dosbox, now with 100% less drama

[Murdock]

I was wondering if anyone had gotten wacky wheels to work with the psp.
I couldn't get it to run as i keep getting this message about cfg file not being able to read/write.

I make sure the file is not read only, but every time i run it, the error pops up, and when i check it on the memory stick, lo and behold its read only again.

anyone have tips or have run into the same problems?

Wacky Wheels Shareware Ver. 1.1 worx. Even though the race itself is unplayable at medium details and sound enabled, I think u could get it to a playable status with reducing detail and disabling sound emulation ... but I am not sure ... but it loaded, I got ingame and was able to drive. So it seems to be a problem with ur version of the game ...

Oh, and I'll add it to the list of working games with the hint that it doesn't run at 100 % speed

[EDIT]: If u r interested, I got it from here: http://www.abandonline.com/gameinfo.php?id=12

U have to install it first. Can be done with dosbox on the PSP, BUT it leaves u an ww1.exe ... that's not the game but an archive. Connect ur PSP to ur computer and extract it by clicking at it in the explorer ... then u'll get the real game's files ... u can delete the two files that were there beforehand ... don't know why u have to use Windows to extract it, but Dos Navigator always gave me an error ... maybe I made sth. wrong ... u can also try to extract it with dosbox.

Oh, and if u manage to get it working at a playable speed, tell me how ... I'll add this information in the Manual then!

[Nerd42]

haven't tried wacky wheels yet

I wasn't making an argument before, but now I am: why the heck are we going with an input system based on QWERTY? QWERTY was designed to SLOW DOWN typing in the first place, so that the old typewriters wouldn't jam as much! there's no reason worry that the PSP is going to jam from typing too fast

[Murdock]

haven't tried wacky wheels yet

This isn't about wacky wheels ... Ihe just said that there might be an error caused by Dosbox 4 PSP (at least I read it like this), that's why I tried to play the game and it worked ... so it was not a problem of Dosbox ... Basically, I did him a favour and told him that it worx and how he can get it to work ... Let's just focus on reporting errors, issues and questions about Dosbox. Guess this might advance the application fastest, 'cause Crazy can fix errors faster, I guess.

I wasn't making an argument before, but now I am: why the heck are we going with an input system based on QWERTY? QWERTY was designed to SLOW DOWN typing in the first place, so that the old typewriters wouldn't jam as much! there's no reason worry that the PSP is going to jam from typing too fast

Ehm sorry, but I don't know whether I got ur point: R u telling us that the way p-sprint uses the PSP buttons is bad? Well, then u might want to complain about this at the place the guys of p-spring are ... p-sprint is used by Crazy, but not made by him! He uses it (I guess) because he thinks it's a cool way of input. If u want p-spring changed, complain where it's made.
And why r u talking about a keyboard layout anyway?! sorry, but I guess this has nothing to do with Dosbox for PSP. Or I'm simply not getting ur point. If that's the case, I'M sorry and I think I'm out of the discussion then.

[Nerd42]

R u telling us that the way p-sprint uses the PSP buttons is bad?

Yes. Read up on the QWERTY layout here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY

Well, then u might want to complain about this at the place the guys of p-spring are ... p-sprint is used by Crazy, but not made by him! He uses it (I guess) because he thinks it's a cool way of input. If u want p-spring changed, complain where it's made.

What I'm saying is I think the whole concept behind p-sprint is fundamentally flawed. CrazyC could use Danzeff, another open source on-screen keyboard layout for the PSP that is geared toward users being able to find letters quickly on the PSP, not toward the absurd QWERTY layout.

And why r u talking about a keyboard layout anyway?! sorry, but I guess this has nothing to do with Dosbox for PSP.

Sure it does. If we had a better keyboard input system, like Danzeff, it would be way easier to type! We wouldn't have to memorize 26 different button combinations. If you have time to memorize all those, there's gotta be something wrong with your lifestyle - gotta be a bigger geek than me anyway.

[Murdock]

If you have time to memorize all those, there's gotta be something wrong with your lifestyle - gotta be a bigger geek than me anyway.

Okay, u wanna argue about the input method? Feel free to .. but I guess no1 will take part in this discussion ... if u look @ the old thread, then u'll see that this was discussed with Crazy ... he promised to add a REAL OSK asap ... but it's not his highest priority ... and I can understand him somehow: He once said that he's neither coding this for our amusement nor for fame ... but or himself! He's just sharing it with us (as far as I remember and I've understood him). So if he feels this is a cool input method, then I assume he has no reason to change it.

Besides: can u type w/o looking at the keyboard? Following ur logic, then u could tell which button comes after the last one, right? I bet u can't ... u can type like that cuz it becomes intuitive after a while. Same here ... no1 needs to be a geek ... and nope, I have a hard time to deal with p-sprint! But there's a little aid if u have to type with it. But 95% of the time, I simply use DosNavigator or Norton Commander or write little scripts ... and I'd recommend you to do so, too. Then u may find some more important errors when u start playing with DosBox and u can contribute to improving it :)

[Nerd42]

if u look @ the old thread, then u'll see that this was discussed with Crazy ... he promised to add a REAL OSK asap ... but it's not his highest priority ... and I can understand him somehow: He once said that he's neither coding this for our amusement nor for fame ... but or himself! He's just sharing it with us (as far as I remember and I've understood him).

Yeah, that's cool, but it's like driving to save money in a situation where a plane would be cheaper since if you took the plane, you wouldn't need pay for a week's worth of food and motels and would save money by renting a car once you got to your destination - it's more difficult at every step to take your own car when compared to flying. If you took your own car, you'd get there but if you took a plane, you'd get there much faster for less money. It's easier to do something the right way in the first place, see what I'm saying?

I'm glad to hear it's eventually going to be fixed. I just hope it's done before the PSP becomes completely obsolete :)

Besides: can u type w/o looking at the keyboard?

Yes I can. At 72 words per minute, (according to an online test I took that didn't take accuracy into account) I'm a freaking Mavis Beacon. The trick is the two little bumps on the F and J keys. Your index fingers go there. Lots of people can type without looking at the keys. But I don't think the QWERTY layout makes any sense for the PSP - since it doesn't have a keyboard, why chain it to a layout that only continues to be used because it's the status quo? I'm glad that OpenPandora http://openpandora.org/ is using QWERTY since it has an actual keyboard, but since the PSP doesn't (and cell phones don't either) basing the layout on QWERTY is nonsense

But 95% of the time, I simply use DosNavigator or Norton Commander or write little scripts ... and I'd recommend you to do so, too. Then u may find some more important errors when u start playing with DosBox and u can contribute to improving it :)

Yeah ... I will have to set up something like that when I have time, which unfortunately doesn't look soon.

The whole point of my wanting to use this is for long car trips so I won't have to take my laptop in order to play DOS games

[MK2k]

CrazyC: I hope you have interest in jubes touchscreen project. Jube is sending out free dev units and Dosbox would be one of those PSP projects which could defo need a touchscreen support :)
details: http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?t=10136

[susiapfelsaft]

pspdosbox with IR keyboard support

has anyone ever succesfully used the "Targus Universal wireless keyboard" in pspdosbox? (I'm talking of pspdosbox's native IR keyboard support and not of any solutions with plugins like pikey)

If so please tell me your

* pspdosbox version
* cfw version
* settings (pspirkeyb.ini, dosbox.conf?, ...)

thanks a lot,
christian

[bulldog]

I would like to invite everyone to read my howto on configuring DOSBox for both the PC and the PSP using the PSP memory card. This allows you to do software installs and configuring on the PC and then once a game is working, you can play it on the PSP. Here is the link to my howto post:

Bulldog's Ultimate PSP DOSBox Howto

Please, check it out and let me know what you think!

[gnomeoncrack]

Thanks for hte quick reply Murdock

I was wondering if there was an updated list of compatible games for PSP dosbox since in your manual it said it was not up to date.

Picked up a dos games collection at a fleamarket years ago and dying to try them out

it included star control I and II and some others

[Murdock]

Thanks for hte quick reply Murdock

I was wondering if there was an updated list of compatible games for PSP dosbox since in your manual it said it was not up to date.

I added this note some revisions ago, since Crazy has changed/optimized the code. I do not know whether all the games I've once tried still work or work with the same or better performance. I've tried Settlers 2 yesterday for example, and it did not gain a speed improvement. Alien Breed - Tower Assault for example runs a little more fluidly. Warcraft runs at a playable speed now, but not at max ... rather slowly, but playable.

Anyway ... if u try them out, take down some notes about how they run and post ur results here. With this, u could contribute to the manual. If u drop me a line or two about how games work, I'll surely mention ur name ;)

would like to invite everyone to read my howto on configuring DOSBox for both the PC and the PSP using the PSP memory card. This allows you to do software installs and configuring on the PC and then once a game is working, you can play it on the PSP.

Hey, nice tut :) Wasn't aware that this is possible. However, I've read through it swiftly and I think u should expand it a little bit: U may explain a little more what these lines of script mean and how they work.

[bulldog]

Hey, nice tut :) Wasn't aware that this is possible. However, I've read through it swiftly and I think u should expand it a little bit: U may explain a little more what these lines of script mean and how they work.

Thanks for the input, I do plan to add more comments given time, but if you check the last section you will see that I attempted to offer more explanation. I wanted to keep the "get up and running" section as brief as I could. I also intend to clean up my attempt of listing the controls and buttons for INPUTMAP. I just have to sit down and make a table out of it. I think that everyone here can benefit from the work I did on this. Running your games from a menu is way easier than any of the shell programs I have fiddled with. Especially, since you get to configure it on your PC.

[andrewwan1980]

Hey everyone, I am trying to get HDM 5.04 - Hard Disk

INPUTMAP EXEC HDM4DOS %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
i

Bulldog, did you get this to work? So you would call this prince_psp.bat like batch file which contains the above line... but passing arguments to prince_psp.bat.. eg. prince_psp.bat 4312 4321

and it would pass these to HDM4DOS. Did you get this to work?

[andrewwan1980]

Yes, there is in deed a 1.9 version of DosBox ... to be

Now I have changed it to
imgmount c ms0:/c.img -size 512,63,16,111 -t hdd -fs fat
imgmount d ms0:/d.img -size 512,63,16,304 -t hdd -fs fat

1.9c still the latest Murdock PDF file?

And to make img files read/write we just add those size/t/fs parameters yeah? Otherwise if we omit the size/t/fs then the mount becomes readonly (according to your easy Windows 3.11).

Is there a difference between using .iso and .img?

That's really cool Murdock. We can use the same hd image files for both DOSBox & bochsPSP. So if something crashes in one we can switch to the other to continue an switch back and forth, etc.

(the only prob about bochsPSP is no keyboard support, just badly written mouse)

Also, some comments about your tough Windows 3.11 installation. You can install DOS 6.22 & Windows 3.11 directly to a new HD image via bochs in native Windows. This should get past any errors if installing via DOSBox. Plus it's advisable to get people acquinted with bochs settings so that they get accustommed to those HD settings/numbers.

[bulldog]

Hey everyone, I am trying to get HDM 5.04 - Hard Disk

INPUTMAP EXEC HDM4DOS %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
i

Bulldog, did you get this to work? So you would call this prince_psp.bat like batch file which contains the above line... but passing arguments to prince_psp.bat.. eg. prince_psp.bat 4312 4321

and it would pass these to HDM4DOS. Did you get this to work?

OK, it looks like you are referring to an older post I made when I was still figuring out how to get the HDM menu to work correctly on the PSP DOSBox. I did figure out a workaround. It is rather convoluted. The main issue is that HDM doesn't like the INPUTMAP command to execute a game. So I basically create a custom batch file for each game, then use a macro command in HDM to automate exiting the menu and running the batch file. This way, the HDM program is not in memory and won't get errors because of the INPUTMAP command. Please, read my howto for a step-by-step on configuring it.

Bulldog's Ultimate PSP DOSBox Howto

andrewwan1980, pay close attention to the part about the custom batch files for Commander Keen and Kyrandia. That should give you a guideline for customizing one for Prince of Persia (I think that is what you are trying to do, right?). Always start by copying the _BlankNEW.BAT file and renaming it for the game. Try to keep the file name short (maybe PRINCEP1.BAT or something similar), it helps.

btw, I recently cleaned up my HOWTO post so that I now have a nice READABLE table of PSP input values and PC input values for the INPUTMAP command.

I do plan to add more detail to my HOWTO, also I think I might start a thread on my website to post all the custom batch files for each game.

[gnomeoncrack]

I got star control 2 to run. Sound and music is a bit garbled and it does slow down the game. However, if you turn off the sound, it runs perfectly, although the music was one of hte best parts of that game :-(

I was also wondering how you bind function keys like F10 and F1 to psp buttons in the .bat files

Thanks for hte quick reply Murdock

I was wondering if there was an updated list of compatible games for PSP dosbox since in your manual it said it was not up to date.

I added this note some revisions ago, since Crazy has changed/optimized the code. I do not know whether all the games I've once tried still work or work with the same or better performance. I've tried Settlers 2 yesterday for example, and it did not gain a speed improvement. Alien Breed - Tower Assault for example runs a little more fluidly. Warcraft runs at a playable speed now, but not at max ... rather slowly, but playable.

Anyway ... if u try them out, take down some notes about how they run and post ur results here. With this, u could contribute to the manual. If u drop me a line or two about how games work, I'll surely mention ur name ;)

would like to invite everyone to read my howto on configuring DOSBox for both the PC and the PSP using the PSP memory card. This allows you to do software installs and configuring on the PC and then once a game is working, you can play it on the PSP.

Hey, nice tut :) Wasn't aware that this is possible. However, I've read through it swiftly and I think u should expand it a little bit: U may explain a little more what these lines of script mean and how they work.

[Murdock]

Hey gnome ...

thx for the info about Star Control 2 ... personally, I don't know this game but I added the information in the manual :) u'll see if I upload the next revision ;)

To your question: afaik it is not possible to bind the function keys to PSP buttons. But you can use p-sprint to type them ... do u need them for a game? usually, you don't have to have them available while playing, so if u just need them in menu, switch to p-sprint (I think it's both shoulder buttons + select + down arror, right?), change the layout to the function key one (don't remember how to do that atm) and u can use them ... if u change the layout one time, it will remain, so if u do it before starting the game, you can easyily access the function keys within seconds. I hope that helps u out!

[Murdock]

Hey Crazy ... anything new at the Dosbox front? :)

What r u working on currently? I guess u don't have much time to improve your project, right? ...

But what can we expect in the next release? Maybe speed improvement? xD or an OSK? What are you doing right now?

:)

[crazyc]

Hey Crazy ... anything new at the Dosbox front?

I have a couple of things I'm trying to get to work, but don't expect anything new very soon.

[Murdock]

I have a couple of things I'm trying to get to work, but don't expect anything new very soon.

Nah, I won't ... thought so that u r busy with the rest of ur life ;) But keep up ur work and don't forget about us Dosbox fans :D

[Damaja]

Hey guys.

I'm really trying to get the DOS game Noctis to run on the PSP. I'm using the August 3rd, 2008 build. Is that the newest one?

Also.. I'm using the default conf file.. is there any kind of code cleanup I can do in there to speed it up? Noctis has no sound, so the 'nosound'.. I can set to true?

The original screen resolution is 320 x 200.. if you need to know.

Any ideas of how I could speed this up? If anyone is interested in the game, the link is http://www.anywherebb.com/postline/inde ... hhT4s6Spx5

The Go!.exe is a windows executable.. so you'd need to mount the MODULES folder.. and run the noctis.exe in DOSBox to play it on the PSP.

Here's the thing though... the game is controlled almost completely by the mouse, using the mouse, and the left and right mouse buttons. Does DOSBox support the left and right mouse buttons?



EDIT.. sorry for the long post.
I uploaded a .zip.. all you need to do is copy it to your GAME150 folder for CFW users. The game is unplayable, but if someone could work around the coding.. or tell me how.. I'd be glad to get Noctis to work on the PSP. Should I just create a new thread for this, and ask for help there?

Here's the link.. http://www.sendspace.com/file/vtod62

[umpa]

Hi, sorry for bad english (I'm Italian)

First thanks for dosbox Psp(I play with Dune,Shadow of the comet and Alone in the dark)

Now, i have a problem with 2 game:

1)Dungeon master 2 ( I rename the dos32a.exe in DOS4GW.exe but not work)



2)Dreamweb:Audio works but the screen is black

Can you fix this problem ?

Thanks

[gold2040]

for Dreamweb the sound is inaudible and the video is non existant, apparently the non AGA Amiga version works, but I haven't managed to get it running
I will try Dungeon Master 2 for you, and get back

[Inverse Square]

I'm getting an error when I try to play system shock: I've installed it, and now I'm trying to run it. I get this error an error, and it says:

Common problem solutions:
* Increase FILES in config.sys to 30 or more.
* Disable SMARTDRV write caching
* Use a minimal config.sys and autoexec.bat

There's no config.sys or autoexec files. In dosbox.conf, there's an opportunity to have it obey an outside file that is, a place in it that shows

config =

And says that you can put a file on there that it will obey. Can I use this? or is there a way to access confi.sys?

[someone]

Hey all,
I've gotten master of orion 2 loaded on my psp, I'm just looking for a few tweaks to make it playable. music is a bit stecchato. I guess I'll try nosound next. Does memsize max out at 10? I'm also going to play around with the frameskip options and see if that helps. Feel free to chime in if anyone else is interested in this game.

[robert980]

Can anybody help me...?!
I have downloaded Dosbox PSP 26.07.08 with dosbox.patch.gz but if I use the patch-file in the same directory as *.gz or extract it to dosbox.patch it seems to change nothing.

I have no kind of keyboard, and which buttons I press on my psp, I can't use it. I can't start the filemanager (as seen on pictures looking like Norton Commander).

I think thats because of wrong handling with that patchfile.
I can't find information about proper handling nowhere, and believe me, I used google many times.

[Murdock]

Here's a little help for those who have trouble handling DosBox, my manual ... aparently, ppl. still do not read through the entire post ... somehow understandable but instead of searching through goole for an hour, why not looking into the rest of the thread?

Anyway .. here's the manual:
http://rapidshare.com/files/134003253/D ... k_1.9c.pdf

I's not complete, but atm I'm not working on it. But I think there are a lot of useful hints for rookies :)

Concerning the questions about the games:

U simply have to try out what worx and what doesn#t ... some games crash for unknown reason. However, if u have the possibility to make a screenshot or take a picture of the screen, post it here and give some additional information (such as Firmware Version, etc.). I am sure as soon as Crazy has some spare time, he'll also look at the errors and crashes.

But as I said, some games simply work and others don't ... in my manual, there's also a small compatibility list. Feel free to post what games worked for u and which didn't ... if they worked, it'd be nice to tell HOW GOOD they work (e.g. with/without sound, at full speed or stuttery, etc.)

[robert980]

alright thanks

[Soczi]

Ugh... I finally made it to the source...

Good people... I need your help. The thing is I have been playing with DOSBox PSP for a week or so. I use it for only one reason: Heroes of Might & Magic 2. Yes... My other favourites are either running horribly slow or not running at all. HOMM2 runs fine until the end of each turn when it wants to make a save game. The autosave file exists, it is not read-only - I have been changing attributes for the whole HOMM2 folder - and still the game crashes with a message "Error opening path to file". It seems DOSBox has problems with writing to files - I also can't save my config settings.

I know you have discussed it here. I know that image mounting can somehow overcome this, but I don't know how to do it. I am launching Win95 and Win3.11 from IMG files and I see that they have no problems with writing files inside the IMG. So can someone help me make an HOMM2 image or whatever so it can save games?

Or perhaps, even better, someone can tell me how to add new files to the existing Win95 or Win3.11 IMG files. Then I probably could run games from these systems with the games being inside the Win IMG file. Then probably they could make saves inside the IMG too.

I think I'm am using the newest DOSBox - I got it from here:
http://psp.wijou.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=86&st=20

It's running a program named DSB.EXE made by Gaby_64 to launch the Windows images. I even managed to recompile this program a little for some cosmetic changes. But I guess that is not the point...

Please... I really need your help. Windows on PSP is really cool but it is not enough to keep my 200MB on the MS occupied, so please help mi with the HOMM2 :) ...

My PSP: PSP-1000 FAT, MS - Sandisk 8GB

[Soczi]

OK, I managed on my own...

I was able to inject HOMM2 into an IMG file made in Bochs and mount it. It ran, it could save games inside the IMG but the performance was miserable. Unplayable on my FAT. The performance, while not using IMG, was good but when the games ran from the IMG then it began to be tragic. Too bad...