Dosbox is supposed to be able to run old games on new PC?

Guden Oden

Senior Member
Legend
I have a 3GHz system as I've mentioned before, and now I want to try good ol Duke again just for fun. So I download and install latest Dosbox (this program got mentioned in another thread recently, which is why I got the idea). I also download and install D-Fend, because it supposedly adds a graphics front-end, and I abhorr typing shit into a console window (or worse, into a windows shortcut), so obviously, a GUI is much preferred. :)

Anyway to make a not very long story shorter, I make a profile in D-Fend, 3000 cycles, soundblaster emulation etc. Run setup, config video and sound. Works GREAT. Run game... Takes ages to load, so I quit and bump cycles to max; 20,000. Run game again.

It loads quicker than before, but hell, my old 400MHz K6-3 loaded it even quicker than that! And when the radioactive logo animation and theme song pops up, it stutters like mad too. Plays for a second, then pauses for half a second, plays a second etc... Crazy stuff. So WTF is going on and how do I fix it? :p

Tanx a lot in advance for any help. I'm new at this, so if any veteran can give a hand...
 
Re: Dosbox is supposed to be able to run old games on new PC

Guden Oden said:
I have a 3GHz system as I've mentioned before, and now I want to try good ol Duke again just for fun. So I download and install latest Dosbox (this program got mentioned in another thread recently, which is why I got the idea). I also download and install D-Fend, because it supposedly adds a graphics front-end, and I abhorr typing shit into a console window (or worse, into a windows shortcut), so obviously, a GUI is much preferred. :)

Anyway to make a not very long story shorter, I make a profile in D-Fend, 3000 cycles, soundblaster emulation etc. Run setup, config video and sound. Works GREAT. Run game... Takes ages to load, so I quit and bump cycles to max; 20,000. Run game again.

It loads quicker than before, but hell, my old 400MHz K6-3 loaded it even quicker than that! And when the radioactive logo animation and theme song pops up, it stutters like mad too. Plays for a second, then pauses for half a second, plays a second etc... Crazy stuff. So WTF is going on and how do I fix it? :p

Tanx a lot in advance for any help. I'm new at this, so if any veteran can give a hand...
My guess: 3000 cycles are too slow for Duke3D (->game takes ages to load), and 20000 are too taxing for your system (->stuttering). Try something in between.
AFAIK Ctrl-F11 and Ctrl-F12 decrease/increase CPU cycles on the fly, very useful for finetuning.
 
It's not even loading my CPU fully at 20,000, it sits at 80% or so, and surely it should be able to just show a DOS screen and LOAD THE GAME at a decent clip. Heck, it isn't THAT much data anyway, Duke ran swell on a 16MB PC as I recall...
 
The problem is DOSBOX is a complete emulator. It emulates absolutely everything and is cross platform. There are no hardware level functions in there and as a result it is very demanding.

I don't know if it will run Duke, but I've played Dark Forces, TIE Fighter SVGA, Crusader No Remorse and a bunch of other games on it. You have to tweak it a bit and learn about its settings, but it's a really great emulator once you figure it all out.

http://vogons.zetafleet.com/index.php
Explore the forums here. The developers hang out and the experienced users do too.

I also recommend Gulikoza's build with the D3D patch. It's especially useful for ATI cards which can't use OpenGLNB for no blur (the OGL uses a NV specific extension and it goes REAL slow on everything else). You can also use pixel shaders to perform scaling and take more load off CPU. This is only really needed if you are using an LCD and want the prog to scale to your native res. For CRT I'd go with native game resolution for DOSBOX.
http://home.amis.net/lkslavi/

And the FAQ http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php is really great.
 
Back
Top