, for most games I care. Looking at ltrace output, it seems Dosbox is yielding at SDL_PollEvent.

And I don't hear my fan often when running real mode games on Dosbox.