VOGONS


DOSBox's big shortcoming

Topic actions

First post, by sfsdfd

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Guys:

I love your software. Really. Given both the waning quality of backwards-compatibility of Windows systems, and the fact that many of the best games we've ever played are pre-polygons, DOSBox is an incredibly important project for fans of gaming.

So here's a question: If there's a great demand for playing older games, and if DOSBox is well-suited to running them, why aren't more people using it? Why isn't this project as popular as MAME, for instance?

I'll tell you why I think this is the case. This has to be tough love - because, honest, I really love your project, but I've gotta point this out.

The biggest flaw with DOSBox is the fact that most games have to be endlessly tweaked to get them running right. DOS games were hard enough to get right on native, 100% compatible boxes - how many of us struggled endlessly to get speech in Dune 2? - now add 0.001% incompatibility, resolution problems, VDM, and virtual devices. Frankly, it's a mess.

Now, why is this a flaw with DOSBox, and not just a fact of life with these old games? Because DOSBox should simplify this process, not complicate it. The fact that it doesn't is a huge blow to the project.

This isn't pointless criticism. This is constructive. I have a proposition for resolving this problem.

This forum has already developed a very long, extensive guide to getting specific games to run. Anyone who wants to use this information has to apply it, recipe-style, by hand. This is wasteful.

Many platforms solve this problem in a much more elegant way. MAME, for instance, doesn't require the user to write a script for patching together all of the hardware. Gamebase doesn't expect the user to type in all of those arcane C64 codes like "SYS 2048". They have large libraries of game-specific settings, and they apply the right one based on which program you've selected.

Why doesn't DOSBox do this? Why not have a configuration database, so that when you load up Tomb Raider.exe, it automagically loads the right environment string, device drivers, and memory settings? In fact, this wouldn't even take much work from your end - we users would happily contribute the game-specific scripts. You just need to write the code to bootstrap a known EXE with the right profile.

Deep in my core, I want to see this project become everything it could be. I also view this tweaking as DOSBox's biggest shortfall - frankly, it's the primary reason I don't use it very often.

Thanks for reading.

- David Stein

Reply 1 of 26, by DosFreak

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
sfsdfd wrote:

So here's a question: If there's a great demand for playing older games, and if DOSBox is well-suited to running them, why aren't more people using it? Why isn't this project as popular as MAME, for instance?

There isn't a great demand for playing old DOS games.

DosBox isn't well suited for the games that MOST people want to play DOS games for. Most of the people that make up a signficant portion of the "want to play "old" DOS games" crowd want to play "old" DOS games that aren't really that old, namely DPMI games with VESA graphics. Usually these games run fine under Dos/Windows 9x/NT4/2K/XP/2003, with a few exceptions of course. The Linux users either have a dual-boot or load up DosEmu. MOST of the users who want to play these VESA/DPMI games under DosBox have extremly slow machines by today's standards that can not run DosBox at proper speeds.

As for why MAME is more popular? Isn't it obvious? MAME has more of a fanbase because more people played the kinds of games that MAME emulates. Arcades were all the rage way back when, alot more so than DOS gaming. MAME is also "easier" to program for and to support due to a fairly standard configuration....at lease more so than PC's.

The biggest flaw with DOSBox is the fact that most games have to be endlessly tweaked to get them running right.

Hey, at least you don't have to repartion your NTFS/EXT partition with a FAT16/FAT32 partition, try to find DOS emulation drivers for your brand spankin' new sound card, Hey my, Brank spankin' new video card doesn't support specific video modes, You use a USB mouse/keyboard so you'll have to hunt for a USB DOS Driver that supports your mouse/keyboard (depending on bios), Not to mention Config.Sys/autoexec.bat configuration settings, Finding CDROM/DVD drivers for your drive, oh great my super faster computer is too fast and disabling L1/L2 cache still doesn't work so now I have to find a DOS slowdown program! and these are just a few of the things.....

or you could just load up DosBox. DosBox has already elimated most of the major problems already that prevented people from playing old games...The rest of the tweaking now comes down to user choice. Some people like PC Speaker, Some like Sound Blaster, Some people like MT32, some people like MIDI. I don't want to run this game in VGA because I played it in 16 colors back in the day! WTF is this scaler crap? I don't want that enabled by default! Oh crap, my Windows sound card drivers are a POS so I have to adjust my dosbox.conf sound buffer/quality settings. You see the picture here?

You'll have to have DOZENS of configurations for a single game, then later you find out that those configurations were based on the original version of the game that wasn't patched with the latest version so some of these configurations now have to be modified. Oh wait a sec, the Euro version is even more different...here come more configurations. YAY!

The rest of your questions are answered here: DOSBox front end and game auditing idea.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 2 of 26, by sfsdfd

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

There isn't a great demand for playing old DOS games.

Among the old-school gaming crowd, there may well be. Consider that there are quite a number of remakes/simulations/recompiled versions of old DOS games that simply won't run in today's WinXP environment. That's likely to grow over time.

As for why MAME is more popular? Isn't it obvious? MAME has more of a fanbase because more people played the kinds of games that MAME emulates.

Alright, let me modify my statement: If you consider where DOSBox should be, compared to MAME, taking into account the fanbases of each - I'm guessing it's considerably below that in popularity.

Hey, at least you don't have to repartion your NTFS/EXT partition with a FAT16/FAT32 partition...

I hope I made it clear in my first post that I'm ecstatic and grateful that this project exists. But the untapped potential of such a strong project makes it all the more disappointing.

You'll have to have DOZENS of configurations for a single game, then later you find out that those configurations were based on the original version of the game that wasn't patched with the latest version so some of these configurations now have to be modified.

Extremely doubtful. Hacks and patches do not in any way change the optimal environment for the game. It's not like you need A220 I5 D1 T3 for the original, uncracked version, and A220 I5 D0 T2 for the hacked version. One size - er, one execution profile - should fit all versions of any given game.

(And, of course, the worst-case scenario is that it doesn't recognize the .exe, and so it loads the default profile - which is what we have now.)

This is made even easier because DOSBox is virtually agnostic to the particular hardware of your machine - it creates its own HAL and maps the system calls to your particular hardware (via DirectX.) So we're actually talking about one execution profile per game (regardless of the distro you're running), regardless of your actual hardware. Think of the potential...

- David Stein

Reply 3 of 26, by taiken7

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I think the prime reason this is not done is that we would be encouraging
a rom-distribution model.

Yes it would simplify setting up, but on the whole it makes it easier
(and in fact encourages) dosbox to be distributed on DVD's with a few
hundred rom'ed games. (If you have the game, you know how to set it up; unless you bought it recently on eg ebay)

To contrast the Mame question -- the arcade boards are designed by
engineers; ie every chip is documented, so the few custom designed
ICs are easily reverse engineered.
Since Phoenix/Microsoft, every PC program is pseudo accurate -
so part of the problem is accurately emulating the basics without over
emulating them (there are plenty of complaints about 'wasted instructions'), AND compensating for all the short cuts and quirks along
the way.

With regards to popularity, one questions the validity of the number of
users vs the number of legally owned roms.

Reply 4 of 26, by Qbix

User metadata
Rank DOSBox Author
Rank
DOSBox Author

well most games if not all run with the default settings of dosbox maybe not very fast.
we offer the ability to tweak anything you want, but this is optional.
I think this flexibility is our greatest achievement. but then again it might scare away some people. Oneday we might have automatic speedmatching. but then again. Old games must be run on fixed cycles (think of bouncing babies for example).

In short: The tweaking you are talking about is optional. most games work with soundblaster 16 on a220 irq 7 dma 1 and vga graphics.

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 5 of 26, by Zup

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

There are even more programas and versions than you can think of. Just think about unpatched games (1.0), patched games (1.1), repatched games (1.2), re-repatched games (2.0)... andthen think about versions in english, french, spanish, portuguese, russian...

Yes, there are A LOT of profiles for a "single" game... but I think DosFreak refers to specific user profiles. My first PC was a 486 without sound card, and later I had a Sound Blaster 16, a Sound Blaster AWE 64 Gold and now a PC with integrated sound and a Sound Blaster Live! So, it I want to play Pinball Fantasies, it's probably I use a Speaker profile or a SB16 profile... but some guy who had a GUS will play with a GUS profile (probably, I think everyone plays in emulated PCs close to their real old PCs).

And the last, but not least important, thing about profiles: As Qbix said, some profiles allow a faster or more stable execution.

OK, you might be able to make an enormous database with generic profiles for games, but the user may want to hear Larry through a Sound Blaster, not through a Roland sound card. The user may find a profile too slow for his machine. Or simply, DosBox (very good, although not perfect) may crash with his particular configuration of PC.

Having all those configurations, you can resolve most of problems, or tune-up your emulated PC. And people are not dumber than ten years ago... so I think they can learn to tune-up their PC.

Reply 6 of 26, by collector

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Most of my old DOS game run fine on DOSBox with no tweaking, just my default settings of normal core, 10,000 cycles. The most that I usually have to do is to is hit F11 or F12 to set the cycles up or down. True, there are some games that you need to play around with to get running and some that will not run at all, but, I can't remember a single PC that didn't have trouble with some game or program. PCs came with a wide variety of hardware. How much variation do you find in platform hardware?

Reply 7 of 26, by Freddo

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
sfsdfd wrote:

There isn't a great demand for playing old DOS games.

Among the old-school gaming crowd, there may well be. Consider that there are quite a number of remakes/simulations/recompiled versions of old DOS games that simply won't run in today's WinXP environment. That's likely to grow over time.

The old-school gaming crowd was using DOS years ago and should have no major problem with the little DOS knowledge to get their game to run. Some minor perhaps, considering their DOS knowledge may be rusty or because their brother/sister/father made some kind of DOS BOOTDISK with a menu on it.

The problem is the people that download old games just because an emulator support them. Wierd, but true.

I really see no problems with how DOSBox handle things.

Reply 8 of 26, by Targaff

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
sfsdfd wrote:

The biggest flaw with DOSBox is the fact that most games have to be endlessly tweaked to get them running right. DOS games were hard enough to get right on native, 100% compatible boxes - how many of us struggled endlessly to get speech in Dune 2?

The thing is that you basically answer your own criticism right here. I specifically remember PC magazines back in the day having entire sections dedicated to configuring computers just so in order to get x/y/z to work. If, as you said, it was that much hassle when running them natively, on what basis can we expect it to be any different in an emulated environment? It took me a while to actually get around to starting using Dosbox, but quite frankly, config problems or no, it's still far less of a pain to use than the programs used to be.

Also your comparison with MAME as an emulator is pretty much a non-starter. The fact is that there was never "one specific PC" that everyone had - which gave rise, in essence, to the aforementioned tweakery. Why should we expect that to be any different now than it is then? You can't just magic away that sort of inate problem. On the flipside, however, we have arcade hardware, which apart from the documentation point already raised is (in 99% of cases) identical across the board for any given game. That makes it a lot easier to work with because you always have a specific target to work towards. Fixed specifications are a boon to all sides - just ask programmers working on console games.

In all honesty, while your post is well-written, I think it's rather naïve and/or ill-conceived than genuinely constructive.; nor does your proposition, when it comes down to it, bring anything more to the table than those existing front ends that effectively already do precisely what you suggest.

Intel CC820 | PIII 667 | 2x128MB SDRAM | 3Dfx Voodoo 5 5500 @ Dell P790 | Creative SB PCI128 | Fujitsu MPC3064AT 6GB + QUANTUM FIREBALLlct10 10 GB | SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-608 | IOMEGA ZIP 100 | Realtek RTL8139C | Agere Win Modem

Reply 9 of 26, by icemann

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

For purity sake I love dosbox just the way it is. Though it would also be great to have an optional frontend of some sort that would work much in the same way as MAME32`s. Choose what game you want to play, it applies the necessary tweak settings for optimum performance and off ya go.

Two stones, two crosses, the rest is just icing. - 7th Guest

Reply 10 of 26, by DosFreak

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Agreed it would be nice. The only way I can figure that this would work easily would be some sort of popularity poll for DosBox. Mabye find out how many people play X number of games then provide profiles starting with the most popular to the least....instead of worrying about supporting the infinite (heh) number of DOS games out there.

Easiest way right now would be to poll the XBOX DosBox users. They all use the same hardware (although possibly different software configs) so it should be far easier to set them up with standard profiles than it would be for PC users.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 11 of 26, by `Moe`

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

While I agree with the previous posters about the non-feasability of a generic profile for each game (For some games, I can't even agree with myself how they should be played!), there is perhaps something we could do.

A little background: My retro games collection consists of one archive per game, fully installed and configured. A simple self-scripted menuing system takes care of extracting, storing savegames and all that, including setting up a dosbox config. As already stated, one size fits most, my default/global dosbox config works for most games out-of-the-box, it is adapted it to my specifc host machine, trying to get best speed and quality.

Now the problematic games: Instead of putting a complete dosbox.conf into my game directories, I only put the changes there. So if some game is unstable with dynamic core, there's a special file containing just the line "core=full" in the game directory. My menuing system takes care of the rest, so that the game runs with my default dosbox config, but the core is changed.

I suggest publishing these neccessary changes, perhaps in the game database (an extra section perhaps?). Most of the time, it comes down to setting cycles, core or memsize lower. Sometimes it's useful to turn the SB mixer off, and since my main config has all sound cards enabled, there's not much else to do. One game didn't like GUS+SB enabled, so this one game has SB turned off, and a few need "machine=tandy". No game needed more than 3 tweaked settings. If the game database had an extra section for "required settings", users would easily find them.

All other problems with dos games I had were things outside of dosbox: messed up installations, games using some fixed path and plain buggy software.

Reply 13 of 26, by avatar_58

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I just use D-fend and all is simple as possible.

Step1- I install the game
Step2- Create a dfend profile using the wizard and my defualt optimum config
Step3- Fine tune cycles until its perfect, not too fast (takes a few minutes)
Step4- Play

That seems alot easier than searching for XP hacks and utilities and cramming unkown patches into the games causing coutnless other errors. Compared to the nightmare of running "real-dos" games in 98 I will take dosbox anyday. The fact that all sound modes like SB work flawlessly (better than not being detected in xp/98) is a miracle to me....and that feature alone puts dosbox ahead.

I understand DOSbox is haunting at first, but I mean come on....who here honestly EVER had those old games working without some tweaking? The only ones w/o fuss were old apogee shareware...assuming you had the right hardware for their auto-configs otherwise you were screwed. Put those same no-fuss games in dosbox and you find they have even LESS fuss...now they can run at normal speeds!

Dosbox is made for those who are fed up of looking for fixes and just want a one-stop utility that does it all. Quite frankly it has succeded beyond anything else.

I find the only ones who have alot of trouble couldn't get the games running in a real dos mode to begin with...

Reply 14 of 26, by Reckless

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Basically put, anyone really desperate in replaying some old DOS games or running an old DOS application will know how to configure DOS. DOSBox is just an added extension and IMO it's not difficult at all.

Those who are new to DOS games/apps are gonna be in for more shocks than just getting over the DOSBox configu hurdle. Wait till you see how bad the 'classic' game looks 😀 Only kidding, they all look cool in a retro kinda way 😀

Reply 15 of 26, by oneirotekt

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

The biggest flaw with DOSBox is the fact that most games have to be endlessly tweaked to get them running right. DOS games were hard enough to get right on native, 100% compatible boxes - how many of us struggled endlessly to get speech in Dune 2?

I think you just answered your own question. DOS was a complex headache of a system to use, and DOSBox reproduces that complexity faithfully. Contrast that with the coin-op games that MAME emulates, which were designed to be as simple as putting in a quarter and hitting the "start" button.

I think sanding some of the rough edges off that original complex system is beyond the scope of an emulator - and beyond what the creators of DOSBox set out to do initially.

I also think the activity we've seen on the frontend, err, front has been very encouraging: people writing helper applications that fill in the gaps between emulation and user-friendliness and make DOS games one-click simple (which they NEVER were in their original state).

Like Qbix says, a *lot* of games do run just fine with the out-of-the-box settings. If you're having a lot of trouble getting a particular title running, it's either because you're trying to do something very specific with it (weird audio / video combinations), or it's not supported yet (in which case, wait a few months), or it's one of the rare oddball games that doesn't play nice.

I have a strong liking for well-designed, simple to use and humane software, but DOS was none of those things. Any attempts by the DOSBox team to mitigate that are going to be futile bashing of one's head against a brick wall of irreducible complexity.

Reply 16 of 26, by Alexsource

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
`Moe` wrote:

....
I suggest publishing these neccessary changes, perhaps in the game database (an extra section perhaps?). Most of the time, it comes down to setting cycles, core or memsize lower. Sometimes it's useful to turn the SB mixer off, and since my main config has all sound cards enabled, there's not much else to do. One game didn't like GUS+SB enabled, so this one game has SB turned off, and a few need "machine=tandy". No game needed more than 3 tweaked settings. If the game database had an extra section for "required settings", users would easily find them.
...

That is a great idea!! Some time ago i tought of something like that.
But, some more detailed info would help too (what you could try for that game to make it run faster, for example).
The auto config thingy that is suggested at the begining of the thread sounds a bit difficult...
And the frontends are doing pretty good at simplifying the process a bit.
A collection of frontends profiles could be an alternative, but that could also be difficult because of what has already been stated, and in the end, many people would end up tweaking the profiles 😜
General tips/configs and maybe some extra bits of info in the game database or as an extra project (or in the wiki!) is the best option IMHO.

chronos.jpg motoakira.jpg

Reply 17 of 26, by JimLarimore

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I think the prime reason this is not done is that we would be encouraging a rom-distribution model.

I think if you want DOS emulation to become as big as the arcade emulation scene, you need to not worry about this. Most of us here are playing these DOS games, because we either are simply nostalgic, or truly believe that DOS was one of, if not, the best platform gaming has ever seen. Most arcade games were simply designed to entice someone into inserting funds every 3 minutes into a machine. I think that even arcade fans would agree that DOS games took the art form much deeper and did some real exploring and inventing.
Question: So if the games are better, why are they not getting as much attention?
Answer: The DOS games will rarely attract fresh faces because of the comparative complexity to console/arcade emulation and today's current gaming platforms.
Question: What can be done to simplify things?
Answer: Just as the original poster suggests, we need to standardize things. We need to make standard ROM sets and standard configurations that will play the games optimally on sufficiently powered machines. Standardizing a DOS game ROM format would allow the games to spread like wildfire as the archivists and collectors struggled to catch 'em all. Why not? Most of the original creators of the games would actually appreciate having their work seen by more eyes. You are worried about the copyright holders? Most of the copyrights for these games are owned by companies who have grown so large and are so focused on the present, they probably do not even realize they own the rights to the games. Sure a few people get burned. Acceptable losses.

The fact is that piracy is actually embraced by many companies that realize its power. Piracy is advertizing. Piracy gets early adopters. Early adopters bring more casual consumers. Why do you think the PSP includes a flash memory slot and its screen resolution is perfect to play older console games? If you really think that Sony did not expect the thing to be hacked and to quickly gain the largest back catalog of games imaginable through emulation and piracy, you have to be nuts. You'll buy a PSP to play some SNES, Genesis, SMS, NES, and TG16 classics, you'll pick up a few PSP titles, and you'll get some of your friends who won't know how to do all that interested in the system. Sony is not stupid. We shouldn't be either. I for one would like others to understand how important DOS was for gaming. (not just those who lived through it)

-Jim

Reply 18 of 26, by `Moe`

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Whatever has brought you to your conclusions, I think it's flawed. Sure, some companies don't care anymore, but many do. And honestly, where I live, DosBox is way more famous than MAME. Way more. Almost everyone who has been into DOS games once has DosBox at home these days, but only hardcore retro gamers know what MAME is.

Reply 19 of 26, by DosFreak

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

This could work for shareware/freeware/demos/Commericials games that have been released as freeware.

Of course there would have to be a dedicated site with enough bandwidth to host the files since most DOS games are packaged with their own installers and I highly doubt any normal file sites would want both an original prepackaged DOS games and a ROM Dos game.....

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline