I hope we are getting DOSBox Pure at some point.

acril

@xwons thank you for your writeup - it was really helpful. I had one issue with EmulStation which did not want to load my DOS games. It was actually my fault, because I was making changes in /home/pi/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg earlier and it seams that it has higher priority to /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg.

Now I have different issue -> I have poor performance on DOSBox Pure 0.5 (display is fine I guess, but sound is bad).

Probably I messed up with Retroarch configuration, but I am not sure what exactly. Could anyone share some screenshots of Retroarch options directly from game? I 've tried to make some tweaks but with bad results.

BTW, I am on RPI 4B, 2GB RAM, overclocked: arm 1850, gpu 750, v3d 750, overvoltage 5. Probably not relevant, because other platforms works just fine.

acril

Update to previous message:
I am able to successfully play games (without weird sound) when started RetroArch directly from RetroPie menu instead of starting the game from PC / MS DOS menu. I checked configuration I've tried copy saved config file when everything seams to working directly to /opt/retropie/configs/pc/retroarch.cfg and ~/.config/retroarch/config/dosbox_pure_libretro.cfg, but sound is the same.

I am confused, why opening with RetroPie menu -> RetroArch works well and opening directly a game from Emulastation creates such crackling noise...

ZzackK

When will be add to experimental packets in retropie?

BenMcLean

The problem with DOSBOX Pure is that its format encourages game rips which is bad for game preservation because we need to preserve installation media. DOS needs a standard archiving format which includes installation media and (for CD games) disc images.

hooperre

@benmclean Do you mind explaining why it encourages game rips over full disc images?

retro81

@themazingness awesome lr fork! Just a small question: anyone knows the game names on minute 2:00 and 3:00? I remember playing these years ago but can’t remember the names! Thanks

retro81

Found them with google lens: Xenon 2 and Jagged Alliance ;-)

BenMcLean

@hooperre said in I hope we are getting DOSBox Pure at some point.:

Do you mind explaining why it encourages game rips over full disc images?

Cause all it does is run game rips and treats the game rips like as if they're console ROMs. If that format is popularized for DOS games then the installation media won't get preserved.

Might be better if the "console ROM" like part had the installation media in it and the "save state" like part was where the installed version went.

themazingness

@benmclean Interesting point. I'd counter that it encourages archiving formats and archiving is preservation. I'd also argue that it isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. As an SVN it is a branch of DosBox, not the definitive one. It's merely one option.

I've settled on DosBox-X because it actually feels like I'm using DOS. I think it's cool that this one focuses a bit more on making it a console like experience.

As romantic as your idea sounds, floppies and cds are all volatile and won't last forever. CDs scratch. Floppies are an endangered species and easily deteriorate. I admire the idea of preserving these as best as possible though.

dinth

@benmclean said in I hope we are getting DOSBox Pure at some point.:

Cause all it does is run game rips and treats the game rips like as if they're console ROMs. If that format is popularized for DOS games then the installation media won't get preserved.

I understand your concerns about the preservation of installation media for dos games and I support the cause - keep all my original media backed up on a NAS and crashplan and take pride of my collection. But on the other hand, often i just want to play a game on my TV with a gamepad in my hand and then Dosbox-pure is perfect for me, not only allowing me to play old games but also having an added benefit of treating them as a console game - just switch on the tv, choose a game and jump straight into it. I believe those are two completely different use cases and its great that now both have dedicated tools.

BTW. Dosbox-pure is now available in experimental repo of RetroPie and so far it works perfectly fine on Raspberry 4

patomax

I'm testing it on a Rpi 3B + and it works flawlessly with Fuzzy and Little Big Adventure, my only complaint is that it saves the configuration to a .zip file in the same Rom folder, and ES confuses it with a game.

I saw that you can change the extension of the games to .dosz, I will have to do that for a while and remove it from looking for .zip files from es_config.

I also noticed that it detects the .map files automatically

retro81

@patomax there’s an easier workaround for this: change the default retroarch settings from saving saves to <content directory> to a folder of your choice, in my case I created “saves” in the default retroarch config fldr along with all the other retroarch stuff

williambarty

@xwons

Thanks so much for posting the step-by-step installation guide for DOSBox Pure -- incredibly clear and helpful!

patomax

@retro81 1332 / 5000
thank you, but in the end I decided to leave them in .dosz format because anyway you have to create the compressed file and in Pegasus frontend a strange bug happens that takes files from other folders.
These are the games that I put in dosbox Pure.

alt text

some games where the control configuration is detected automatically are missing important keys, for example in Pinball Illusion there is the ESC key to exit the table but the Y key is missing to confirm, in prince of persia 2 the ENTER key is missing to change options, the on-screen keyboard helps but does not always look good and the idea is to avoid its use if there are still buttons available on the control to use, at least they can still be assigned one by one, but key combinations cannot be assigned or at least I don't know how to do it.

I tried the MT-32 ROM I had in lr-scummvm in PURE and surprisingly it works, in some games it does not affect performance but in others it affects them in certain sections, more tests are required.

Some games that used images and that I transferred from my old Dosbox installation did not work, the best option is to just compress the image and install the game, the .Zip file works like the virtual hard disk. The games I install from GoG such as LBA have .Bin and .Cue images but they have the extensions changed to .GoG and .Dat respectively, they must be renamed and the emulator detects them.

that for now, I'll keep adding games.

retro81

@patomax nice collection and good analysis! Either using dosz or zip is fine, what I was referring to is about changing the location of the saves, which is far better than messing with the ES xml

Shaggy1

I wanted to thank everyone in this thread. Dosbox pure on retropie has changed my dos emulation experience tremendously. I have tested about 10 games in eXodos zip format and found complete compatibility. To sum up the customizations I have made based upon this thread:

Placed game archives in ~/RetroPie/roms/pc folder, renaming to .dosz instead of .zip
Updated libretro config to place saves in ~/.config/retroarch/dosbox-saves

Further:

Customized es_systems to refer to the .dosz extension.
Compiled a modified Skyscraper fork to recognize .dosz for “pc” screen scraper.

So far scraping is about 90% accurate when using the eXodos files.

This is so much better than the shell scripts needed for dosbox. I will never go back.

hooperre

Has anyone successfully set an auto-boot? I set it and it's gone the next time I open one.

retro81

@hooperre yes, it works fine for me, check permissions on the config files maybe

hooperre

@retro81 Are you aware of what config files are used? I don't mind doing them manually. I have tried both .dosz and .zip files, neither with success. Both are being used on a USB thumb, so I'm not sure if that's what's causing the problem.

patomax

@hooperre When you define an autoboot, a .zip file is created with the name of the game.save, it acts as the virtual disk and inside it places a text file called AUTOBOOT.DBP. it simply contains the name of the executable for example C: \ START.EXE

if this file is not being created it may be lack of permissions within the roms folder or wherever it is creating the gamename.save.zip file