Bruninho wrote on 2020-02-11, 19:52:

https://1389blog.com/pix/clapping-emoticon-medium-size.gif I'm sorry, I hope this is small enough for you. […]
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ZellSF wrote on 2020-02-11, 09:21:

You were just complaining about kids and their damn phones and now you're posting full size gifs as replies to conversations. You should decide if you want to sound like a 15 year old or a 75 year old.

I'm sorry, I hope this is small enough for you.

Apparently you did not understood what I was complaining about. Posting a meme or using gifs to reply a conversation is not a problem. The problem starts when "smartphone generation" does not want to be smart enough to do the job, tasks or play a game (now there's talk about putting some helper in the games so they can finish a stage/phase... Jesus), the problem is when the "smatphone generation" does not want to put down their phones when walking or driving on the street, or in a lunch with their friends and do some real talking. The problem is when the "smartphone generation" needs to have an emulator, a gold treasure of the early PC days, "dumbed down" so they can play some games and learn s**t nothing about computing and how the things worked in the past to be able to play these games. These things are needed for them to learn and understand how the things are as they are today to let them play these silly games such as "Fortnite".

A gif/meme on WhatsApp or a forum is the smallest of the problems.

Protip: Every single generation before you have made similar statements. They've all been wrong. They've just been more consistent. Complaining about kids these days and embracing part of their culture is just weird.

Plus when most people complain about kids these days or generations, they complain about something that's specific to that group. Everyone does what you describe. It's not specific to any generation.

Bruninho wrote on 2020-02-11, 20:08:

ZellSF wrote:

Frontends just add a layer of complexity. Unless you have someone else set them up for you, but then DOSBox is pretty easy to use too.

There's already DOSBox game bundles floating around, but they present a lot of problems. I don't think it's a good solution.

Here you contradict yourself. How in Earth is a frontend more complex than using vanilla DOSBox? First you defended some way to make DOSBox easier for the "smartphone generation", when here you are saying that DOSBox "is pretty easy to use". Hell, if it's easy, you don't need a frontend, right? RIGHT?

Nothing contradictory about anything I wrote.

Frontends attempts to simplify yes, but in a lot of scenarios they can have the opposite effect. You really can't imagine a single scenario in which a frontend could make things more complicated? Let's go with a simple one: A game doesn't work, you Google "Game X doesn't work", you find instructions to make it work by editing dosbox.conf... However, the frontend you're using doesn't use dosbox.conf, so you can't follow those instructions and make the game work.

I did say that DOSBox is pretty easy to use, doesn't mean it can't be easier.

I never said DOSBox needed a frontend so I'm not sure how that's pointing out a contradiction.

Bruninho wrote on 2020-02-11, 20:08:

I prefer to keep DOSBox as it is, not only for nostalgic reasons, but also for people to learn something about what they are using now (smartphones/tablets/computers) and how we came to such technology of today.

You want PCem, not DOSBox.

DOSBox is a terrible learning tool anyway, it's a tool meant for playing games. That's what it is so far and IMO what it should continue to be.

PCem isn't a learning tool either btw, it's just more complicated to use. You're more likely to learn something from it, but you're still better off reading a book.

ZellSF wrote on 2020-02-11, 09:21:

You were just complaining about kids and their damn phones and now you're posting full size gifs as replies to conversations. You should decide if you want to sound like a 15 year old or a 75 year old.

This is why appiah4 cannot post an image of an ATI Rage and gets a "Reaction image posts are off-topic on VOGONS." error.

Dominus wrote on 2020-02-10, 13:52:

But is there a way to make Dosbox or any other Dos emulator more like a one click console emulator?

It's useful to make a GUI for settings. Today people are not addopted to text files and command lines.
Also with "Run the game" dialog. When it recongnizes the known game (by the filenames) - it offers to use the "recommended settings" which mb taken from ExoDOS. While for the unknown games it may offer several of configurations variants.
This may make the emulation easier for people who never used DOS. To make a quick start to use it, at least.

I already said all I had to say here. I will just sum up - "Get a frontend". Period.

ZellSF wrote on 2020-02-12, 10:04:

A game doesn't work, you Google "Game X doesn't work", you find instructions to make it work by editing dosbox.conf... However, the frontend you're using doesn't use dosbox.conf, so you can't follow those instructions and make the game work.

I've seen a few programs which offer a ton of settings in the GUI, but also have an option called "edit configuration file directly" which opens the relevant file in Notepad and gives you even more things to adjust. Total Commander is one example which comes to mind.

I don't use DOSBox frontends, so I'm not sure if any of them have this.

Tertz wrote on 2020-02-12, 20:22:

It's useful to make a GUI for settings. Today people are not addopted to text files and command lines. Also with "Run the game" […]
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Dominus wrote on 2020-02-10, 13:52:

But is there a way to make Dosbox or any other Dos emulator more like a one click console emulator?

It's useful to make a GUI for settings. Today people are not addopted to text files and command lines.
Also with "Run the game" dialog. When it recongnizes the known game (by the filenames) - it offers to use the "recommended settings" which mb taken from ExoDOS. While for the unknown games it may offer several of configurations variants.
This may make the emulation easier for people who never used DOS. To make a quick start to use it, at least.

Automatically changing settings for certain games is an interesting idea. Dolphin, NVIDIA driver, PCSX2 and Windows does this for example.

There are drawbacks though. What if the database entry for a game applies an incorrect setting?

"When it recongnizes the known game (by the filenames)". GAME.EXE? PINBALL.EXE? and when special settings are needed for the configuration program, SETUP.EXE? Obviously it has to go by file hash, not file name. I wish Microsoft and NVIDIA would understand that too.

In that there's another drawback. One game can have a lot of variants. The French version might work correctly, while the German one doesn't, because no one's submitted a entry for the German one. That could cause a lot of confusion.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2020-02-12, 20:31:

ZellSF wrote on 2020-02-12, 10:04:

A game doesn't work, you Google "Game X doesn't work", you find instructions to make it work by editing dosbox.conf... However, the frontend you're using doesn't use dosbox.conf, so you can't follow those instructions and make the game work.

I've seen a few programs which offer a ton of settings in the GUI, but also have an option called "edit configuration file directly" which opens the relevant file in Notepad and gives you even more things to adjust. Total Commander is one example which comes to mind.

You still would have to find that option, when you're trying to follow a guide that would otherwise tell you directly where the option you're looking for. I'm not saying it is a huge deal. It's just an example of how frontends can make things more complicated, even if that's not their intention.

I would prefer just a settings dialog to change things like emulated SB settings, emulated system speed, keyboard and joystick bindings, MPU-401 passthrough and other system settings. The ability to load and save profiles in a GUI as well would be good.

Trying to autoconfigure based on filename/hash would be a never ending battle, as you can configure most games to use a whole bunch of different settings, and the frontend won't know what the user has configured just by the hash of the executable file alone.

Dosbox-x does have a gui to edit the config file.

Another guy's opinion about DOSBox: it's kickass.

Bruninho wrote on 2020-02-13, 10:04:

Dosbox-x does have a gui to edit the config file.

Cool, will have to look at that.

ZellSF wrote on 2020-02-13, 08:04:

Automatically changing settings for certain games is an interesting idea. Dolphin, NVIDIA driver, PCSX2 and Windows does this for example.

The variety of Gamebase is the close example I saw for different retro platforms. For DOSBox specifically the needed settings were tested in ExoDOS. It's best begginers way of "one click to play".

> What if the database entry for a game applies an incorrect setting?

It may be a possibility. A general option and a dialog before every known game run. If a game will not work - a user will not use the possibility with it.

> GAME.EXE? PINBALL.EXE?

A list of any files and mb control sums which are thought as obligate and enough to identify a game.

> and when special settings are needed for the configuration program, SETUP.EXE?

Where it's important, there is possibility to show a text (or a refer to it) with inner game's settings to be used for "auto start". Alike: Sound card: Sound Blaster 220h i7 D1, Music: FM, Graphics: VGA, Controls: Keyboard+Mouse, Language: English, etc. common settings. Many games will use the same recommendations, as the main is just to run to look at it. For some of them there can be additional info to configure and install it.
If a user will get a serious interest to a game - he's supposed to study the emulator and the game himself to configure it by ways optimum for him.
It's assumed that a user has a preinstalled game in a single form of it which is supported by "auto start". For default game variants mb taken ExoDOS. For rather many cases this approach should be useful.

> Obviously it has to go by file hash

There can be game files variations - different game's versions, for example. To use filenames is more universal way.

This would be a way to make a "quick start" for a list of games to help those who never used DOS and wants to try the emulation. It's not supposed to help in any cases. It would be a limited variant of Gamebase as a part of DOSBox.

canthearu wrote on 2020-02-13, 08:16:

Trying to autoconfigure based on filename/hash would be a never ending battle, as you can configure most games to use a whole bunch of different settings, and the frontend won't know what the user has configured just by the hash of the executable file alone.

It could only be for strict compatibility settings, no need to mess with any user settings, just change any settings that are required to be changed.

Tertz wrote on 2020-02-15, 00:06:

Where it's important, there is possibility to show a text (or a refer to it) with inner game's settings to be used for "auto start". Alike: Sound card: Sound Blaster 220h i7 D1, Music: FM, Graphics: VGA, Controls: Keyboard+Mouse, Language: English, etc. common settings. Many games will use the same recommendations, as the main is just to run to look at it. For some of them there can be additional info to configure and install it.

Can't autoset audio-settings, because the user can very often change those in a setup.exe and it's up to user preference.

Tertz wrote on 2020-02-15, 00:06:

It may be a possibility. A general option and a dialog before every known game run. If a game will not work - a user will not use the possibility with it.

It might work and run really badly and the user will have no idea. Both options might crash, and anyone who wants to help the user will have to drag out of him whether or not he accepted the built-in compatibility modes.

Asking users questions, especially lots of technical ones, which this would be, should be done really carefully. I don't think what you're proposing would be an improvement in user friendliness at all.

Better to leave (casual) users out of it, leave filenames out if it and just going by file hashes. That can be some improvement in user friendliness, though obviously that isn't without drawbacks either.

awgamer wrote on 2020-02-13, 10:14:

Another guy's opinion about DOSBox: it's kickass.

+1