in DOSBox you can select something different as ddraw as well
(see in dosbox.conf at the output setting)

Can you try DosBox 0.63?

Qbix wrote:

in DOSBox you can select something different as ddraw as well
(see in dosbox.conf at the output setting)

I have tried surface, ddraw, opengl, overlay, openglnb... I can't remember what other ones, but I think I tried every output= setting listed in the .conf file. I always get the hang with any setting, except when I disabled DirectDraw acceleration for the entire system.

I will try 0.63 as soon as I get home, as well as installing the latest nVidia driver. Actually, I'll download them now so I can't forget. Thanks.

Edit: typo

Edit2: I installed Dosbox 0.63 at home via Remote Desktop. Interestingly enough, it starts up and immediately closes when I run it that way. This isn't a problem, I don't intend to use it over Remote Desktop, I just thought it interesting that (with both using the default .conf files) 0.65 works over Remote Desktop and 0.63 doesn't (both have output=surface). In a few hours, I will let you know what happens when I reboot and run things directly.

Oh, Thanks for posting the detailed post. Very helpful. 😀

First, I installed and tried Dosbox 0.63.

After connecting to my computer with Remote Desktop, before rebooting, it worked fine.

After rebooting, it went back to the old, hang for 30 seconds behaviour.

I then upgraded to nVidia graphics driver 91.47, which is the latest.

No change 🙁

So, I can either disable DirectDraw from the dxdiag control, or remote desktop into my machine and then disconnect again, which may be essentially doing the same thing (though it certainly doesn't seem like that). Note that I am still using output=surface in these cases. I am not trying to use ddraw or opengl or something, though that doesn't seem to help or hurt.

If I was to guess, it seems as though Dosbox is trying to enter a mode and failing... and it is lagging the system with the attempt/failure. It tries again with every mode switch, or perhaps that just triggers this "unsupported" command. When there is no ddraw acceleration, it doesn't even try doing whatever is going wrong.

I am not seeing any file writing to the two output files in the Dosbox directory, but they get deleted anyways. Is there some way to enable a bit more in the way of error messages without recompiling in debug mode? (I am a developer, but not a low-level OS developer, just an app dev.)

FYI, Dosbox works splendidly on my laptop. I have a sneaky feeling that something on this system is interfering with Dosbox, but I tried killing every process that I could, and that didn't seem to help. I may try loading a new XP installation on a free harddrive to see if that exhibits the same problem.

I appreciate your fast response, and totally understand if you have no idea what is going on with me. As a developer myself, I understand when one person's machine is totally weird, and has no good reason for being weird 😀

Do you have some additional/odd input devices, like a joystick or
some special mouse?

If you can compile the dosbox sources, you might be able to determine
exactly where it hangs (adding exits in the startup code).

Hmmm, can you try booting into XP safe mode and trying DosBox 0.65 from there?

In normal XP try running DXDIAG and check out the "DirectX Files" tab and see if there are any problems.

The input/output devices I have are:

Gravis Gamepad Pro - I added this last night to play Prince of Persia, and it had never been installed before that, so it did not cause the problem.

Logitech G15 Keyboard - This does have a rendering surface, albeit a small monochrome LCD screen. Perhaps I should try uninstalling the drivers and switching keyboards.

I'm going to try safe mode now. I expect that it will work, because I'm inclined to expect that windows disables directdraw acceleration during safe mode anyways.

Thanks again for all the help. You guys are great, and so is Dosbox. I haven't enjoyed playing games this much in a long time.

Edit: I checked dxdiag, and it reports that all of the files are final retail. It doesn't seem to see any problems. The ddraw tests also work just fine. Eh, computers are just a tad squirrely at times.

So, it occurred to me tonight to try disconnecting my G15 keyboard and see if that had any effect.

I ran Dosbox and it did the hang thing. I closed it once it let me.

I unplugged the USB from my G15.

I ran Dosbox again and it came up quickly, although it flickered the screen a couple of times (which I haven't seen before).

I plugged my G15 back in and it started it up and displayed stuff on the LCD.

I tried Dosbox again and it still works. Just like when I remote desktop in, it keeps working, although I bet it will start hanging when I reboot again.

So, what we have here is some kind of disagreement between Dosbox and the G15. Since I have a G15 display emulator on my laptop at work, I will try enabling that and see if it has any effect.

Does anyone else have a G15? Do you have any issues with Dosbox? I certainly don't want to have to unplug/replug my keyboard each time I reboot (mostly because my computer is a nuisance to get to), but it's good to find one particular issue.

It isn't related to the G15 software that runs all the time, because I didn't close that this time, and I did close it before (with the G15 still connected) and that didn't help. So, something about the G15 drivers is apparently causing a problem when it is connected.

Is it possible that the G15 is adding another directdraw display surface (I don't know a damn thing about ddraw, so this is a guess) that is confusing Dosbox when it starts up?

probably.
you might want to download a new version of sdl.dll
that handles the sdl stuff for dosbox. (but we modified it a tiny bit in the 0.65 release)

Thanks again for all of your help. The problem is now fixed by disabling the PDVDServ.exe process, which I had missed and wouldn't have figured out, but luckily gdeter caught it:

DosBox slow for me

Dosbox is all kinds of great, and now it's perfect.

heh. PowerDVD. Use Media Player Classic or VLC. PowerDVD is lame.....and you've just provided another reason for it's lameness. 😀

Is it just that service itself, or some software and/or hardware combination??

wd wrote:

Is it just that service itself, or some software and/or hardware combination??

It is that service plus the G15 keyboard when it is connected from when you boot up. If the keyboard is disconnected at any point (either physically, or by logging in via remote desktop, since that seems to disable the G15 rendering area temporarily), then it will all work fine until the next reboot.

The service is some kind of remote control service, so I don't think it affects the functionality of PowerDVD. You're right, VLC is great, the only reason I used PowerDVD is because I had it lying around from the last drive I bought.

I've seen similar problems with an application that I wrote. It seems to cause this hang problem whenever you start teamspeak when you're running my program (it's a teamspeak status viewer on the LCD). I think it is also caused by PowerDVD, though I'm trying to get more people to test it out to be sure.