Hi! Bumping this thread from Jim. I think if the majority of
the games has palette issues, it could be VirtualBox or QEMU
just not properly emulating VGA, VESA, VBE etc., possibly also
depending on the color depth of the host operating system GUI.
Which versions and settings were used? Which variations tried?
Also, about the frequent crash/hang/etc. problems, did it make
a difference which memory managers and/or DOS extenders such
as a pre-loaded DPMIONE, DOS32A, CWSDPMI etc. were used, and
which virtual computer settings were used? Have you tried HIMEM
versus XMGR, with and without JEMM386, optionally JEMMEX instead?
Floppybird seems to be one of a few games with stable colors?
And maybe PakuPaku and Tetris, minus the art licensing issue
with the latter? I have omitted the license discussion below,
because the virtual graphics card and crash issues seem to be
more "hardware" specific and your mail sort of focuses on how
well the two emulators can run DOS games. Senet, Zimy and Smiley
also work for you, so the question is which graphics modes have
which problems. My guess would be MCGA working, but VBE not?
Regards, Eric
...
I am testing on both VirtualBox ("VB") and QEMU. (I don't seem to have
sound set up properly on VirtualBox, but it works fine on QEMU. If
someone else uses VirtualBox and has sound working, please share your
config info.)
...
Bolitaire (Freecell-like game)
VB: Plays fine, but the screen just goes to black after I exit, never
goes to the command prompt
QEMU: Doesn't even start, just reboots my virtual machine
Boom (Doom-like game)
VB: Plays fine, but I don't have my sound set up so I don't get sound
QEMU: Doesn't start, just aborts with "Illegal instruction"
...
Dosdef (Defender-like game)
VB: Doesn't start, I get a Jemm386 exception. If I reboot without
Jemm386, I get "Interrupt divide by zero."
QEMU: Doesn't run, just a blank screen.
...
Empong (Pong-like game)
VB: Plays fine, but my VB isn't set up for sound
QEMU: Completely unplayable; I get a beep, then the game seems to
freeze, then my turn is over.
Ev4de (space flight game)
VB: Plays fine. Feels a bit sluggish...
QEMU: Doesn't run, I get "Fatal error! Error code 5"
Ewsnake (snake game)
VB: Plays fine, but I think the colors are messed up (hard to tell
because it doesn't use much of a palette)
QEMU: Plays fine, and the graphics palette seems correct here
...
Fmines (minesweeper game)
VB: Plays fine, but really slooow to load, probably because
it's loading a huge image
QEMU: Plays fine, but takes a long time to do anything, so
long that I thought my virtual machine had stopped
How about using UHDD or similar, possibly with the BIOS mode
option in case your virtual computers have broken UDMA? It
would of course be even better if they emulate UDMA properly!
Also, have you tried whether a ramdisk made the game faster?
Freedoom/SMMU (Doom-like game)
VB: Plays fine, but I don't have my sound set up (see Boom)
QEMU: Doesn't start, I just get "Illegal instruction" (see Boom)
GNU Chess (chess game)
VB: Plays okay, but you need to load NANSI to play this one
QEMU: Same; plays okay, but you need to load NANSI first
**But this doesn't really seem like a good chess game. Is there a
better open source chess game for DOS out there?
Do you mean in terms of strength in playing or in terms of
looks? I think the GNU Chess and Go games are primarily just
engines, which you can combine with nicer looking GUIs. Of
course, computer opponents have grown a lot stronger now,
but that probably requires multi core, multi GB RAM, GPGPU?
Hangman (hangman game)
VB: Plays okay
QEMU: Starts up, but I can't start a game. I get "Illegal function
call in module HANGMAN at address 02dd:0745" when I start any game.
**This seems like a primitive Hangman game. Is there a better open
source version out there?
Ivan (Rogue-style game)
VB: Plays ok
QEMU: Starts up okay, but really slow to load. I'm also
getting some "double keypress" problems on this game.
Kraptor (Raptor-like game)
VB: The graphics palette is messed up. I tried to quit, but then
nothing happened. I think it froze up trying to quit.
QEMU: Plays fine. Keyboard is faster than the mouse.
Liquiwar (unique multiplayer strategy game)
VB: The graphics palette is messed up. I tried to quit, but then
nothing happened. I think it froze up trying to quit.
QEMU: Starts up okay, but really slw to start.
Mirror Magic (puzzle game)
VB: The graphics palette is messed up. I tried to quit, but then
nothing happened. I think it froze up trying to quit.
QEMU: Plays fine, and I get sound
Mistral (turn-based spy RPG game)
VB: Plays okay
QEMU: Starts up okay, and I get sound, but I get the "double keypress"
problem and can't select Quit.
Nethack (text explorer game)
VB: Plays okay.
QEMU: Plays okay, but I get the "double keypress" problem so I keep
skipping over things
NGE Nibbles (snake game)
VB: The text fade in/out is really slow,
