DOSBox, how have you configured it?

[SNESFAN]

I would like it if there was a good free alternative to dosshell for dosbox.

Do not know what you mean exactly, but maybe a nc-clone could be of use to you ?

thanks I'll check it out


EDIT: kinda slow, but it's basically what I was after, I'll play around with it a bit thanks agian


EDIT2: originally downloaded "real mode" dn640, redownloaded the dn151 and it's acting much better

 

[diligentcircle]

the nubs get stuck in a small box in the screen.

I have that as well, but it's not with all games for some reason. I don't play many DOS games, but one game I play relatively frequently is Lode Runner: The Legend Returns, which is affected by this.


The touchscreen offset doesn't surprise me that much (my understanding is that DOSBox uses relative positioning for mouse movement, which doesn't work well with a touch screen), but the "getting trapped in a box" thing does; for the record, this happens with a regular mouse as well, not just the nubs. I have never seen this happen with DOSBox on a PC running GNU/Linux (playing the same game that I get this problem on the Pandora). Maybe it warrants an investigation? In any case, switching out of fullscreen and then back in seems to solve it... weird.


One other thing I've noticed with that: changing the mouse sensitivity seems to change the size of the imaginary box the cursor is trapped in.


Another, more annoying, glitch that I have found is that when I click, the mouse jumps to a slightly different position. You can see it in my Pandora review on YouTube, where I mean to click the arrow which means "select a level", but the mouse jumps down and clicks the "play the first level" button instead. Again, this is with both the right nub and an actual mouse, and I have not experienced this on a regular PC. I think this definitely warrants investigation. It makes the mouse almost completely unusable in this game.


For the record, this is the version of DOSBox on the Repo (which has the frontend with it).

 

[crosspoint]

Another, more annoying, glitch that I have found is that when I click, the mouse jumps to a slightly different position.

You can solve this problem by mapping the mouse keys on the regular buttons like "A" and "B". All you need is a mapper file (in which you can define all keys) and an entry in dosbox.conf which tells dosbox where to find the mapper file. I can upload my configured files here if you want.


But we really need an improvement for this "mouse trapped in a box" thing. :wacko:

 

[diligentcircle]

Another, more annoying, glitch that I have found is that when I click, the mouse jumps to a slightly different position.

You can solve this problem by mapping the mouse keys on the regular buttons like "A" and "B". All you need is a mapper file (in which you can define all keys) and an entry in dosbox.conf which tells dosbox where to find the mapper file. I can upload my configured files here if you want.

That sounds like an odd correlation. I would be very interested in seeing your files, yes.

 

[crosspoint]

It's basically the mapper file from Dosbox EX but with mouse keys on "A" (left click) and "B" (right click)


In the config file you have to write "mapperfile=mapper.txt" somewhere (in my config file it's under "[sdl]" but i think this doesn't matter).

mapper.txt

 

[dsleaf67]

I have been playing a lot with dosbox lately as well. In particular dosbox_ex one because I like the menu list thing and not fond of dosboxfe, but wanted to customize for some games that don't work at all or well under dbex..


What I started playing with was using pickle launcher frontend for selecting games quickly (and nicer loioking) but also be able to customize as well. I have come up with a pnd with game previews (supported by pickle launcher) and a check for .conf file so each game can have its own.


I've been playing alot with configs etc as well and would be very interested in any standard config that works well for most games. I'll try your mapper and see how I like that setup and continue to play with .conf files to try and find a best for most scenario.

 

[Pickle]

What I started playing with was using pickle launcher frontend for selecting games quickly (and nicer loioking) but also be able to customize as well.

Dsleaf67 I had actually been thinking about making a special frontend for dosbox, or extending my generic frontend like you have. Of course it would work fine for launching confs. The other feature I wanted to support is chaning the conf options. Of course editing the file itself doesnt fit within PL's function as its too specific (why i was thinking a specific launcher for dosbox).


But maybe between existing arguments and the -c argument maybe most of the useful options could be set to overide the loaded conf.


Did you get into this or were you hand editing the conf by hand?

 

[dsleaf67]

Til now I've been hand editing the conf with freedos edit. I've had a couple of Ideas for this but for now I'm fine with the hand editing. The main thing I wanted was similar to what Streak was going after. Making it easy to setup for MOST games, but unlike streak I wanted it to look nicer (thanks again for PIcklelauncher) and to still allow use of custom conf. Making that customizing easier may be something I have to leave to the pros though.


One thing I wondered was why you excluded Dirs for the quick search in pickle launcher. Thats the only problem I have with the launcher itself. It doesn't let you type in letters to choose game dirs (which is whats listed in this case). I downloaded the source to take a look, but I haven't even setup a compile environment yet. Scripting and PNDs was the first thing I wanted to play around with. I figure I want to get to compiling and coding again, but thats much further down the road for me.


I'm at work at the moment but I'll PM you a copy of the PND I made. I've changed app ids so it should run fine along side your dosbox. You should even be able to point your profile.txt to the dosbox/games folder instead. Note though that for my pnd - I removed dosboxfe because I don't care for it on the Pandora.

 

[dementio]

This is the conf I generally use. I just change the resolution & path depending on which device I use (this one's actually from Android):

[dosbox]

machine=svga_s3

captures=sshots

memsize=32


[render]

frameskip=2


[cpu]

core=dynamic

cputype=auto

cycles=max

cycleup=500

cycledown=500


[mixer]

prebuffer=15

rate=22050

blocksize=1024


[midi]

mpu401=intelligent

mididevice=default

midiconfig=


[sblaster]

sbtype=sb16

mixer=true

oplmode=auto

oplemu=fast

oplrate=22050


[gus]

gus=true

gusrate=22050

gusbase=240

gusirq=5

gusdma=1

ultradir=C:\ULTRASND


[speaker]

pcspeaker=true

pcrate=44100

tandy=auto

tandyrate=44100

disney=true


[dos]

xms=true

ems=true

umb=true

keyboardlayout=US


[joystick]

joysticktype=2axis


[serial]

serial1=dummy

serial2=dummy

serial3=disabled

serial4=disabled


[autoexec]

@echo off

SET PATH=Z:\

keyb US 437

ver set 6 2

mount c: /mnt/extSdCard/dosbox

SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\WINDOWS

SET TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP

C:


If exist C:\FREEDOS\COMMAND.COM goto AddFreeDos

Goto Next1

:AddFreeDos

set path=%PATH%;C:\FREEDOS

:Next1


If exist C:\NC55\NC.EXE goto AddNC55

Goto Next2

:AddNC55

set path=%PATH%;C:\NC55

echo You can start Norton Commander (file manager) by typing "NC".

Goto Next3

:Next2


If exist C:\NC551\NC.EXE goto AddNC551

Goto Next3

:AddNC551

set path=%PATH%;C:\NC551

echo You can start Norton Commander (file manager) by typing "NC".

:Next3


If exist C:\NDN\NDN.COM goto AddNDN

Goto Next4

:AddNDN

set path=%PATH%;C:\NDN

echo You can start Necromancer's Dos Navigator (file manager) by typing "NDN".

:Next4


If exist C:\DOSZIP\DZ.EXE goto AddDZ

Goto Next5

:AddDZ

set path=%PATH%;C:\DOSZIP

echo You can start Doszip Commander (file manager) by typing "DZ".

:Next5



C:

cd\

Z:\config.com -noconsole > nul

 

[Zaroff]

A bit of thread necromancing, but as for the mouse cursor being trapped in a small box, the trick is this: touch the screen at the extreme right, extreme left, extreme top and extreme bottom and then the mouse will be able to navigate the entire screen. Silly, but for me it works every time.

 

[batfastad]

I was thinking about the possibility of running Warcraft 2 using DOSBox on the Pandora. I've seen a few people have apparently had success in other threads.

I've never used DOSBox before. What do I need to grab from the repo in order to try this out?

http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=all&search=dosbox

What about this game... POD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_Death

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/pod_gold

http://www.bredel.homepage.t-online.de/POD/POD-English/pod-english.html

It was originally a Windows game so I don't know if it will be possible to run it on the Pandora.

Cheers, B

 

[crosspoint]

POD won't start on dosbox because it is for Windows only.

You have to install and launch Windows 95 via QEMU in order to play it on Pandora. But be aware: QEMU isn't easy to handle. You can read how to set up things on the pandorawiki.

For Dosbox i recommend downloading Dosbox with DboxFE. While Dosbox isn't as complicated as QEMU it's still not as userfriendly as most console emulators. DboxFE brings the advantage of setting different configurations for all your games, which then will be listed one below the other.

 

[Klumpen]

Normal/old settings:


fullresolution=original
output=surface
aspect=true
scaler=normal2x

New settings to get filled Pandora Screen:

fullresolution=800x480
output=overlay
aspect=false
scaler=none

I am using DosBox-Ex v10 at the moment and am not able to see a game in the correct aspect.

After editing and saving the config-files in the appdata folder to "aspect=true" the program always changes it back to "false",

whan can I do about that? I do not really like all the characters to be this broad.

 

[Natro]

Normal/old settings:


fullresolution=original
output=surface
aspect=true
scaler=normal2x

New settings to get filled Pandora Screen:

fullresolution=800x480
output=overlay
aspect=false
scaler=none

I am using DosBox-Ex v10 at the moment and am not able to see a game in the correct aspect.

After editing and saving the config-files in the appdata folder to "aspect=true" the program always changes it back to "false",

whan can I do about that? I do not really like all the characters to be this broad.

I had a similar issue yesterday and changed the 01.bat file to include:

CONFIG -set "aspect=true"

to the :game section just before the .exe call (not sure if ordering matters).

Something I was unsure about is if changing settings like this was temporary and specific to the game or if it would need to be changed back to false after the game closes.

This fixed the aspect ratio issues I was seeing in my Ultima Underworld game but also made the touchscreen work properly.  Before this the game looked stretched and the touchscreen did not register the position of the stylus correctly.

 

[Klumpen]

Hmm, didn't work, it is still stretched.

Could you please post the whole text of your 01.bat file?

 

[edlee]

A similar problem with the mouse cursor not registering clicks in the correct area of the screen occurs on the Nokia N800 and Nokia N810 running DOSBox.  Both the Nokia N800 and N810 have a screen resolution of 800x480 pixels like the OpenPandora machine.  The solution is to set in the configuration file:

autolock=false

This seems to correspond to unchecking the, "Autolock", check box in DOSBoxFE under the System tab in the SDL section.