Hehehe, very cool comment... But you shouldn't forget the fact that this kind of Blog has been created for Marketing Purposes only. I don't think that Ben Armstrong guy will respond in a "Hey, you're right, DOSBox is much better than our product"-way. (; The fact that this guy is "Program manager on the core virtualization team at Microsoft" (i read this as "Product Manager") means that he will defend "his" product with claws and teeth. It's his job to communicate that "his" product is the best thing since sliced bread.

A bit OT, but: i just despise these "false" Blogs. I have some MarCom (Marketing/Communication) knowledge, and from what i see, Blogs are perceived by companies either as a potential threat, or simply as a communication channel for penetrating their messages to the recipients. Never believe anything you read in a company-related Blog. It's just another form of advertising.

Yep, but I don't get the feeling that Ben uses his Blog as marketing. At least not the DOS gaming part of it. He's just really into testing DOS games in VPC....even though nothing comes of it. He tests the games but there is no development of VPC to fix the problems! heh. If that isn't a waste of time then I don't know what is.

Early on when I started reading his Blog when he first started it I was hoping he was testing games in VPC because they were actually trying to improve VPC. Over time and after reading posts where he actually states so, I realized that there has been nor ever will be any more development for DOS in VPC or hell any real development into VPC at all....(I called it when they bought VPC from Connectix....yay for me 🙁 )

It's really worrying that MS virtualization solutions are progressively becoming more and more about running the latest software and not maintaining compatibility with older software.... Eventually I'm guessing their virtulization\emulation software will not even be about running older software on newer software but just about running multiple VM's of their latest software on their latest OS. I'm wondering how long it will be before they remove NT4/2000 support from their VM's! Probably right after 2000 get's EOL.....

Emulation =! Virtualization. I'd say virtualization is mostly interesting for professional users, for example for server consolidation and stuff like that. VPC seems to be a product for that kind of use cases.

I don't think MS (or any other major company) perceive DOS game players as a worthwhile market. The topic is quite interesting: on one hand, "casual gaming" is _the_ hype of the moment in the gaming industry (i consider many DOS games "casual" games, as they are less complex than modern games). Low development cost, quick time-to-market, a great number of potential buyers because of "ease of use" (the games are simple enough so that everyone can understand and play them) and low prices - a very interesting market, with a great potential. The success of the DS, WII (+ virtual console) and XBLA shows that it's possible to create sales with "simple" games.

On the other hand, emulation technology is treated very unkind by the large companies - or at least it was, until the current generation of consoles. On the PC, the situation is quite different. After Nintendo tried to fight emulator coders on the past (there's a very interesting document by "The Scribe" about this topic), emulation has been largely ignored. This lead to a situation where there are so many open source/freely available emulators, that no company will have an interest in developing a "professional" emulator - no one would buy it, as the free alternatives are as good as any "professional" application could be.

Bottom line: i don't think MS (or any other large company) has in interest in developing emulators for gaming purposes on the PC platform. And, to be honest, i'm glad it's like that. Otherwise the companies would try to stop emulator coders from developing, and that would be bad for us people interested in VOGONS (;

I couldn`t resist I had to post a comment there as well 🤣.

I gave up on VPC for gaming when I found out how crappy the sound was. The audio in DOSBox is so good. This is why I hope that someday we will be able to install Win9x in it and have it be stable and usable, to be able to play the Win only 9x games that won't run decently on XP.

I just posted there, too. I guess DosFreak is a troll.

as soon as gazillionaire works without the graphics sharing component crashing, i will become a happy person.

under winXP the game randomly will enter a $999,999,999 bid for you and the game says its too much, when you hit ok you dont get to rectify it thus your screwed out of the auction.

i contacted the company behind the game and they said it is graphics related, i told them about virtual pc making the game playable, but the graphics sharing component crashes. its not a fatal crash the game is still 90% playable, its just some graphics in the game will not load and will be shows as solid black.

collector wrote:

I gave up on VPC for gaming when I found out how crappy the sound was. The audio in DOSBox is so good. This is why I hope that someday we will be able to install Win9x in it and have it be stable and usable, to be able to play the Win only 9x games that won't run decently on XP.

I just posted there, too. I guess DosFreak is a troll.

heh. Yeah for Windows games VPC is fine although IMO running Windows 3.1 games in DosBox is a better solution and I prefer to use Qemu/VirtualBox/Vmware whenever possible due to the speed and compatible with other OS's. I'm currently compiling a list of Windows 95 games that run too fast on host PC/VPC that would be nice to run in Windows 95 in DosBox.

Great I'm a troll. Nooooooo! 😀

Thanks for your support guys but I hope his site doesn't turn nasty. I truly would just like people who use VPC for DOS games and have the mistaken impression that DosBox is "slow" or not as good as VPC to give DosBox a try and actually play their DOS games the way they should be played. Also please do NOT troll his site in the future. When he mentions playing DOS games on his website then every now and then I pop in with a correction or a suggestion that this or that game runs better because the feature is actually supported in DosBox but I in no way troll his website nor do I want anyone here to do so.

None of the Pro-DOSBox comments were trollish. Mr. "I am a Microsoft Employee and i have to act like a normal person to make this look like a real Blog"-Dan went out of arguments, so he resorted to unfair dialectics, calling anyone with an other opinion than his own a troll. He did that in a very professional and subtle way, but the move is quite obvious.

Ahh, that was the whole point of my post above. MS cares sh*te about DOS gamers, and that's not gonna change. But it doesn't matter, as we have the privilege of using a (nearly) perfect solution for playing DOS games.

Quick speed comparison (so the trolls have even more reasoning 😀 ):

1Blood:
2  vpc2007: 20fps in 320x200, any higher resolution is unplayable
3  dosbox: ~80fps in 320x200, nicely playable at 640x480
4Nascar Racing:
5  vpc2007: like 1-2fps
6  dosbox: smooth
7Terminator: Future Shock rebooted vpc.

Same results as with vpc2004 iirc.

[edit: think it's future shock, not system shock]

ADDiCT wrote:

None of the Pro-DOSBox comments were trollish.

I have to agree with this. The

Dan wrote:

( Sorry Ben. Didn't mean to get into a troll fight.

comment was just a cheap shot by someone with poor rhetorical skills when confronted with informed, logical arguments counter to his. Even so, none of the other posters' comments degenerated to that level. And I don't think that it will from anyone here.

I posted too. VPC is useless for gaming in any case. I love that it runs Windows 95 but without a 3D card being emulated it's totally useless.

VPC is a lot better at the business section than dosbox and always will. VPC can run windows 95-me a lot better than dosbox can and is better at internet. VPC can run windows 1.0x-vista and dosbox can run 1.0x-95. Personally i don't care about joysticks and i have played x-fighter or x-tie or whatever it's called ( Not a very good game) and it was easy to play with a keyboard. I actually like pc speaker sounds and can care less about sound quality. Dosbox is a lot lot lot lot lot better in the gaming section and still can run some business software that are very useful so i would rather have dosbox.

what? xwing SUCKS with the keyboard and/or mouse. Worst response times ever and i'm not even talking emulation

I completed TIE Fighter with just a mouse personally.

abyss wrote:

Personally i don't care about joysticks and i have played x-fighter or x-tie or whatever it's called ( Not a very good game) and it was easy to play with a keyboard.

You're from an alternate reality. Next time you visit, please bring some Apollo Bars for the rest of the forum.

red_avatar wrote:

I completed TIE Fighter with just a mouse personally.

I didn't. At that time I had a Thrustmaster CH Pro cockpit, joystick and throttle, which I gave back after 'reviewing' them for 6months or so. hehe. I completed Freelancer with a mouse though.

dh4rm4 wrote:

abyss wrote:

Personally i don't care about joysticks and i have played x-fighter or x-tie or whatever it's called ( Not a very good game) and it was easy to play with a keyboard.

You're from an alternate reality. Next time you visit, please bring some Apollo Bars for the rest of the forum.

dh4rm4 - sometimes it would reflect better on your intellect if you simply kept your fingers off the keyboard. I get tired of your constant attacks on abyss.

VPC is a lot better at the business section than dosbox and always will. VPC can run windows 95-me a lot better than dosbox can and is better at internet. VPC can run windows 1.0x-vista and dosbox can run 1.0x-95.

Well... of course you are right, Dosbox is not even aimed at the business section. It's aimed at gamers (or at least I believe it is 😀). And as long as we are talking about Operating systems newer than Windows 3.1x Dosbox loses without a doubt. But when the business section wants to run a certain Dos application, then Dosbox shines, especially because it doesn't need images to run. Prove are the thread when company people ask for help here (and always remember for everyone asking for help here, there are at least ten people that get it working on their own 😀).

Dosbox is a lot lot lot lot lot better in the gaming section and still can run some business software that are very useful so i would rather have dosbox.

exactly 😀

Sorry but X-Wing and Tie-Fighter were never easy with keyboard. Both are nigh on impossible with keyboard alone and people who have played the games would actually know this.