Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Bryan Kilgallin]

Thanks, Herminio:

Has anyone watched this review of FreeDOS 1.3 by a Retro Gamer on 
YouTube.


It's a great review, testing many games.

I haven't yet installed 1.3. I'm afraid of wrecking Frank's wonderful 
networking. If it ain't broke

--
members.iinet.net.au/~kilgallin/


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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Robert Riebisch]

Hi Jim,

> One program to fix the "runtime error 200" is Robert and Marek's TSR
> tool, which we include in FreeDOS 1.3:
> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.3/pkg-html/tp7p5fix.html

Robert here. I noticed, TP7P5FIX is not working for all software, but I
didn't investigate this.

I had good results with
. (Sources:
)

Cheers,
Robert
-- 
  +++ BTTR Software +++
 Home page: https://www.bttr-software.de/
DOS ain't dead: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/


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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Carlos Teixeira]

I use a Pentium MMX as my fastest dedicated PC for DOS and i usually
downclock it to 50MHz FSB x 2. If some games still have issues i can use
SETMUL to manipulate Pentium TR4 registers, which allow to disable
exclusively CPU features like Instruction Cache, Data Cache, Branch
Prediction and V-Pipelining. This helps me get around the specific Runtime
Error 200 cause by Borland Turbo Pascal compiler.

Another common issue is the "Packed File is Corrupt" error. It happens
because binaries compressed by Microsoft's EXEPACK actually uses the wrap
around at the top of 1MB. In real mode CPU's this is never an issue, but on
systems with the A20 gate on and the EXE loaded in the first 64kb of memory
the .EXE will decompress incorrectly leading to that error. Just mentioning
this because some people might mistake it for a problem with FreeDOS.
Curiously, the error reported in Tyrian by the user João seems to have
happened exactly in the first 64kb of memory, though it is not an EXEPACK
error but the infamous Turbo Pascal bug.

I am mostly certain that Tyrian will run fine on FreeDOS 1.3 and i should
be able to test that tomorrow.

On Thu, Mar 10, 2022 at 5:15 PM Bret Johnson  wrote:

> I heard/read somewhere that the "Runtime Error 200" was actually caused
> some sort of subroutine that was trying to figure out how fast the computer
> is.  It's certainly ironic that it doesn't work on really fast computers
> since that's exactly the "problem" it's trying to address.
>
> The other interesting thing about it is that in most programs there is no
> legitimate need to know how fast the computer is (the program is bloated
> and wasting time trying to figure out something it doesn't even need to
> know).  Of course, with some programs (like interactive games) the speed of
> interaction is critical, but those are the exceptions.  A well-written
> program (even an interactive game) wouldn't rely on a specific speed of
> computer, anyway, as long as the computer was some "minimum".
>
> It's also interesting that CPU speeds are pretty much maxed out at a few
> GHz.  For a long time it looked like they were going to be able to keep
> increasing CPU speeds, but they've pretty much reached the physical limits
> of electrical physics.  They've needed to figure out other ways of
> increasing speeds besides creating faster oscillators.
>
> Some of the early attempts were things like pipelining in the CPU
> (performing two CPU instructions at once) and caching, but the most common
> solution nowadays is multiple cores/CPU's.  Of course, that takes special
> programming techniques and lots of complication at both the hardware and
> software level.  They're also experimenting with things like optical and
> quantum computing, and even things like  "three-dimensional" CPU's where
> the different parts of the CPU send signals with back and forth with
> magnetic waves or photons instead of signals running along "wires".
>
> The other interesting thing is that people are still obsessed with speed,
> but sometimes speed is your enemy instead of your friend.  I remember
> talking to a guy one time who used to be in the Air Force and he talked
> about how they still sometimes use prop-driven planes instead of jets
> because the jets are too fast to do the specific job they're trying to
> accomplish.
>
> Anyway, just some passing thoughts.
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Bret Johnson]

I heard/read somewhere that the "Runtime Error 200" was actually caused some 
sort of subroutine that was trying to figure out how fast the computer is.  
It's certainly ironic that it doesn't work on really fast computers since 
that's exactly the "problem" it's trying to address.

The other interesting thing about it is that in most programs there is no 
legitimate need to know how fast the computer is (the program is bloated and 
wasting time trying to figure out something it doesn't even need to know).  Of 
course, with some programs (like interactive games) the speed of interaction is 
critical, but those are the exceptions.  A well-written program (even an 
interactive game) wouldn't rely on a specific speed of computer, anyway, as 
long as the computer was some "minimum".

It's also interesting that CPU speeds are pretty much maxed out at a few GHz.  
For a long time it looked like they were going to be able to keep increasing 
CPU speeds, but they've pretty much reached the physical limits of electrical 
physics.  They've needed to figure out other ways of increasing speeds besides 
creating faster oscillators.

Some of the early attempts were things like pipelining in the CPU (performing 
two CPU instructions at once) and caching, but the most common solution 
nowadays is multiple cores/CPU's.  Of course, that takes special programming 
techniques and lots of complication at both the hardware and software level.  
They're also experimenting with things like optical and quantum computing, and 
even things like  "three-dimensional" CPU's where the different parts of the 
CPU send signals with back and forth with magnetic waves or photons instead of 
signals running along "wires".

The other interesting thing is that people are still obsessed with speed, but 
sometimes speed is your enemy instead of your friend.  I remember talking to a 
guy one time who used to be in the Air Force and he talked about how they still 
sometimes use prop-driven planes instead of jets because the jets are too fast 
to do the specific job they're trying to accomplish.

Anyway, just some passing thoughts. 


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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Joao Silva]

Hello.

Thank you Eric and Jim.

I'll do a search and i let you know how it turned out


On Thu, Mar 10, 2022 at 10:04 AM Jim Hall  wrote:

> One program to fix the "runtime error 200" is Robert and Marek's TSR tool,
> which we include in FreeDOS 1.3:
>
> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.3/pkg-html/tp7p5fix.html
>
>
> But as Eric said, you can find lots of tools on the Internet to fix this
> too. Or you can run SLOWDOWN as another workaround.
>
> On Thu, Mar 10, 2022, 2:30 AM Eric Auer  wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi! Runtime error 200 usually is an overflow in timing
>> code of Borland or Turbo Pascal, if you search the web
>> you will find various tools which patch it or work it
>> around :-) The overflow happens because your computer
>> is too fast. So you can also try to slow it down, e.g.
>> using FDAPM SPEEDn where n is a digit (but that might
>> crash, be prepared to hard-reset or power cycle if so)
>> or using various "SLOWDOWN" resident tools for DOS. As
>> runtime error 200 is widespread, as said there also are
>> tools which to either load as TSR (they will patch the
>> affected code in RAM) or can be used to modify affected
>> EXE files on disk (remember to backup the original EXE).
>>
>> Regards, Eric
>>
>>
>>
>> > Tyrian
>> >
>> > tyrian.exe - Runtime error 200 at 0006:374c
>> > setup.exe -  Runtime error 200 at 0002:24ED
>> >
>> > Fuzzy
>> >
>> > fuzzy.exe - Runtime error 200 at 0003:361B
>> > main.exe - Runtime error 200 at 0003:361B
>>
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Jim Hall]

One program to fix the "runtime error 200" is Robert and Marek's TSR tool,
which we include in FreeDOS 1.3:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.3/pkg-html/tp7p5fix.html


But as Eric said, you can find lots of tools on the Internet to fix this
too. Or you can run SLOWDOWN as another workaround.

On Thu, Mar 10, 2022, 2:30 AM Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi! Runtime error 200 usually is an overflow in timing
> code of Borland or Turbo Pascal, if you search the web
> you will find various tools which patch it or work it
> around :-) The overflow happens because your computer
> is too fast. So you can also try to slow it down, e.g.
> using FDAPM SPEEDn where n is a digit (but that might
> crash, be prepared to hard-reset or power cycle if so)
> or using various "SLOWDOWN" resident tools for DOS. As
> runtime error 200 is widespread, as said there also are
> tools which to either load as TSR (they will patch the
> affected code in RAM) or can be used to modify affected
> EXE files on disk (remember to backup the original EXE).
>
> Regards, Eric
>
>
>
> > Tyrian
> >
> > tyrian.exe - Runtime error 200 at 0006:374c
> > setup.exe -  Runtime error 200 at 0002:24ED
> >
> > Fuzzy
> >
> > fuzzy.exe - Runtime error 200 at 0003:361B
> > main.exe - Runtime error 200 at 0003:361B
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Eric Auer]

Hi! Runtime error 200 usually is an overflow in timing
code of Borland or Turbo Pascal, if you search the web
you will find various tools which patch it or work it
around :-) The overflow happens because your computer
is too fast. So you can also try to slow it down, e.g.
using FDAPM SPEEDn where n is a digit (but that might
crash, be prepared to hard-reset or power cycle if so)
or using various "SLOWDOWN" resident tools for DOS. As
runtime error 200 is widespread, as said there also are
tools which to either load as TSR (they will patch the
affected code in RAM) or can be used to modify affected
EXE files on disk (remember to backup the original EXE).

Regards, Eric




Tyrian

tyrian.exe - Runtime error 200 at 0006:374c
setup.exe -  Runtime error 200 at 0002:24ED

Fuzzy

fuzzy.exe - Runtime error 200 at 0003:361B
main.exe - Runtime error 200 at 0003:361B





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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Joao Silva]

Hello.

Tyrian

tyrian.exe - Runtime error 200 at 0006:374c
setup.exe -  Runtime error 200 at 0002:24ED

Fuzzy

fuzzy.exe - Runtime error 200 at 0003:361B
main.exe - Runtime error 200 at 0003:361B

Don't run on fdos 1.3, booted option 2 on a vm... i'll run on actual
hardware (modern board)

On Wed, Mar 9, 2022 at 11:13 PM Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi! DOSEMU2 expert Stas mentions his FDPP patch mentioning Test Drive 2:
>
>
> https://github.com/dosemu2/fdpp/commit/c6efa7a203c8aafe8da952d6405ad5dfb49fd469#diff-e9118389bd658345f94d54c6159dc16b60454e193c33f16184d4fd5526180329
>
> > @@ -156,6 +156,8 @@ CommonNdRdExit:   ; *** tell if key waiting
> and return its ASCII if yes
> >   add ah,[cs:_kbdType]
> > int 16h ; Get status, if zf=0
> al=char
> > jz  ConNdRd4; Jump if no char
> available
> > or  ax,ax   ; See if call was
> supported
> > jz  ConNdRd4; 0 (sometimes) means
> unsupported
> >   callchecke0 ; check for e0 scancode
> > or  ax,ax   ; Zero ?
> > jnz ConNdRd1; Jump if not zero
>
> However, FreeDOS 1.3 allegedly already has that patch?
>
> So other FDPP improvements compared to classic FreeDOS
> may be necessary to let TD2 run properly.
>
> Also, he points out that TD2 will not run from G: to Z:,
> it must be run from a drive letter in the range (A: ?) to F:
> Thanks for helping in spite of seeing us as competitors :-)
>
> Regards, Eric
>
> > games that won't run:
> >
> > - Alone in the Dark 1 and 2 (floppy versions only, CD versions run fine)
> > - Alpha Waves
> > - Empire Soccer
> > - Frontier Elite
> > - Grand Prix Circuit
> > - Test Drive 2
> > - The Cycles
> > - Tetris Classic
> > - Virtual Chess
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Eric Auer]

Hi! DOSEMU2 expert Stas mentions his FDPP patch mentioning Test Drive 2:

https://github.com/dosemu2/fdpp/commit/c6efa7a203c8aafe8da952d6405ad5dfb49fd469#diff-e9118389bd658345f94d54c6159dc16b60454e193c33f16184d4fd5526180329


@@ -156,6 +156,8 @@ CommonNdRdExit: ; *** tell if key waiting and 
return its ASCII if yes
add ah,[cs:_kbdType]
int 16h ; Get status, if zf=0  al=char
jz  ConNdRd4; Jump if no char available
or  ax,ax   ; See if call was supported
jz  ConNdRd4; 0 (sometimes) means 
unsupported
callchecke0 ; check for e0 scancode
or  ax,ax   ; Zero ?
jnz ConNdRd1; Jump if not zero


However, FreeDOS 1.3 allegedly already has that patch?

So other FDPP improvements compared to classic FreeDOS
may be necessary to let TD2 run properly.

Also, he points out that TD2 will not run from G: to Z:,
it must be run from a drive letter in the range (A: ?) to F:
Thanks for helping in spite of seeing us as competitors :-)

Regards, Eric


games that won't run:

- Alone in the Dark 1 and 2 (floppy versions only, CD versions run fine)
- Alpha Waves
- Empire Soccer
- Frontier Elite
- Grand Prix Circuit
- Test Drive 2
- The Cycles
- Tetris Classic
- Virtual Chess





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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Carlos Teixeira]

Hi Eric,



> (...) but my goal would still be finding out how
> to make all games work in FreeDOS - if necessary, by pointing out
> bugs in FreeDOS.
>

That's what i wish too. And i'll do my best to help. Because the moment
FreeDOS is better than MS-DOS in compatibility i'll never look back. Hoping
for that day to come soon.



> That said, in case you have Linux (not sure about the porting state
> of DOSEMU2 to Windows or other OS), could you test the games here
> with DOSEMU2 and FDPP? The FDPP module of DOSEMU2 is a port of the
> FreeDOS kernel to the Linux side of the emulator, with some glue on
> the DOS side, so it is a bit hard to compare to classic FreeDOS, but
> it has lots of patches which may have already solved the game issues
> so it would be cool to know how well the tricky games run with that.
>
> FDPP is the default "DOS" for DOSEMU2, but you can still use DOSEMU2
> like a more generic VM or emulator and install classic FreeDOS on it,
> either in a diskimage drive or in a "Linux directory posing as a DOS
> drive". The latter requires loading some special DOS drivers to gain
> write access after boot. In DOSEMU (non-2), some magic was built-in
> to provide more services without manually loading DOS drivers, so that
> just had a normal FreeDOS kernel as default guest operating system.
>

At the moment i don't have a Linux install, but i regarding fdpp i've found
this:

https://www.mail-archive.com/freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net/msg12117.html

>From that page notice the following quote:

*many games work better with fdpp than with FreeDOS, says
>   https://github.com/dosemu2/fdpp/releases/tag/beta-9 
> 
>   (Test Drive 2, Tetris Classic, Elite Frontier, Empire
>   Soccer, Virtual Chess, Alone in the Dark, Alpha Waves)*
>
> Whatever was done in fdpp to fix Test Drive 2 will probably solve the
issues for the other DSI games that use the same engine, Grand Prix Circuit
and The Cycles.
DSI games, running on bare metal, go to a black screen and just stay there.
This feels like the games are stuck in an infinite loop, just before
anything is written to the screen (graphics that is). At least, it seems
that the INT 10h call to set the video mode is actually triggered, and
somehow it just stays in some infinite loop afterwards. This needs some
debugging.

It seems though that a few more games are mentioned,*Tetris Classic,
Frontier Elite, Virtual Chess and Empire Soccer. *I'm curious, and i'll be
testing those soon.

Also notice 2 Infogrames games in there, Alone in the Dark and Alpha Waves.
These games apparently:
>
> * 2 of the above games "resize PSP to 0
>   and then terminate it" which apparently MS DOS accepts*
>
>
So MS-DOS accepts something that is completely illegal in FreeDOS. I don't
understand why Infogrames developers would mess their code to resize the
Program Segment Prefix to 0, but since MS-DOS accepts this either they
never bothered or they never noticed. So i guess this can't be considered a
bug in FreeDOS? Or in the sake of compatibility should FreeDOS behave the
same way? What are your thoughts on this?


That surprises me, as a default install of FreeDOS has FAT32 enabled.
> Do those games just refuse to run when the game itself is on a FAT32
> drive? Or do they actually care about whether DOS knows about FAT32?
>

Well Starflight 1 and 2 refuse to run on a FAT32 drive in Win98 DOS, or
MS-DOS 7.1, if you prefer. I would be inclined for the former, but i've
found this:

https://www.oocities.org/timessquare/maze/4979/sfbugs.html

Something to do with locked files and direct disk access. Making a RAM
drive and copying the game folder into that helps, if i run the game from
the RAM drive there's no issue at all. In FreeDOS there's no need for a RAM
disk, the games just run perfectly from the FAT32 install.

Some Tsunami Media games, i also fail to understand what the issue is. In
FAT32 MS-DOS they refuse to run. If i use a FAT16 partition or even a RAM
drive they run fine.


I just grabbed a HDD i have around and limited it for LBA 28bit with Sea
Tools (my socket 7 board has LBA 28 bit limit), so i'm going to install
FreeDOS 1.3 on that and then just copy all the games i have on my main DOS
7.1 machine into the FreeDOS install. It will take me weeks to test
everything (i have more than 1000 games installed) but i want to see if
more stuff refuses to run on FreeDOS, and on the other hand, see if there's
more stuff like Starflight 1 and 2, that has issues in FAT32 MS-DOS but run
fine in Free DOS.


It would be great to make an official comaptibility list:

FreeDOS games that won't run:

- Alone in the Dark 1 and 2 (floppy versions only, CD versions run fine)
- Alpha Waves
- Empire Soccer
- Frontier Elite
- Grand Prix Circuit
- Test Drive 2
- The Cycles
- Tetris Classic
- Virtual Chess


Regards,

Carlos
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Joao Silva]

Hello.

I agree with you, a VM isn't a viable solution for testing.
I'm in favor  of using real hardware.

My floppies games i tested on VM run well on my IBM 286 (real machine).

The downloaded games had options that my don't have.

I do have a PII and PIII that i'll try freedos, but no anytime soon... for
now i'l stick to emulation.


On Tue, Mar 8, 2022 at 10:35 PM Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi!
>
> Please stay relaxed about this topic, it would be great to know WHY
> certain games do not work well in FreeDOS, so we can improve it :-)
>
> Of course you can also run those games in various emulators or using
> other versions of DOS. This may even provide insights regarding how
> to configure FreeDOS, another DOS, or some emulator the best way for
> the game in question. So I would not want to exclude talking about
> other DOS or emulators, but my goal would still be finding out how
> to make all games work in FreeDOS - if necessary, by pointing out
> bugs in FreeDOS.
>
> That said, in case you have Linux (not sure about the porting state
> of DOSEMU2 to Windows or other OS), could you test the games here
> with DOSEMU2 and FDPP? The FDPP module of DOSEMU2 is a port of the
> FreeDOS kernel to the Linux side of the emulator, with some glue on
> the DOS side, so it is a bit hard to compare to classic FreeDOS, but
> it has lots of patches which may have already solved the game issues
> so it would be cool to know how well the tricky games run with that.
>
> FDPP is the default "DOS" for DOSEMU2, but you can still use DOSEMU2
> like a more generic VM or emulator and install classic FreeDOS on it,
> either in a diskimage drive or in a "Linux directory posing as a DOS
> drive". The latter requires loading some special DOS drivers to gain
> write access after boot. In DOSEMU (non-2), some magic was built-in
> to provide more services without manually loading DOS drivers, so that
> just had a normal FreeDOS kernel as default guest operating system.
>
> Regarding the option of using MS DOS 6.22: That one has not been
> updated for 30 years and it fails to understand things such as
> disks beyond 8 GB (or even 0.5 GB) in size, modern amounts of RAM,
> FAT32 partitions, and so on. Plus of course it is neither free nor
> open source. So FreeDOS has many nice features which MS DOS 6.22 is
> missing, but of course games from 30 years ago have only been tested
> by their developers with DOS from 30 years ago, so there is always a
> risk that we broke compatibility in how we implement exotic APIs. As
> you mention, Win9x DOS 7.x is an option for some - but even that is
> neither free nor open source and there is no ongoing development, so
> nobody who can help you to improve it if anything is not working well
> for example on any "too modern" hardware.
>
> > Alas, FAT-32 MS-DOS introduces issues of its own with other games.
> > Starflight 1 and 2 have problems on these installed, and Tsunami Media
> > games (Man Enough, Return to Ringworld, just to name a few) refuse to run
> > completely. All these games Run flawlessly on FreeDOS.
>
> That surprises me, as a default install of FreeDOS has FAT32 enabled.
> Do those games just refuse to run when the game itself is on a FAT32
> drive? Or do they actually care about whether DOS knows about FAT32?
>
> > So you downloaded some of those games and they ran but had speed issues
> and
> > exited with error code. Then you tried your Floppy versions and you
> report
> > black screen with no errors (same as others and me included had
> reported).
> > And you tested all this between 1.3rc4 and 1.3 live on a VM.
>
> That sounds like a lot of effort in testing, but if all tests were on
> virtual machines, the problem can simply be caused by the VM itself,
> for example not properly emulating DOS age VGA graphics or SB16 etc.?
>
> Regards, Eric
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Eric Auer]

Hi!

Please stay relaxed about this topic, it would be great to know WHY
certain games do not work well in FreeDOS, so we can improve it :-)

Of course you can also run those games in various emulators or using
other versions of DOS. This may even provide insights regarding how
to configure FreeDOS, another DOS, or some emulator the best way for
the game in question. So I would not want to exclude talking about
other DOS or emulators, but my goal would still be finding out how
to make all games work in FreeDOS - if necessary, by pointing out
bugs in FreeDOS.

That said, in case you have Linux (not sure about the porting state
of DOSEMU2 to Windows or other OS), could you test the games here
with DOSEMU2 and FDPP? The FDPP module of DOSEMU2 is a port of the
FreeDOS kernel to the Linux side of the emulator, with some glue on
the DOS side, so it is a bit hard to compare to classic FreeDOS, but
it has lots of patches which may have already solved the game issues
so it would be cool to know how well the tricky games run with that.

FDPP is the default "DOS" for DOSEMU2, but you can still use DOSEMU2
like a more generic VM or emulator and install classic FreeDOS on it,
either in a diskimage drive or in a "Linux directory posing as a DOS
drive". The latter requires loading some special DOS drivers to gain
write access after boot. In DOSEMU (non-2), some magic was built-in
to provide more services without manually loading DOS drivers, so that
just had a normal FreeDOS kernel as default guest operating system.

Regarding the option of using MS DOS 6.22: That one has not been
updated for 30 years and it fails to understand things such as
disks beyond 8 GB (or even 0.5 GB) in size, modern amounts of RAM,
FAT32 partitions, and so on. Plus of course it is neither free nor
open source. So FreeDOS has many nice features which MS DOS 6.22 is
missing, but of course games from 30 years ago have only been tested
by their developers with DOS from 30 years ago, so there is always a
risk that we broke compatibility in how we implement exotic APIs. As
you mention, Win9x DOS 7.x is an option for some - but even that is
neither free nor open source and there is no ongoing development, so
nobody who can help you to improve it if anything is not working well
for example on any "too modern" hardware.


Alas, FAT-32 MS-DOS introduces issues of its own with other games.
Starflight 1 and 2 have problems on these installed, and Tsunami Media
games (Man Enough, Return to Ringworld, just to name a few) refuse to run
completely. All these games Run flawlessly on FreeDOS.


That surprises me, as a default install of FreeDOS has FAT32 enabled.
Do those games just refuse to run when the game itself is on a FAT32
drive? Or do they actually care about whether DOS knows about FAT32?


So you downloaded some of those games and they ran but had speed issues and
exited with error code. Then you tried your Floppy versions and you report
black screen with no errors (same as others and me included had reported).
And you tested all this between 1.3rc4 and 1.3 live on a VM.


That sounds like a lot of effort in testing, but if all tests were on
virtual machines, the problem can simply be caused by the VM itself,
for example not properly emulating DOS age VGA graphics or SB16 etc.?

Regards, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Joao Silva]

I agree completely you there is no point in continuing this discussion... i
just use freedos to debug games memory and jump back to emulation!

On Tue, Mar 8, 2022 at 9:56 PM Carlos Teixeira 
wrote:

> Why FreeDOS if i can use other MS (and others) versions of DOS? 6.22
> should be the best option but, for a special purpose all rounder DOS
> computer i'm using (because i lack the space to use several builds) FAT16B
> is too limiting. With this in mind i have 2 options: strip DOS outta
> Windows 98SE (or just use the CDU 7.1) or FreeDOS. Both allow FAT32.
>
> Alas, FAT-32 MS-DOS introduces issues of its own with other games.
> Starflight 1 and 2 have problems on these installed, and Tsunami Media
> games (Man Enough, Return to Ringworld, just to name a few) refuse to run
> completely. All these games Run flawlessly on FreeDOS. Considering i
> already use several FreeDOS included drivers (CTMouse, mkeyb, HIMEMX, again
> just to name a few) there's no reason why i and others can't aspire to use
> FreeDOS with better compatibility and usability than the old unmaimtened
> and closed source FAT32 DOS or even the older less feature packed 6.22.
>
>
> So you downloaded some of those games and they ran but had speed issues
> and exited with error code. Then you tried your Floppy versions and you
> report black screen with no errors (same as others and me included had
> reported).  And you tested all this between 1.3rc4 and 1.3 live on a VM.
> Oh... You know what? There's no point in continuing this discussion with
> you. The OP made a thread about a video a retro gamer made testing FreeDOS
> compatibility with some games on bare metal. This is just turning mind
> blowingly non sequitur between DOSBox and VMs so, seriously, let's just end
> this.
>
> A terça, 8/03/2022, 19:20, Joao Silva  escreveu:
>
>> First of all i'm not Dude if more Sir or Mr.
>> I don't know you and certainly i'm not your friend...
>>
>> Moving on... downloaded the games mentioned above and using my freedos
>> 1.3-RC4 i was able to run Test Drive 2 and Grand Prix and Cycles ran the
>> intro fast and exited with a error code.
>> Test Drive 2 played and exited with a error.
>>
>> I grabbed my floppies with the same games (except for cycles) they did
>> not run, got a black screen and no error output.
>> Runnnig on a VM Freedos 1.3-RC4 and 1.3 Live
>>
>> And the final question what do you want with Freedos if you have and quote
>> "
>> I also can use from CP/M-86 to all MS-DOS oficial releases to Windows 98
>> stripped FAT32 MS-DOS. PC-DOS, DR-DOS, whatever.
>>
>> "
>>
>> They should run games better than Freedos!
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 7, 2022 at 8:43 PM Carlos Teixeira 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dude... I do have the right hardware from an original IBM XT to a couple
>>> Turbo XT clones, to a Tandy 1000 SL that i had to mod for 220V, to a 286,
>>> 386, 486 and Pentium MMX.
>>>
>>> I also can use from CP/M-86 to all MS-DOS oficial releases to Windows 98
>>> stripped FAT32 MS-DOS. PC-DOS, DR-DOS, whatever. No point in discussing
>>> DOSBox. The point here is:
>>>
>>> FreeDOS and its ability to run DOS games. In the case of DSI games,
>>> there's something specific to the game engine that prevents those games
>>> from running, GP Circuit, The Cycles and Test Drive 2. I've had no chance
>>> yet but a good thing try might be running a debugger and checking if the
>>> code might be stuck in an infinite loop.
>>>
>>> Planet X3, for instance, despite being programmed for XT class machines
>>> that usually use MS-DOS 3.3, had a bug in which the game was stuck in an
>>> infinite loop while printing a string just before exiting to DOS. So i took
>>> a look into the code and what happened is that INT 29 might trash BX
>>> completely which was actually used to point to memory and fetch the
>>> characters for the string. BX gets completely trashed so the string never
>>> finished and just printed crap on the screen. An isolated problem on a
>>> specific version of DOS.
>>>
>>> This might be what is happening with the DSI games, or might be
>>> something entirely different, but the fact that every game that uses the
>>> same engine fails to run on FDOS makes it quite obvious that fixing just
>>> one of these games will probably fix the rest. This is what we should focus
>>> on.
>>>
>>> A segunda, 7/03/2022, 13:04, Joao Silva  escreveu:
>>>
 Hello!

 Not perfectly... for that you need the right hardware for the game to
 run, ms-dos 6.22 or pc-dos 7.0/7.1 and i'm assuming that you don't have
 either conditions.

 So dosbox will run most games, you can check the compatibility list
 https://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?letter=a  and fine tune the cpu
 speed on dosbox.

 You  can also check dosbox-x with more features.

 You can also check this page for game clones and/or remakes
 https://osgameclones.com/, some require compiling the source code.
 ___
 Freedos-user 

Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Carlos Teixeira]

Why FreeDOS if i can use other MS (and others) versions of DOS? 6.22 should
be the best option but, for a special purpose all rounder DOS computer i'm
using (because i lack the space to use several builds) FAT16B is too
limiting. With this in mind i have 2 options: strip DOS outta Windows 98SE
(or just use the CDU 7.1) or FreeDOS. Both allow FAT32.

Alas, FAT-32 MS-DOS introduces issues of its own with other games.
Starflight 1 and 2 have problems on these installed, and Tsunami Media
games (Man Enough, Return to Ringworld, just to name a few) refuse to run
completely. All these games Run flawlessly on FreeDOS. Considering i
already use several FreeDOS included drivers (CTMouse, mkeyb, HIMEMX, again
just to name a few) there's no reason why i and others can't aspire to use
FreeDOS with better compatibility and usability than the old unmaimtened
and closed source FAT32 DOS or even the older less feature packed 6.22.


So you downloaded some of those games and they ran but had speed issues and
exited with error code. Then you tried your Floppy versions and you report
black screen with no errors (same as others and me included had reported).
And you tested all this between 1.3rc4 and 1.3 live on a VM. Oh... You know
what? There's no point in continuing this discussion with you. The OP made
a thread about a video a retro gamer made testing FreeDOS compatibility
with some games on bare metal. This is just turning mind blowingly non
sequitur between DOSBox and VMs so, seriously, let's just end this.

A terça, 8/03/2022, 19:20, Joao Silva  escreveu:

> First of all i'm not Dude if more Sir or Mr.
> I don't know you and certainly i'm not your friend...
>
> Moving on... downloaded the games mentioned above and using my freedos
> 1.3-RC4 i was able to run Test Drive 2 and Grand Prix and Cycles ran the
> intro fast and exited with a error code.
> Test Drive 2 played and exited with a error.
>
> I grabbed my floppies with the same games (except for cycles) they did not
> run, got a black screen and no error output.
> Runnnig on a VM Freedos 1.3-RC4 and 1.3 Live
>
> And the final question what do you want with Freedos if you have and quote
> "
> I also can use from CP/M-86 to all MS-DOS oficial releases to Windows 98
> stripped FAT32 MS-DOS. PC-DOS, DR-DOS, whatever.
>
> "
>
> They should run games better than Freedos!
>
> On Mon, Mar 7, 2022 at 8:43 PM Carlos Teixeira 
> wrote:
>
>> Dude... I do have the right hardware from an original IBM XT to a couple
>> Turbo XT clones, to a Tandy 1000 SL that i had to mod for 220V, to a 286,
>> 386, 486 and Pentium MMX.
>>
>> I also can use from CP/M-86 to all MS-DOS oficial releases to Windows 98
>> stripped FAT32 MS-DOS. PC-DOS, DR-DOS, whatever. No point in discussing
>> DOSBox. The point here is:
>>
>> FreeDOS and its ability to run DOS games. In the case of DSI games,
>> there's something specific to the game engine that prevents those games
>> from running, GP Circuit, The Cycles and Test Drive 2. I've had no chance
>> yet but a good thing try might be running a debugger and checking if the
>> code might be stuck in an infinite loop.
>>
>> Planet X3, for instance, despite being programmed for XT class machines
>> that usually use MS-DOS 3.3, had a bug in which the game was stuck in an
>> infinite loop while printing a string just before exiting to DOS. So i took
>> a look into the code and what happened is that INT 29 might trash BX
>> completely which was actually used to point to memory and fetch the
>> characters for the string. BX gets completely trashed so the string never
>> finished and just printed crap on the screen. An isolated problem on a
>> specific version of DOS.
>>
>> This might be what is happening with the DSI games, or might be something
>> entirely different, but the fact that every game that uses the same engine
>> fails to run on FDOS makes it quite obvious that fixing just one of these
>> games will probably fix the rest. This is what we should focus on.
>>
>> A segunda, 7/03/2022, 13:04, Joao Silva  escreveu:
>>
>>> Hello!
>>>
>>> Not perfectly... for that you need the right hardware for the game to
>>> run, ms-dos 6.22 or pc-dos 7.0/7.1 and i'm assuming that you don't have
>>> either conditions.
>>>
>>> So dosbox will run most games, you can check the compatibility list
>>> https://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?letter=a  and fine tune the cpu
>>> speed on dosbox.
>>>
>>> You  can also check dosbox-x with more features.
>>>
>>> You can also check this page for game clones and/or remakes
>>> https://osgameclones.com/, some require compiling the source code.
>>> ___
>>> Freedos-user mailing list
>>> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
>>>
>> ___
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>> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
>>
> 

Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Joao Silva]

First of all i'm not Dude if more Sir or Mr.
I don't know you and certainly i'm not your friend...

Moving on... downloaded the games mentioned above and using my freedos
1.3-RC4 i was able to run Test Drive 2 and Grand Prix and Cycles ran the
intro fast and exited with a error code.
Test Drive 2 played and exited with a error.

I grabbed my floppies with the same games (except for cycles) they did not
run, got a black screen and no error output.
Runnnig on a VM Freedos 1.3-RC4 and 1.3 Live

And the final question what do you want with Freedos if you have and quote
"
I also can use from CP/M-86 to all MS-DOS oficial releases to Windows 98
stripped FAT32 MS-DOS. PC-DOS, DR-DOS, whatever.

"

They should run games better than Freedos!

On Mon, Mar 7, 2022 at 8:43 PM Carlos Teixeira 
wrote:

> Dude... I do have the right hardware from an original IBM XT to a couple
> Turbo XT clones, to a Tandy 1000 SL that i had to mod for 220V, to a 286,
> 386, 486 and Pentium MMX.
>
> I also can use from CP/M-86 to all MS-DOS oficial releases to Windows 98
> stripped FAT32 MS-DOS. PC-DOS, DR-DOS, whatever. No point in discussing
> DOSBox. The point here is:
>
> FreeDOS and its ability to run DOS games. In the case of DSI games,
> there's something specific to the game engine that prevents those games
> from running, GP Circuit, The Cycles and Test Drive 2. I've had no chance
> yet but a good thing try might be running a debugger and checking if the
> code might be stuck in an infinite loop.
>
> Planet X3, for instance, despite being programmed for XT class machines
> that usually use MS-DOS 3.3, had a bug in which the game was stuck in an
> infinite loop while printing a string just before exiting to DOS. So i took
> a look into the code and what happened is that INT 29 might trash BX
> completely which was actually used to point to memory and fetch the
> characters for the string. BX gets completely trashed so the string never
> finished and just printed crap on the screen. An isolated problem on a
> specific version of DOS.
>
> This might be what is happening with the DSI games, or might be something
> entirely different, but the fact that every game that uses the same engine
> fails to run on FDOS makes it quite obvious that fixing just one of these
> games will probably fix the rest. This is what we should focus on.
>
> A segunda, 7/03/2022, 13:04, Joao Silva  escreveu:
>
>> Hello!
>>
>> Not perfectly... for that you need the right hardware for the game to
>> run, ms-dos 6.22 or pc-dos 7.0/7.1 and i'm assuming that you don't have
>> either conditions.
>>
>> So dosbox will run most games, you can check the compatibility list
>> https://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?letter=a  and fine tune the cpu
>> speed on dosbox.
>>
>> You  can also check dosbox-x with more features.
>>
>> You can also check this page for game clones and/or remakes
>> https://osgameclones.com/, some require compiling the source code.
>> ___
>> Freedos-user mailing list
>> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
>>
> ___
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>
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Joao Silva]

Hello.
The man issues are related to msi dos games like gprix on FreeDOS not
working. De emulator would solve the issue, but he have all the hardware
and other msdos.

Noted i'll never mention dosbox and/or dosbox-x and shall be referred as
emulator.

Thank you.

On Tue, Mar 8, 2022, 00:16 Jim Hall  wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 11:44 AM Joao Silva  wrote:
> >
> > Hello.
> >
> > Dosbox will solve all your problems!
> >
>
>
> FYI
>
> From the list rules:
>
>Remember, this group is about FreeDOS. General DOS topics are okay,
>but try to keep it related to FreeDOS.
>
>
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>
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Jim Hall]

On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 11:44 AM Joao Silva  wrote:
>
> Hello.
>
> Dosbox will solve all your problems!
>


FYI

>From the list rules:

   Remember, this group is about FreeDOS. General DOS topics are okay,
   but try to keep it related to FreeDOS.


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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3 - DOSBOX-X 0.83.23 released

[Eric Auer]

In related news:

https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/forum_entry.php?id=18754
DOSBox-X 0.83.23 released!
posted by Wengier(R) 05.03.2022 03:01

DOSBox-X 0.83.23 has now been released! Designing to be a cross-platform 
DOS emulator, it is the goal of DOSBox-X to cover different types of DOS 
software, and also intends to implement accurate emulation, accurate 
enough to help make new DOS developments possible with confidence the 
program will run properly on actual DOS systems.


DOSBox-X provides official DOS versions in addition to other platforms. 
You can now download the latest packages for both HX-DOS and LOADLIN 
builds for DOSBox-X 0.83.23 from the DOSBox-X project homepage:


https://dosbox-x.com/

As usual there are many improvements in this latest version, and you can 
find the release notes for this version (containing the change history) 
here:


* https://dosbox-x.com/release-0.83.23.html

The DOS packages are self-contained so that you can simply unzip the 
file and type DOSBOX-X to run in DOS. It is confirmed to work in DOS, 
and read the included README.TXT file for more information.






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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Carlos Teixeira]

Dude... I do have the right hardware from an original IBM XT to a couple
Turbo XT clones, to a Tandy 1000 SL that i had to mod for 220V, to a 286,
386, 486 and Pentium MMX.

I also can use from CP/M-86 to all MS-DOS oficial releases to Windows 98
stripped FAT32 MS-DOS. PC-DOS, DR-DOS, whatever. No point in discussing
DOSBox. The point here is:

FreeDOS and its ability to run DOS games. In the case of DSI games, there's
something specific to the game engine that prevents those games from
running, GP Circuit, The Cycles and Test Drive 2. I've had no chance yet
but a good thing try might be running a debugger and checking if the code
might be stuck in an infinite loop.

Planet X3, for instance, despite being programmed for XT class machines
that usually use MS-DOS 3.3, had a bug in which the game was stuck in an
infinite loop while printing a string just before exiting to DOS. So i took
a look into the code and what happened is that INT 29 might trash BX
completely which was actually used to point to memory and fetch the
characters for the string. BX gets completely trashed so the string never
finished and just printed crap on the screen. An isolated problem on a
specific version of DOS.

This might be what is happening with the DSI games, or might be something
entirely different, but the fact that every game that uses the same engine
fails to run on FDOS makes it quite obvious that fixing just one of these
games will probably fix the rest. This is what we should focus on.

A segunda, 7/03/2022, 13:04, Joao Silva  escreveu:

> Hello!
>
> Not perfectly... for that you need the right hardware for the game to run,
> ms-dos 6.22 or pc-dos 7.0/7.1 and i'm assuming that you don't have either
> conditions.
>
> So dosbox will run most games, you can check the compatibility list
> https://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?letter=a  and fine tune the cpu
> speed on dosbox.
>
> You  can also check dosbox-x with more features.
>
> You can also check this page for game clones and/or remakes
> https://osgameclones.com/, some require compiling the source code.
> ___
> Freedos-user mailing list
> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Joao Silva]

Hello!

Not perfectly... for that you need the right hardware for the game to run,
ms-dos 6.22 or pc-dos 7.0/7.1 and i'm assuming that you don't have either
conditions.

So dosbox will run most games, you can check the compatibility list
https://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?letter=a  and fine tune the cpu speed
on dosbox.

You  can also check dosbox-x with more features.

You can also check this page for game clones and/or remakes
https://osgameclones.com/, some require compiling the source code.
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Carlos Teixeira]

Not only DOSBox is not the solution for everything (does not run every game
perfectly), there would be no point in keep developing FreeDOS if indeed
"DOSBox was the solution for all problems".





A domingo, 6/03/2022, 17:44, Joao Silva  escreveu:

> Hello.
>
> Dosbox will solve all your problems!
>
> On Sat, Mar 5, 2022 at 11:04 PM Carlos Teixeira 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Eric,
>>
>> all DSI games that use that same engine, Grand Prix Circuit, The Cycles,
>> Test Drive 2 have that issue. You launch the games and you just get a black
>> screen. I commented on the video comment section days before it premiered
>> that he should test Grand Prix Circuit and Test Drive 2 as i was sure those
>> would fail. Somehow my comment is not there anymore, but i'm glad that he
>> did test them.
>>
>> There's also the floppy versions of Alone in the Dark 1 and Alone in the
>> Dark 2:
>>
>> https://github.com/dosemu2/fdpp/issues/107
>>
>> It's something about corrupted PSP's that somehow do not crash on MS-DOS
>> but crash on FreeDOS. So these Alone in the Dark games might need to be
>> patched to work on FreeDOS.
>>
>>
>>
>> A sexta, 4/03/2022, 20:56, Eric Auer  escreveu:
>>
>>>
>>> Let me summarize this ;-)
>>>
>>> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNeq-F84Lx4
>>>
>>>   - Lots of games had CD driver issues in FreeDOS 1.2 and are fine now
>>>
>>>   - Grand Prix Circuit and Test Drive 2 still do not run
>>>
>>>   - most games work best in boot option TWO, which is a sane JEMMEX
>>> config. I guess the default is option ONE, insane JEMMEX tuning? ;-)
>>>
>>>   - Wing Commander needs JEMM386 instead, I have no idea why?
>>>
>>>   - some games do not like any EMM386, of course
>>>
>>>   - the video mentions zero games not liking HIMEM, I think?
>>>
>>>   - it sounds like a very bad idea to create a zillion FAT16 partitions
>>> and format only one of them, while using FreeDOS FDISK etc. by hand
>>> made it easy for the reviewer to just create ONE FAT32 drive :-p
>>>
>>>   - one of the installers took 20 minutes, but the legacy one was fast?
>>>
>>>   - lots of youtube viewers ask whether Windows WfW 3.11 is supported
>>> and I bet they mean 386enh mode (in WfW 3.11, non-386enh is just
>>> left as a sort of safe mode, while in Windows 3.x, standard mode
>>> was still relatively useful for those not supporting 386enh mode)
>>>
>>> Maybe somebody can tell me what is going on with GP Circuit and with
>>> TD2 in FreeDOS? Do we know which compatibility problems they trigger?
>>>
>>> Have any recent kernel updates made WfW 3.11 work in a less convoluted
>>> way in FreeDOS and if yes, which specific tricks are needed to run it?
>>>
>>> I remember you had to disable windows disk drivers to let it use DOS
>>> and/or BIOS instead if your disk is non-tiny? And you had to limit
>>> the size of visible RAM if you had too much of it? HIMEM etc. have
>>> special options for that and you can also tune various things in Win3
>>> configuration files, such as the swap address space ratio etc. There
>>> also was a FreeDOS tech note long ago, I believe.
>>>
>>> Regards, Eric
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ___
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>>>
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Joao Silva]

Hello.

Dosbox will solve all your problems!

On Sat, Mar 5, 2022 at 11:04 PM Carlos Teixeira 
wrote:

> Hi Eric,
>
> all DSI games that use that same engine, Grand Prix Circuit, The Cycles,
> Test Drive 2 have that issue. You launch the games and you just get a black
> screen. I commented on the video comment section days before it premiered
> that he should test Grand Prix Circuit and Test Drive 2 as i was sure those
> would fail. Somehow my comment is not there anymore, but i'm glad that he
> did test them.
>
> There's also the floppy versions of Alone in the Dark 1 and Alone in the
> Dark 2:
>
> https://github.com/dosemu2/fdpp/issues/107
>
> It's something about corrupted PSP's that somehow do not crash on MS-DOS
> but crash on FreeDOS. So these Alone in the Dark games might need to be
> patched to work on FreeDOS.
>
>
>
> A sexta, 4/03/2022, 20:56, Eric Auer  escreveu:
>
>>
>> Let me summarize this ;-)
>>
>> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNeq-F84Lx4
>>
>>   - Lots of games had CD driver issues in FreeDOS 1.2 and are fine now
>>
>>   - Grand Prix Circuit and Test Drive 2 still do not run
>>
>>   - most games work best in boot option TWO, which is a sane JEMMEX
>> config. I guess the default is option ONE, insane JEMMEX tuning? ;-)
>>
>>   - Wing Commander needs JEMM386 instead, I have no idea why?
>>
>>   - some games do not like any EMM386, of course
>>
>>   - the video mentions zero games not liking HIMEM, I think?
>>
>>   - it sounds like a very bad idea to create a zillion FAT16 partitions
>> and format only one of them, while using FreeDOS FDISK etc. by hand
>> made it easy for the reviewer to just create ONE FAT32 drive :-p
>>
>>   - one of the installers took 20 minutes, but the legacy one was fast?
>>
>>   - lots of youtube viewers ask whether Windows WfW 3.11 is supported
>> and I bet they mean 386enh mode (in WfW 3.11, non-386enh is just
>> left as a sort of safe mode, while in Windows 3.x, standard mode
>> was still relatively useful for those not supporting 386enh mode)
>>
>> Maybe somebody can tell me what is going on with GP Circuit and with
>> TD2 in FreeDOS? Do we know which compatibility problems they trigger?
>>
>> Have any recent kernel updates made WfW 3.11 work in a less convoluted
>> way in FreeDOS and if yes, which specific tricks are needed to run it?
>>
>> I remember you had to disable windows disk drivers to let it use DOS
>> and/or BIOS instead if your disk is non-tiny? And you had to limit
>> the size of visible RAM if you had too much of it? HIMEM etc. have
>> special options for that and you can also tune various things in Win3
>> configuration files, such as the swap address space ratio etc. There
>> also was a FreeDOS tech note long ago, I believe.
>>
>> Regards, Eric
>>
>>
>>
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Carlos Teixeira]

Hi Eric,

all DSI games that use that same engine, Grand Prix Circuit, The Cycles,
Test Drive 2 have that issue. You launch the games and you just get a black
screen. I commented on the video comment section days before it premiered
that he should test Grand Prix Circuit and Test Drive 2 as i was sure those
would fail. Somehow my comment is not there anymore, but i'm glad that he
did test them.

There's also the floppy versions of Alone in the Dark 1 and Alone in the
Dark 2:

https://github.com/dosemu2/fdpp/issues/107

It's something about corrupted PSP's that somehow do not crash on MS-DOS
but crash on FreeDOS. So these Alone in the Dark games might need to be
patched to work on FreeDOS.



A sexta, 4/03/2022, 20:56, Eric Auer  escreveu:

>
> Let me summarize this ;-)
>
> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNeq-F84Lx4
>
>   - Lots of games had CD driver issues in FreeDOS 1.2 and are fine now
>
>   - Grand Prix Circuit and Test Drive 2 still do not run
>
>   - most games work best in boot option TWO, which is a sane JEMMEX
> config. I guess the default is option ONE, insane JEMMEX tuning? ;-)
>
>   - Wing Commander needs JEMM386 instead, I have no idea why?
>
>   - some games do not like any EMM386, of course
>
>   - the video mentions zero games not liking HIMEM, I think?
>
>   - it sounds like a very bad idea to create a zillion FAT16 partitions
> and format only one of them, while using FreeDOS FDISK etc. by hand
> made it easy for the reviewer to just create ONE FAT32 drive :-p
>
>   - one of the installers took 20 minutes, but the legacy one was fast?
>
>   - lots of youtube viewers ask whether Windows WfW 3.11 is supported
> and I bet they mean 386enh mode (in WfW 3.11, non-386enh is just
> left as a sort of safe mode, while in Windows 3.x, standard mode
> was still relatively useful for those not supporting 386enh mode)
>
> Maybe somebody can tell me what is going on with GP Circuit and with
> TD2 in FreeDOS? Do we know which compatibility problems they trigger?
>
> Have any recent kernel updates made WfW 3.11 work in a less convoluted
> way in FreeDOS and if yes, which specific tricks are needed to run it?
>
> I remember you had to disable windows disk drivers to let it use DOS
> and/or BIOS instead if your disk is non-tiny? And you had to limit
> the size of visible RAM if you had too much of it? HIMEM etc. have
> special options for that and you can also tune various things in Win3
> configuration files, such as the swap address space ratio etc. There
> also was a FreeDOS tech note long ago, I believe.
>
> Regards, Eric
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Jerome Shidel]

> On Mar 5, 2022, at 8:49 AM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi!
> 
>>> - it sounds like a very bad idea to create a zillion FAT16 partitions
>>>   and format only one of them, while using FreeDOS FDISK etc. by hand
>>>   made it easy for the reviewer to just create ONE FAT32 drive :-p
> 
>> When the installer verifies there is no drive readable to DOS ... it
>> asks FDISK to please auto-partition the drive. There are no auto-partition
>> options to make only one that uses the entire drive.
> 
> FDISK is open source, so the auto-partition feature could and should
> be updated from "100 FAT16 drives" to "1 FAT32 drive" if possible, but

Or, at least be ably to specify that from the command line. 

> 
>> So, it comes down to making everyone (including novices with no idea how
>> to use fdisk) partition the drive manually or let fdisk do what it wants.
> 
> It was a completely normal part of DOS life that when you were planning
> to install MS DOS you would have to take the time to understand and use
> FDISK, so I would certainly prefer manual partitioning over autocreated
> FAT16 C: to ZZZ9: drives of which only C: gets formatted anyway ;-)

Yes, I was normal. But, it really isn’t the norm any more. But, there is 
nothing preventing a knowing user from pre-partitioning their drive prior to 
installing. In fact, if you plan on dual booting or using a custom partition 
scheme, you should do that. It isn’t hard to do and the installer will see it 
is done and be happy to move along without auto-partitioning or throwing the 
user into FDISK. 

At least FDISK puts all those other partitions inside an extended partition. 
You can get rid of them, by simply deleting the extended partition. Thankfully, 
you don’t have to delete them one at a time.

> 
>> Without such an update to fdisk, I still think the benefits provided by
>> auto-partitioning out weigh making everyone manually partition their drive.
> 
> That is the part where I disagree and that youtube reviewer is not the
> first person to make fun of that FDISK "feature". We already have the
> same discussion on the list :-) As said, remembering that FDISK had a
> non-free toolchain and no active maintainers, I would prefer to just
> let people use FDISK by hand if no C: is found.

There is nothing preventing you from manually partitioning. 

What I would like to see is the ability for for FDISK to auto-partition 1 
drive, with the option of making it FAT16 (2GB) or FAT32 (Whole Drive). 

With that ability, I think the installer could by default just make a single 
big FAT32 partition. And for advanced mode, it could offer the choice of whole 
disk FAT32 or single 2GB FAT16 to provide compatibility with older DOS 
platforms. 

> Regards, Eric
> 
> PS: Odd that the youtuber has even tried the floppy installer at all,
> as he spends half of his video talking about CD-ROM game support :-o
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Eric Auer]

Hi!


- it sounds like a very bad idea to create a zillion FAT16 partitions
   and format only one of them, while using FreeDOS FDISK etc. by hand
   made it easy for the reviewer to just create ONE FAT32 drive :-p



When the installer verifies there is no drive readable to DOS ... it
asks FDISK to please auto-partition the drive. There are no auto-partition
options to make only one that uses the entire drive.


FDISK is open source, so the auto-partition feature could and should
be updated from "100 FAT16 drives" to "1 FAT32 drive" if possible, but


So, it comes down to making everyone (including novices with no idea how
to use fdisk) partition the drive manually or let fdisk do what it wants.


It was a completely normal part of DOS life that when you were planning
to install MS DOS you would have to take the time to understand and use
FDISK, so I would certainly prefer manual partitioning over autocreated
FAT16 C: to ZZZ9: drives of which only C: gets formatted anyway ;-)


Without such an update to fdisk, I still think the benefits provided by
auto-partitioning out weigh making everyone manually partition their drive.


That is the part where I disagree and that youtube reviewer is not the
first person to make fun of that FDISK "feature". We already have the
same discussion on the list :-) As said, remembering that FDISK had a
non-free toolchain and no active maintainers, I would prefer to just
let people use FDISK by hand if no C: is found.

Regards, Eric

PS: Odd that the youtuber has even tried the floppy installer at all,
as he spends half of his video talking about CD-ROM game support :-o



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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Jerome Shidel]

> On Mar 4, 2022, at 3:57 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> - it sounds like a very bad idea to create a zillion FAT16 partitions
>   and format only one of them, while using FreeDOS FDISK etc. by hand
>   made it easy for the reviewer to just create ONE FAT32 drive :-p

When the installer verifies there is no drive readable to DOS and there is a 
drive that can be used that has NO partitions and that drive can be safely 
partitioned, it asks FDISK to please auto-partition the drive. There are no 
auto-partition options to make only one that uses the entire drive.

So, it comes down to making everyone (including novices with no idea how to use 
fdisk) partition the drive manually or let fdisk do what it wants. 

It would be great if there were an option to just use the whole drive or only 
create the first 2GB partition. But there isn’t. 

If fdisk were updated accordingly, then the installer would do that instead. 

Without such an update to fdisk, I still think the benefits provided by 
auto-partitioning out weigh making everyone manually partition their drive. 


> - one of the installers took 20 minutes, but the legacy one was fast?

He was talking about the FloppyEdition taking 20 minutes. This has to do with 
pass-through compression. However, the FloppyEdition is primarily designed to 
install from Floppy Diskette. When doing that, the largest bottleneck is actual 
floppy speeds. I have done performance comparisons on real hardware against 
MS-DOS 6.2. Obviously, different systems could yield other results and FreeDOS 
is much larger. To be fair, total time/total disks FreeDOS was about 5% faster. 
This is negligible and not usually worth mentioning. It could also be a little 
slower on other systems.  But for all intents and purposes based on their size, 
install speed is comparable.




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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Eric Auer]

Let me summarize this ;-)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNeq-F84Lx4


 - Lots of games had CD driver issues in FreeDOS 1.2 and are fine now

 - Grand Prix Circuit and Test Drive 2 still do not run

 - most games work best in boot option TWO, which is a sane JEMMEX
   config. I guess the default is option ONE, insane JEMMEX tuning? ;-)

 - Wing Commander needs JEMM386 instead, I have no idea why?

 - some games do not like any EMM386, of course

 - the video mentions zero games not liking HIMEM, I think?

 - it sounds like a very bad idea to create a zillion FAT16 partitions
   and format only one of them, while using FreeDOS FDISK etc. by hand
   made it easy for the reviewer to just create ONE FAT32 drive :-p

 - one of the installers took 20 minutes, but the legacy one was fast?

 - lots of youtube viewers ask whether Windows WfW 3.11 is supported
   and I bet they mean 386enh mode (in WfW 3.11, non-386enh is just
   left as a sort of safe mode, while in Windows 3.x, standard mode
   was still relatively useful for those not supporting 386enh mode)

Maybe somebody can tell me what is going on with GP Circuit and with
TD2 in FreeDOS? Do we know which compatibility problems they trigger?

Have any recent kernel updates made WfW 3.11 work in a less convoluted
way in FreeDOS and if yes, which specific tricks are needed to run it?

I remember you had to disable windows disk drivers to let it use DOS
and/or BIOS instead if your disk is non-tiny? And you had to limit
the size of visible RAM if you had too much of it? HIMEM etc. have
special options for that and you can also tune various things in Win3
configuration files, such as the swap address space ratio etc. There
also was a FreeDOS tech note long ago, I believe.

Regards, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Jim Hall]

On Fri, Mar 4, 2022 at 11:22 AM Herminio Hernandez, Jr.
 wrote:
>
> Has anyone watched this review of FreeDOS 1.3 by a Retro Gamer on YouTube. I 
> thought it was a pretty good and fair review.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNeq-F84Lx4


Thanks for sharing that, I hadn't seen it. Good review overall. A few
compatibility issues, but otherwise he gives FreeDOS 1.3 very high
marks.


Jim


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Re: [Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Louis Santillan]

Hahaha I was just going to report this as well.

On Fri, Mar 4, 2022 at 9:22 AM Herminio Hernandez, Jr. <
herminio.hernande...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Has anyone watched this review of FreeDOS 1.3 by a Retro Gamer on YouTube.
> I thought it was a pretty good and fair review.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNeq-F84Lx4
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[Freedos-user] retro gamer review of FreeDOS 1.3

[Herminio Hernandez, Jr.]

Has anyone watched this review of FreeDOS 1.3 by a Retro Gamer on YouTube.
I thought it was a pretty good and fair review.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNeq-F84Lx4
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