VOGONS


D.O.G. Developments

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First post, by ErikGG

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Hi all,

I've been working a lot on the new D.O.G. because the first release was quite a bit buggy and it was not quite ready for your every day user. But thanks to Gadler I've been able to make it way better. The new version will be released by the end of this week.

Its for asking if someone knows other 3rd party tools to make games run better, by plugging them into the game or using them in DosBox or tips for fixing errors, like the could not create rendering fix. I'm not talking about frontends, because it is for D.O.G. Some things like new MSCDEX or mouse drivers or whatever.

Currently I've built in these fine addons (Only one click and poof) :
-Could not create rendering fix for DosBox 0.63 and lower.
-Dos/32 Advanced Dos Extender
-CWSDPMI for fixing the error : No DPMI : Get csdpmi*b.zip
-KeyB application for changing keyboard layouts, like from QWERTY to AZERTY or anything it supports.

The archives containing these "plugins" are currently not added to the D.O.G. package, because of Copyright concerns. Will be added if I've got the right to. Currently there is a link on the configurationpage that opens your "Internet" to the needed site.

Why am I adding these? Because I always hear the call for people why doesn't this work or that or whatever and they come here and don't find the answer they are looking for, or they don't understand the answer 😖 . By adding these things to my frontend you can easily change Dos Extenders add plugins like keyb, without people needing to search the web for things they don't understand why.

Oh btw,
Even if i set the DosBox command to automatically capture the mouse, i still have to click on DosBox to lock the mouse. Is there a way to make the mouse immediatly locked to DosBox without clicking it every time?

Thanks for the input,

Erik.

Reply 1 of 22, by DosFreak

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DOS/32 is opensource so no problem including it as long as you include the documentation or a link to it:

http://dos32a.narechk.net/index_en.html

Hmmm, possibly including an image creator like the one from Bochs.
Also a .BIN/.CUE/.ISO creator.

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

Reply 2 of 22, by ErikGG

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Thanks DosFreak,

But because I'm also a Windows-lover, I have no idea where and how to get the bochs image creator. If i search google or any other I get a lot of sites praising the bochs emulator, but also no referance to the image creator. The "How to" google search also doesn't turn up anything usefull.

Building in ISO, BIN support, is possible but it costs €300, so probably not. A search for a free version at no avail.

I found also a mention around the QWBasic and QBasic interpreter. I tried the QWBasic version but it just crashes DosBox 0.65 and 0.63 just hangs at the QWBasic call. Are there settings I've set bad. Included my generated conf files in the attachments. I also tried the QBasic, it starts and loads the file, but I only got a small program running found in the post "Random numbers". Can someone direct me to a site posting some software I can test for QBasic and QWBasic?

I want to include this interpreter so that you only need to select the bas file in the profile. D.O.G. then generates the conf file to start the interpreter with the game loaded and runs it.

I'm also going to add the ability to generate an Info request or Bug report form. So that the DosBox team gets usefull info, without people having to scramble the info together. Any tips on what should be included?
Thinking arround these lines :
-DosBox version and build.
-Conf file.
-Game filename
-Game version (if possible to detect).
-Game name
-Download page of the game
-Applied plugins like Dos32a ...
-Processortype/speed
-Graphicscard type
-The Question.

Erik.

Reply 3 of 22, by ErikGG

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Oh, also

DOSBox Feature Request Thread

# Show MSCDEX present in memory for games that look for it, instead of the program looking for the drive letter. These type of g […]
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# Show MSCDEX present in memory for games that look for it, instead of the program looking for the drive letter. These type of games do not work with "mount -t cdrom"

Games:

Litl Divil: Requires "MCDEX" to be loaded.
Game works fine on real pc.

Is it possible to do this by running the MSCDEX application provided by M$ to fix this problem?

Erik.

Reply 4 of 22, by wd

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No, mounting the drive with "-t cdrom" loads the mscdex portion of dosbox.

Reply 5 of 22, by ErikGG

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So the MSCDEX problem not being present in memory, cannot be fixed by running some 3rd party tools?

Erik.

Reply 6 of 22, by wd

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No, as external mscdex/nwcdex/shuscdx require a cdrom device driver.

Reply 7 of 22, by ErikGG

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Oh well, pitty 🙁

Erik.

Reply 8 of 22, by wd

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There have been attempts to always have the mscdex interface present,
but some games didn't work then (it can't be decided by dosbox if some
game checks mscdex and wants it to be present, or checks and doesn't
want it to be present).
So it stayed bound to the mounting of cdroms.

Reply 9 of 22, by ErikGG

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Hi,

Thanks wd,

Any tips on the information needed to solve problems related to Games that I need to add to my report generator? Currently all are added as I said except for the game version bit. See first and third post.
And what am I doing wrong with QWBasic and QBasic, I'm looking at it from my Commodore 64/128 Basic experience.

For solving the click to lock problem I was thinking around the line by simulating a click from the mouse by sending Windows messages. Is this possible (DosBox Team).

Thanks again,

Erik.

Reply 10 of 22, by wd

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The mouse is only locked when the target dos game actually uses it
(or if you go fullscreen i think). Don't think this should be changed.

Tried quickbasic/qbasic/qbx some time ago, all worked fine. Don't know
about qwbasic. Try to run them under XP to see if your verions really work.

Reply 11 of 22, by ErikGG

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Ok will try

With the mouse thingy, I am currently playing WarCraft 2 and It all works wonderfully, really it does! The movies play smooth the game is smooth everything is ... well smooth DOS. Good Job about that, no question about that.
But the only thing I still need to do, not that it is a big deal or anything, is to click once to go from black pointermouse to the ingame Orc hand mousepointer, even in fullscreen.

Thanks,

Erik.

Reply 12 of 22, by wd

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Well then they might be doing some special mouse handling. Might be
possible to detect that as well.

Reply 13 of 22, by ErikGG

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Sorry about the multiple edits,

I'll try a workaround for the problem, simulating a click. Would be nice to be able to do this, adds to DosBox's Quality. And offcourse my D.O.G.

Erik.

Reply 14 of 22, by ErikGG

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Hi,

I did it, works, and love it. DosBox starts and the mouse gets automatically locked. No more black mousepointer and the need to click the screen. WarCraft 2 now works like a charm, like it did years ago.

Now back to playing.

Erik.

Reply 15 of 22, by h-a-l-9000

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> No more black mousepointer and the need to click the screen.

This must have nearly killed you 😉

1+1=10

Reply 16 of 22, by ErikGG

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Not exactly, killed me 😊

Anyways, it is now a feature of D.O.G.

Currently adding language support and that is killing me, needed to add 300 lines of text to a file copying and pasting it to the file from my sourcecode keeping it sorted. Then again adding 600 lines of code to read it and then about 1800 lines of code to transport the text from my filebuffer to the actual GUI.
So now my X,C and V buttons on my keyboard are getting worn, keeping silent of getting a mousehand.

If this is finished then I'll do some more testing and post it if it is to me liking. Will be somewhere friday or saterday.

Erik.

Reply 17 of 22, by wd

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You might want to try the lockfree mouse (set autolock=false).
Behaves a bit different, but doesn't need the window-klicking.

Reply 18 of 22, by ErikGG

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True, I noticed it,

Is good for in fullscreen mode because of the scrolling when on the screenborder feature of Warcraft 2.

Oh btw, is there a way of knowing where DosBox is in executing the "AutoExec", for example by sending a Windows message?

Erik.

Reply 19 of 22, by wd

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Don't know, i think the autoexec section is handled in DOS_Shell::Run
so you could count the ReadLines.