Getting GOG cd games to run on Retropie

mitu

@squiike There are a few threads in the forums about mounting the CD in dosbox using imgmount , see for instance

Squiike

I have read the threads now, and they could well be in latin. Also, they say make a .iso file. But i dont have the CD.
As the games installed in my computer they work if i click the shortcut (wich has alot of commands in its "destination"). But if i open dosbox and start the game there it asks for the cd.

Any youtube video on this. Or explentaions for a noob?

mitu

@squiike You could use the install folder as a substitute for for the .iso (which is the content of the CD). The mount command maps a folder to a drive, so if you need to mount (map) a folder to the CD you'd add

mount d: <path_to_cd_files>

Is the game distributed by GOG using also dosbox under the hood or just launches the game's exe file ? Can you find out how the game is started (the complete command line) ?

Squiike

Sure. Thank you for being patient with me :)

On the Heroes2 (GOG) shortcut the path is; C:\GOG\HoMM\DOSBOX\DOSBox.exe -conf "..\dosboxhomm2.conf" -conf "..\dosboxhomm2_single.conf" -noconsole -c exit
And the "Start in" is; C:\GOG\HoMM\DOSBOX

I changed the path a little from the original, cause i cant make the ~ sign in dosbox.

Here is the path for daggerfall; C:\Games\Daggum\DosBox.exe -conf dosbox.conf -conf DosBoxDaggerfall.conf -noconsole -c -exit

When i open Heroes 2 i can see it says "imgmount" on the window.

I mounted C:\GOG\HoMM to drive D successfully. So when i type "D:" and "dir" it shows all the files from the main folder. When i ran "Heroes2" from my installed folder it wanted the cd. When i started it from the D directory it wanted the cd.

Squiike

Yes, sorry about my bad english skills. It says Imgmount when i run it from the shortcut. And i see it in the dosbox window.

I managed to make it work on my computer by typing: imgmount d c:/gog/homm/homm2.inst -t cdrom

When i do that on retropie (imgmount d c:/homm/homm2.inst -t cdrom) it says "Image file not found.

mitu

@squiike said in Getting GOG cd games to run on Retropie:

When i do that on retropie (imgmount d c:/homm/homm2.inst -t cdrom) it says "Image file not found.

That's because the path is different on the Pi. Instead of c:/homm/homm2.inst, it should be the path where you copied the game on the Pi - something like /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc/homm.

You could probably use the .conf files referenced by the command line and create a new .conf file for the Pi, as detailed in this topic I mentioned, adjusting the folder paths accordingly (i.e. replace the Windows paths with the ones on the Pi).

mitu

Well, it seems that the inst file is actually a cuesheet for loading the music CD tracks from the MUSIC folder. Here's how it might work:

Copy the game folder to /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc-data/homm2. If you're using file shares to transfer files, create a pc-data folder in the roms share and then add the game folder as homm2. The homm2 folder should now contain a bunch of sub-folders and the HEROES2.EXE program. You can safely delete the DOSBOX sub-folder, since it's not needed.
Create a heroes2.conf file under roms/pc (if you're using file shares)/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc (if you're using WinSCP), with the following contents (taken from the config file distributed with the game):

[sdl]
fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=original
windowresolution=original
output=overlay
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper.txt
usescancodes=true

[dosbox]
language=
machine=svga_s3
captures=capture
memsize=16

[render]
frameskip=0
aspect=false
scaler=normal2x

[cpu]
core=auto
cycles=max
cycleup=500
cycledown=20

[mixer]
nosound=false
rate=22050
blocksize=2048
prebuffer=10

[midi]
mpu401=intelligent
device=default
config=

[sblaster]
sbtype=sb16
sbbase=220
irq=5
dma=1
hdma=5
mixer=true
oplmode=auto
oplrate=22050

[dos]
xms=true
ems=true
umb=true
keyboardlayout=none

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
@ECHO OFF
mount C "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc-data/homm2"
imgmount d "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc-data/homm2/homm2.inst" -t iso -fs iso
c:
cls
heroes2.exe
exit

Now, rename the MUSIC sub-folder from the game directory to music.

Restart Emulationstation and a 'Heroes2' game should appear under the DOS/PC system, load it and it should not show the 'Insert CD' screen anymore.

cyperghost

@mitu @Squiike But I used CD emualtors like fakecd to get those games running. But in DOS itself....May you can take a look here

Annother real great program was 0cd ... This was also a small TSR that locked the directory and was the best cd emulator at this time. I only found one link, that leads to a BBS board with some stuff that I can't post here ...

mitu

@cyperghost Games requiring the CD is exactly the use case for the Dosbox imgmount program. There's no need to have additional TSR loaded in DOS since this is handled natively by emulation (Dosbox). In this case, I'm not sure if FakeCD would have worked, since the CD image is a music CD, not a data CD, so you can't copy its contents to a folder.

cyperghost

@mitu

music??

Well of course not.

The FakeCD programs were used to "share" CDs (to be political correct). One CD was sized to 650MB and more and full stuffed with video and audio of course. So the trick was to "reduce" size to 20MB or less. I know to that time (1994 or 93??) I was proud owner of a 1GB harddrive. WOW.... No I never have to delete ANY game anymore was my first thought ;)
But you know what happend. Fantastic soundtracks! Full grown videos!
Awfull! Most of the data was just waste of space and a kind of copy protection because CD burners were intended to be used for the mass market 5 years later.

Of course if imgmount is an option... Why not using it ;) I never get used to DOSBOX emulation. I remeber it as painfully slow.

Squiike

I only know how to access retropie from network. So the path i get is "\RETROPIE\roms\pc\HoMM" I used no program to copy HoMM to the PC folder.
When i start dosbox in retropie it has already mounted the PC folder as c:> Is that why the following did not work?;

I tried to type "imgmount d c:/home/pi/retropie/roms/pc/homm/homm2.inst -t cdrom"
and "imgmount d /home/pi/retropie/roms/pc/homm/homm2.inst -t cdrom"

I did try your .conf creating tutorial. Do i need both a homm2 folder in pc AND a copy in the pc-data folder? I had only in the pc-data.
I created a new folder called "pc-data" and followed all the steps. When i launched the heroes2.conf file something happens and it goes back to retropie. I am not sure how to create a .conf file so i opened a daggerfall conf file with notepad and inserted the text you listed. I tried to create both a heroes2 file that registered as .conf and a heroes2.conf (where i added .conf behind the filename), none worked.

Maybe i have an outdated version of something? my retropie dos folder for games is called just "pc" Also, im not using any programs. I only copied and pasted through windows network(is that "file share"?).

mitu

@squiike Yes, \\retropie\roms means file shares.
Download Notepad++ and use it to edit the file, instead of the Windows built int Notepad. When editing the .conf file, make sure you use Unix line endings (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8195839/choose-newline-character-in-notepad). The name of the file it's not so important, but it needs to have the .conf extension and the proper content.
You only need the homm2 folder in the \\retropie\romc\pc-data, make sure the name is lowercase - Linux filenames are case-sensitive.

Squiike

On format i have UTF-8
Settings -> Preferences -> New Document - there i changed it to unix.
When save as, there was alot of choices, on my 1st try i chose unix script file.

2nd try; took a daggerfall config file Edit-eol conversion - unix

Should i make a new .conf file in notepad++ or do i have to edit an existing one, if so, how do i save?

I think i remember reading somewhere about issues running .conf and .inst files with an un-updated version of dosbox or retropie?
I could try to make a youtube video to show what i am doing(wrong)?

mitu

@squiike You can create the file as a new one - create an empty .txt file in Explorer and then rename it, then paste the exact text I posted. Make sure the directories are correct - remember Linux is case-sensitive on file and folder names.
Can you show a screenshot with the \\retropie\roms\pc-data\homm2 folder ?

There is a log file you could check for errors, but you'll need SSH access to the RetroPie system see https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Transferring-Roms/#sftp) ; each run has its log stored in /dev/shm/runcommand.log so any errors reported by Dosbox should be in that file.

Squiike

Sure :)
One picture has the destination as first shown. The other show a highlighted/clicked version. I'll try to read myself up on that SSH access.

Squiike

@mitu I have installed WinSCP and found the folder /dev/shm but its empty

Dont know if its important to this case, but when im in terminal i get error messages; lvl0: Error parsing XML file

Squiike

Wait...maybe i could just run it off Raspbian!?!

mitu

@squiike No. The video you posted is about a different thing - Windows emulation. AFAIK HOMM3 is Windows only, there is no DOS version. HOMM2 works with Dosbox - the GOG version comes with Dosbox to run the game, the same Dosbox you have in RetroPie. Ignore the video.
I have nothing else to add to my original instructions - /dev/shm/runcommand.log only exists after you run a game, it's empty by default. So if you want to see the log, then first run the game and then try to get the log file.

Squiike

@mitu Got it. I cant upload text files, sorry about the mess. I'll edit it better once i know how.

Parameters:
Executing: bash /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc/+Start\ DOSBox.sh "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc/DosBoxDaggerfall.conf"
DOSBox version SVN
Copyright 2002-2013 DOSBox Team, published under GNU GPL.

CONFIG:Loading primary settings from config file /home/pi/.dosbox/dosbox-SVN.conf
ALSA:Can't subscribe to MIDI port (65:0) nor (17:0)
MIDI:Opened device:none
One joystick reported, initializing with 4axis
Using joystick PLAYSTATION(R)3 Controller with 29 axes, 17 buttons and 0 hat(s)

1 pc
2 dosbox
3 /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc/DosBoxDaggerfall.conf
4 bash /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc/+Start\ DOSBox.sh "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc/DosBoxDaggerfall.conf"

mitu

@squiike What does the DosBoxDaggerfall.conf file contain ? Can you paste the file's contents, surrounded by code blocks delimiters (```).

Getting GOG cd games to run on Retropie

Parameters: Executing: bash /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc/+Start\ DOSBox.sh "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc/DosBoxDaggerfall.conf" DOSBox version SVN Copyright 2002-2013 DOSBox Team, published under GNU GPL.

Parameters:
Executing: bash /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc/+Start\ DOSBox.sh "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc/DosBoxDaggerfall.conf"
DOSBox version SVN
Copyright 2002-2013 DOSBox Team, published under GNU GPL.