Descent 1 Dosbox (slow!!) - A Guide

[SunSpire]

Hi folks,

since a couple of people asked me how I got Descent to run under dosbox, I reconstructed the config files and decided to post them here along with a quick guide for anyone who wants to give it a shot. If you do everything correctly, you should be able to load Descent up until level 1, but keep in mind that it is terribly slow (3 fps or less) and thus unplayable!! ... Nice proof of concept whatsoever, it just looks cool on the gp2x screen and makes us hope for the future!

1. You need the Descent 1 full version updated to V1.5, patches can be found HERE
Alternatively, you can try using the demo V1.4 but I haven't tried it myself, dowmload it HERE

2. Download my dosbox .zip archive HERE with the modified config file and extract it with folders!
Once you've done that it should look like this: (the descent directory inside the dosbox directory)

<DIR> dosbox
default-mapper.txt
dosbox
<SUBDIR>descent
descent.gpe
dosbox.conf
mapper.txt

Now copy your updated Descent (or shareware) into the Descent folder of the archive you just extracted and move "everything" onto your SD card root.

3. Start descent using the descent.gpe in the descent directory, and it should fire up dosbox and load the game. In order to get Descent to run at all it was necessary to add some command line options behind the .exe file (see dosbox.conf at the bottom) This disables things such as memory check, sound, mouse, joystick and network drivers to free up enough memory. Also a few other values have been added to the .conf file that you cannot create with the new dosbox config creator. Just play around with different settings and see what happens. If you set the ram to more than 8 MB dosbox will possibly crash.

Anyway, I hope this was not too confusing and some people found it useful

Here is an ingame screen on my gp2x:

Cheers,

"SunSpire"

 

[bacteria]

Great, but unfortunately, DOSbox on the GP2x is far too slow at the moment to play anything much at a reasonable speed. It only emulates a 486 processor at 7.5Mhz after all - when DOSbox can be more like a real 486 processor (33Mhz/66Mhz) we can be playing games like Descent - that will be a good day...

Arcade Fruit Machine plays nearly fullspeed (at 250Mhz), Chinese Checkers is very very slow (and unplayable without a mouse option).

 

[SunSpire]

Oh I know that dosbox is far too slow at present, but I got a few people asking me how I was able to get the game running that I thought I'd write a quick guide for everyone ...

... the next dosbox game I'm going to try is Alley Cat! :lol:

"SunSpire"

 

[nubie]

Great, but unfortunately, DOSbox on the GP2x is far too slow at the moment to play anything much at a reasonable speed. It only emulates a 486 processor at 7.5Mhz after all - when DOSbox can be more like a real 486 processor (33Mhz/66Mhz) we can be playing games like Descent - that will be a good day...

Arcade Fruit Machine plays nearly fullspeed (at 250Mhz), Chinese Checkers is very very slow (and unplayable without a mouse option).

True, but the system requirements are much lower, actually I believe they are a 386:

BARE REQUIREMENTS:
- IBM PC compatible 386-33 or faster
- 4 MB RAM
- DOS 5.0 or greater

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED:
- 486 or Pentium processor
- 8 MB RAM
- stereo 16-bit soundcard with General MIDI support
- a quality joystick

I also notice that by pressing the minus key the screen gets smaller and smaller, it helps to render less pixels.

Maybe it would help to use a player file with low detail settings and/or commandline options to make the game as quick as possible, -lowmem -nosound -320x240 come to mind as good options.

Edit: I see you already thought of that

descentr.exe -lowmem -nomemcheck -nodoscheck -noloadpats -nosound -nomusic -nodoublebuffer -nomouse -nojoystick

I don't recall the nodoscheck one , and I was majorly into Descent a few years back. I have played every commercial version (Mac was my first, then PSX "Maximum", then PC Shareware, then PC DII shareware, then Definitive Collection, then D3, then the "D4 test level" with a fully modelled DII FMV ship in real time .)

 

[Alex.]

... the next dosbox game I'm going to try is Alley Cat! :lol:

Dude get that and Titus the Fox running and you'll about sum up the happy DOS childhood that I endured!

- Alex

 

[SunSpire]

errrm .... Descent 1 is already in 320x240

descentr.exe -lowmem -nomemcheck -nodoscheck -noloadpats -nosound -nomusic -nodoublebuffer -nomouse -nojoystick

that is the current execution process, so there's not much more that you could possibly disable!
I had the smaller screen in mind too, that needs a quick change in the mapper.txt to bind the minus key
to one of the gp2x buttons. But, do you really want the screen smaller than it already is on the 2X?

Using god_at_hell's V2.0 cpu_speed or creating a script to overclock to 266 makes the game a tiny bit faster in the menu screens, but not really ingame.

"SunSpire"

 

[rmatheso]

I've got Wing Commander up and running. Very slow though. Tried some of your settings ,ems, 8 meg ram. Definately sped it up, but is crashed soon after.

This emu needs more speeeeddddd.....

 

[FlowNeppets]

I've got Wing Commander up and running. Very slow though. Tried some of your settings ,ems, 8 meg ram. Definately sped it up, but is crashed soon after.

This emu needs more speeeeddddd.....

There is a Wing Commander version for SNES that is playable on the gp2x.

 

[rmatheso]

I heard it's not as good though.

 

[nubie]

errrm .... Descent 1 is already in 320x240

descentr.exe -lowmem -nomemcheck -nodoscheck -noloadpats -nosound -nomusic -nodoublebuffer -nomouse -nojoystick

that is the current execution process, so there's not much more that you could possibly disable!
I had the smaller screen in mind too, that needs a quick change in the mapper.txt to bind the minus key
to one of the gp2x buttons. But, do you really want the screen smaller than it already is on the 2X?

Using god_at_hell's V2.0 cpu_speed or creating a script to overclock to 266 makes the game a tiny bit faster in the menu screens, but not really ingame.

"SunSpire"

How do you ensure that the program is getting the overclock? I know I am missing something with the utility.

I had it running last night, but it was way too slow to be any use, maybe the PSX Descent will be faster, I just need to recieve my 2GB SD in the mail and I will have room to test it (although the wait is tempting me to build an unpowered USB dongle so I can use my desktop external 80GB drive to test lots of PSX ISO's, or even download everything in the file archive I am remotely interested in and test it )

I am currently on a 64MB SD borrowed from my brothers digital camera.

 

[delsydsoftware]

The source code for Decent 1 was released a loooong time ago. I'm sure it could be ported to the gp2x, if anyone can actually find the source.

 

[SunSpire]

If you have a look in the "Cool Ideas and Wishes" section on the boards, you'll see that a couple coders are already having their hands on the source code

"SunSpire"

 

[delsydsoftware]

If you have a look in the "Cool Ideas and Wishes" section on the boards, you'll see that a couple coders are already having their hands on the source code

"SunSpire"

Sweet. B)