Solved Confused Over Dos Games

[kaz69]

@dragu

Thanks I have finally got it running to full screen and works perfect (well up to the new game screen anyway). I've learnt a lot in this topic and will try my luck at a few other games and see how it goes.

sorry for the long time this has taken and repeat information but its all clicked with me now (hopefully)

once again thanks Dragu for your time and patience with me

[voljega]

@kaz69 @Dragu

Hello Guys, using this unofficial DosBox main thread to ask for your help : it's time for me to try my big next project : doing an automatic convertor of the ExoDOS game collection to Recalbox. The collection uses the same version of DosBox, 0.74
So first I would like to do one manually to better understand how to work, and I'm gonna start with one my fav from the nineties : Wacky Wheels.

Now first of all, games will be installed either by my convertor or manually on the computer, so there no need to bother with that.

Secondly I would like to achieve a non dependant path installation, so I want to be able to specify in dosbox.cfg and dosbox.bat if possible, only relatibe path to the game folder (here WackyWhe.pc). The game should then work exactly the same if it is in /recalbox/share/pc/WackyWhe.pc or /recalbox/share/pc/Race/WackyWhe.pc
Is it possible ? It should be I think but I'm not sure where DosBox /EmulationStation is positioned as a folder when it starts

a note on the exoDOS collection architecture, after installation games are found like that :
in eXoDOS_Collection_v2.0\Games!dos\WackyWhe you will find the dosbox.conf and bat file to launch the game
in eXoDOS_Collection_v2.0\Games\WackyWhe are stored the files of the games itself (this folder will be transformed in WackyWhe.pc)

So normally i would copy the folder eXoDOS_Collection_v2.0\Games\WackyWhe as WackyWhe.pc and put inside the dosbox.conf file and the dosbox.bat files both copied or based from/on eXoDOS_Collection_v2.0\Games!dos\WackyWhe

The dosbox.conf is a regular one, so I will show only the autoexec part :

[autoexec] 
cd .. 
cd .. 
mount c .\games\WackyWhe  
imgmount d .\games\WackyWhe\cd\wackywheels.iso -t cdrom 
c: 
cd wacky
cls 
@ww
exit 

Here we can see that the game folder has two children folder, one named cd where the iso of the game is located and one named wacky where the game's installed files are, including main executable ww.exe. We should be able to get rid of the cd.. if we manage to use relative paths ?

The bat file (Wacky Wheels (1994).bat) from exoDOSCollection mainly handles installation which will be already done :

@echo off 
@set var=%cd%
cd .. 
cd .. 
cd .. 
IF NOT EXIST ".\games\WackyWhe\" goto none 
".\dosbox\dosbox.exe" -conf ".\games\!dos\WackyWhe\dosbox.conf" -noconsole -exit 
del stdout.txt 
del stderr.txt 
if exist .\games\CWSDPMI.swp del .\games\CWSDPMI.swp 
goto end 
:none 
cls 
echo. 
echo Game has not been installed 
echo.
echo.
echo Would you like to install the game?
echo.
choice

if errorlevel = 2 goto no
if errorlevel = 1 goto yes
:yes
cd %VAR%
call install.bat
goto end
:no
goto end

:end

The dosbox command is useless here as it is already done by Recalbox configgen.
So to me this correspond to dosbox.bat for recalbox, but as the main executable ww.exe is already launched by the [autoexec] part of the dosbox.conf file, my dosbox.bat should be empty ? Can it be empty ?

So my main questions are :

• how to clean/modify the autoexec part to only keep relative path to the game folder ?
• should the dosbox.cfg [autoexec] keep the execution of the ww.exe file (what does the @ in @ww command mean by the way ?) and my dosbox.bat then be empty ?
• or should i remove the call to ww.exe from dosbox.conf and use that in my dosbox.bat file once again using only relative path if possible ?

Thank you for your help

[Dragu]

@voljega
"The game should then work exactly the same if it is in /recalbox/share/pc/WackyWhe.pc or /recalbox/share/pc/Race/WackyWhe.pc"

Dosbox awaits the game directory .pc in /recalbox/share/roms/dos/ xxxxx.pc
So, I am not sure that you can change this. I never tried (you will ) if you put the game start in the autoexec section of dosbox.cfg and nothing in dosbox.bat, if this works. But I can try this out. My experience, if nothing in dosbox.bat, he enter the dosbox prompt.

[Dragu]

I just tried it out, it dont work for me with game start in dosbox.cfg (local .conv) and empty dosbox.bat.

[voljega]

@dragu "Dosbox awaits the game directory .pc in /recalbox/share/roms/dos/ xxxxx.pc"

Dosbox or EmulationStation ?

And regarding handling of relative path in dosbox.cfg and dosbox.bat, is dosbox start directory the same as inside xxx.pc or /recalbox/share/dos ?

[Dragu]

Important in all this, ES mount as local game directory. I suppose that it is ES.
If you mount a virtual CD-ROM, in dosbox.cfg Autoexec section it's about
imgmount d "/recalbox/share/roms/dos/abcd.pc/abcd.DAT" -t iso
But anyway, who cares ?

[voljega]

@dragu who cares ? me

according to this post, it should be perfectly possible to use relative path in dosbox.bat at least :
https://forum.recalbox.com/topic/9178/aide-avec-le-ms-dos

so if is mounted by default on local directory, it might also be used in dosbox.cfg AutoExec part I'll have to test

"My experience, if nothing in dosbox.bat, he enter the dosbox prompt."

Is it an interactive dos prompt ? it might come handy for testing and debugging.

I checked configgen and see nothing which could prevent the use of subdirectories, I will check es_systems.cfg

[voljega]

@dragu managed to make anything work relatively by moving the whole [AutoExec] code to dosbox.bat :

imgmount d .\cd\wackywheels.iso -t cdrom
c: 
cd WACKY
WW.EXE

so that's it

But just creating a Race folder and putting WackyWhe.pc into it makes ES crash at boot ! and thus Recalbox doesn't start... @substring ?

On a further notice the game seems to allow the use of joystick but i wasn't able to change to it and only A button seems to work. I didn't use any map file
EDIT : doesn't work in Windows either so let's say it's a bug, i'll try with Tyrian

But one strange thing is that on Recalbox, game isn't displayed on original ratio (4/3) nor fullscreen, it's between the two with borders but a little bit scretched on the horizontal ? Did you notice that ?

[Substring]

@voljega I plead not guilty your honor ...
No idea, hardly ever tried dosbox, not time to check for now

[Dragu]

@voljega
With my games, for the moment nothing scretched. Also because of your crash at boot. There may be some things to adapt in local dosbox.cfg. Do you looked inside my dosbox.cfg of the above link ? Memory could be a problem. I changed it from dosbox.conf.
And CD Wacky ? Should it not be CD Wacky.pc ?

[voljega]

@dragu The crash at boot is only because of the presence of a *.pc folder into another subfolder (instead of plain /recalbox/share/roms/dos) it doesn't crash as soon as i remove the *.pc folder from the subfolder and leave it at /recalbox/share/roms/dos

Now with original dosbox.conf file of the game, even without the autoexec part, yes it crashes and I had to use your file (the lba one you gave me a while ago wihtout the autoexec part off course), i don't know why but comparing them there are several differences
yours : https://pastebin.com/NFM7uX51
mine : https://pastebin.com/2sGm8u6X

at least output=overlay instead of texture raises a warning in dosbox when launched from command line

"And CD Wacky ? Should it not be CD Wacky.pc ?"
No because when in dosbox.bat . is already setted into the game folder, just like , here WackyWhe.pc
so imgmount d .\cd\wackywheels.iso -t cdrom directly mount the iso located there /recalbox/share/roms/dos/WackyWe.pc/cd/wackywheels.iso
And there is a message regarding the mounting at the beginning (after the dosbox orange green) which show that the path is indeed the good one like "Mounted d on /recalbox/share/roms/dos/WackyWe.pc/cd/wackywheels.iso"
and cd WACKY goes from /recalbox/share/roms/dos/WackyWe.pc to /recalbox/share/roms/dos/WackyWe.pc/WACKY folder where ww.exe is located
at the root of my game folder i only have the cfg file and the bat file

Now for ratio comparison we can clearly see the difference especially on the Apogee Moon in the logo which is clearly not round but elliptic on Recalbox : (up real 4/3 dosbox on windows, down something between 4/3 and 16/9 dosbox on recalbox)
https://imgur.com/a/YbdSe

This is again with your dosbox.cfg (but i have a same result on another game without any dosbox.cfg in game folder), the vertical black bars on both side should be twice as wide

OK your file had just aspect=false with aspect=true I get the correct 4/3
I assumed you got your file from the dosbox root folder and this is more or less the one used by default so this might be a bug for 4.1

[voljega]

@voljega Tested Tyrian, joystick works but there is a deadzone problem, the ship goes toward the right by itself, is that configurable in the mapper file ?

By the way, @dragu do you have a sample mapper file ?

[voljega]

@substring ah ah ok, so @rockaddicted maybe ?

In the dosbox rom folder, just creating a subfolder Race folder inside and putting WackyWhe.pc game folder into it (that's /recalbox/share/roms/race/WackyWhe.pc) makes ES crash at boot ! and thus Recalbox doesn't even start...

I assume this is a bug in ES ? Maybe this is also the case for scummvm ?

[Dragu]

@voljega said in Confused Over Dos Games:

?

@voljega
On the moon, you are right. By the way, if you look from the side....
Just kidding, thanks.
For the mapperfile, you can create by yourself. Just Ctrl+F1 in started game. The mapper is really good. But sometimes I make adaption with edit in the files.
Duke Nukem is now hudger as before, but looks a little like the Donald.

[voljega]

@dragu ahah yeah there is a little resemblance.

Cool for the mapperfile thank you I will try it

I tried ultima underworld too, works fine.

By the way, any way to display the fps counter inside DosBox ?

[Dragu]

@voljega
I don't think so, we are not in Steam
I was starting to make DN Manhattan working, but before Windows95 should be ready. There I have still some problems. Time will bring the answer. Seems pervert to run windows in Recalbox, but some early games require 95.

[voljega]

@dragu Perverted I don't know but that would be a feat.

I also plan to try later to convert some games From ExoWin3.1 collection which run under Dosbox

[Dragu]

@voljega

I read the aspect story back in the dosbox Wiki, as I found that it has only an effect on some games.
"
aspect = true | false
Do aspect correction. It only affects non-square pixel modes like VGA Mode 13h, which has a resolution of 320x200 pixels and is used by many DOS games (DOOM, etc). Recommended as such games were designed for 4:3 displays, and without aspect correction will look distorted and not as the developer intended.
Default is false.
"
So, if you have 640x480 or bigger resolution, no need.

[voljega]

@dragu cool to know but then better leave it to true as it will no effect on games with bigger resolution ?

[Dragu]

@voljega
I am not sure, because it is also written :

aspect: Do aspect correction, if your output method doesn't support scaling this can slow things down!.

So, it seems to have perhaps negative effect on speed. This could be an issue in more recent games.