Dosbox For Dummies

[Shirohagen]

Hi guys

Sorry for posting this question, but I've searched around a and bumbled through a bit of trial and error, and I'm still not able to get Dosbox to run on my Wiz.

After using Dosbox on many othe rplatforms, I had high hopes for playing some of my old PC stuff on the Wiz, but I have discovered much more custom tinkering is needed. That's fine but there don't seem to be any instructions provided with the emulator anywhere and only fragments of info in forum posts.

No matter what I try, Dosbox quits to the Wiz menu a moment after a .GPE is launched.

I've even tried other users' game packs with no success.

Basically I think I need some kind soul to run through the steps simply so I can figure out what I'm doing wrong...

...anyone feeling charitable? Where should I start?

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[MatthewQA]

...anyone feeling charitable? Where should I start?

First off. Copy the game files to the SD card(NANA is theoretically possible, but SD is way easier). Usually the best place is in /mnt/sd/dosbox/game_name

Once the files have copied over, navigate to where DOSBox itself is located. This is usually under /mnt/sd/dosbox. The DOSBox install should contain a duke1 folder. This is good especially as a base, so it is what we'll use.

Create a new folder for your game's configuration files. For example: /mnt/sd/games/dosbox/game_name.

Under this new folder(/mnt/sd/games/dosbox/game_name), copy the two files from the duke1 directory. The first dosbox.conf, is your configuration file, this sets up various things for DOSBox to run the game with.

Open this file up and scroll all the way to the bottom to the "autoexec" section. This is the part specifically relevant to your game.

It's going to look like this:

[autoexec]
# lines of code to boot the dos program go here
mount C "/mnt/sd/dosbox/duke1"
c:
duke1.exe
exit

You'll want to edit this to fit your game. So the directory should point to your game's directory(where you copied it to earlier), and then you'll want to edit the executable name to pick the right file. For example:

[autoexec]
# lines of code to boot the dos program go here
mount C "/mnt/sd/dosbox/game_name"
c:
game_name.exe
exit

mapper.txt is your control mapping for the game. This is what you'd mess with to change your controls, here's the listing from the GP2x Mappings.txt file in your DOSBox folder.

THIS IS ONLY A PARTIAL, THE FULL LISTING CAN BE FOUND IN YOUR DOSBox FOLDER

Directional controls:
---------------------
"key 97" Up
"key 99" Left
"key 101" Down
"key 103" Right


Buttons:
--------
"key 110" B
"key 112" X
"key 109" A
"key 111" Y
"key 106" Select
"key 105" Start
"key 107" R1
"key 108" L1
"key 114" Vol-
"key 113" Vol+

And finally, you need a *.gpe file. Either copy the duke1.gpe file, or create a new file yourself(copying would be most reliable, especially if you're not sure if your editor supports linux line breaks)

Here are the default contents of the *.gpe file:

#! /bin/sh
DIRROOT=/mnt/sd/dosbox
DIRGAME=${DIRROOT}/duke1
${DIRROOT}/dosbox -conf ${DIRGAME}/dosbox.conf
exec /usr/gp2x/gp2xmenu

All you need to do is edit the director paths. So it'd like something like this:

#! /bin/sh
DIRROOT=/mnt/sd/dosbox
DIRGAME=${DIRROOT}/game_name
${DIRROOT}/dosbox -conf ${DIRGAME}/dosbox.conf
exec /usr/gp2x/gp2xmenu

If you open this open in Window's notepad, it's going to look like it's all on one line, with a few random squares. If this is the case with your editor, be sure to leave everything but your new directory edit in-tact.

And hopefully, this'll all work out for you. Let me know if it helps.

 

[Shirohagen]

Thanks for the detailed info, that's much appreciated!

I'll give it a whirl and let you know how I get on.

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[Orion4874]

Here are a number of preconfigured files for dos games on the Wiz. You have to add the game files yourself though, there are some freeware games included however. It was posted by a forum member who is no longer active on these boards.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZK61FORU

This is version 1.8, there was a 1.9 but the link is long since dead.

 

[Shirohagen]

OK, I've tried everything, I've read all these instructions very carefully and followed them to the letter. I've tried my own DOS games which work fine on my machine, I've tried the config packs suggested.

Nothing I try works, no matter what do, the .gpe leads to a black screen with a loading ring on it for a moment, then I'm dumped back at the Wiz menu.

It's the same for every game I've tried. I've even tried different SD cards.

Am I doing something really stupidly wrong?

How come the Wiz Dosbox requires all this extra configuration? It's always been a fairly simple emulator to use on every other system I've run it on...

...and help would be very gratefully received, otherwise I think I'm going to give up.

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