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Best DoxBox front-end and why?
Deusfaux
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
What are you recommendations for DOSBox front ends?
I've got D-Fend Reloaded, Dosbox Game Launcher, and DOG lined up to try on my computer...
I've got D-Fend Reloaded, Dosbox Game Launcher, and DOG lined up to try on my computer...
Deusfaux on
0
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mount c:\games\ c:
c:
tetris.exe
PSN - sumowot
An adaptation of Coverjuke
OK, now I can understand.
*looks at dosprompt with disgust*
PSN - sumowot
King Graham was black in KQ2? I really need to replay that.
now I want that
Why the hate for the frontends? They're handy so you can have different configs for different games. The command line was for back when I had an actual DOS computer and needed a boot disc to run TIE Fighter or SimCity 2000.
and that's why I hate front-ends, they add a layer of complexity to something that's very simple to me.
defaultdir = C:\Games\DOS
pathplayer = C:\Games\DOSBox\dosbox.exe (the location of your DoxBox)
videoext = bat
This sets it up so any bat files will appear as 'albums' in coverjuke. If there is more than one in a directory you can right click on the 'album' and it will list them. My games are in individual subdirectories from C:\Games\DOS.
I just write a brief bat file for each game and place it in the directory:
Sample:
sierra
exit
Coverjuke will automatically use a picture file in the directory as the 'album art' so just put your box art in the base.
Took me a little while to set it up initially, but now it works quite well.
(oh and just a note: Coverjuke uses a cache file, cache.ini, which you will need to delete to repopulate the list of games)
"psshaww who needs frontends I've got mad prompt typing skills yo"
to
"oh, that's actually pretty cool"
to
"psshaww frontends look like an assload of work just to NOT PLAY A GAME"
No thanks
PSN - sumowot
the "scaler" field is named poorly, and should really be "filter", right? cuz your choices are a bunch of smoothing and filtering algorithms
isn't any actual "scaling" done when you put in a resolution on the "fullresolution" field that's higher than what the game calls for?
i think this was throwing me off for a bit.
also, besides the fact that "surface" can't do aspect correction for non-square pixel games like Doom, what are these different outputs about? what are the differences? I can't find documentation on that part
lastly, why would I ever want to change "machine" away from svga_s3, and "memsize" from 16? any popular games offhand that want something else?
Oh, is there a good repository of info where people have listed out the best choices on configs for various games? ie, for doom you want memsize= this and machine= that, and so forth?
As for changing the machine setting, it really depends on the game and or whether or not you would even know the difference in the graphics. I don't mean that to sound condescending it's just a minor thing that most people wouldn't even notice. Here's a great article about what it does. http://ipggi.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/dosbox-graphic-and-machine-emulation-cga-vga-tandy-pcjr-hercules/
I actually got D-Fend Reloaded and moved all my Dosbox games to it. It makes it much easier to have multiple EXEs on the same folder (i.e. Wing Commander 2 and the 2 expansions) and troubleshooting too.
I mean, this is so cool:
scaler setting does scaling and filtering BEFORE any additional scaling called for by the fullresolution adn window resolution settings
Ahahahahahahaha, now it looks like DOS-SHELL Box!
It's weird to me to think that many of you (the majority) were just in the plain black C:> field the entire time
As in, my dad would setup shortcut and I would just use the arrows to go down and hit enter on a list of games installed.
Or edit himem!!
The IRQ is set. Do you mean configure the game to know what your IRQ is? He either ran the setups once himself upon installation or I'd navigate to them and do it.
don't know what himem is
God those days were awful. I feel no nostalgia whatsoever. DOSBox + D-Fend is 100x easier and better.
Also handy when you try to 'upgrade' your version of DOS by copying the autoexec.bat and config.sys from your friends newer computer rendering your computer unbootable.
But who does that stuff?
I hated all those fucking boot disks. And they weren't even consistent in making games run.
Seriously, today is the golden age of DOS gaming.
I have to agree. With the right tools you can even get the stubborn DOSGlide games running nowadays. :P
I remember the time when I had to "highload" or even disable certain drivers in order to free conventional memory. Do I need the german keyboard layout or the mouse driver? It was like deciding between cutting off your penis or your leg.
See that would never work for me, because games had conflicting needs those days. Some need extra EMS while others demanded EMS was OFF. It was hell. Oh and the 5 minute mission load times in Wing Commander 3? FUN FUN FUN. And Origin games that had their own high memory manager (JEMM)... And trying to make speech work in Ultima VII... and fussing with MSCDEX drivers...
ugh.
That being said I haven't set it back up in awhile. But I was using a DOS Box front end simply because it made things easier. Yes I can use DOS, it takes me a few minutes to remember how to do things. But using the front end and setting up short cuts to the Windows Games Menu that will actually launch the game is really nice.
Also check out http://www.sierrahelp.com/forums/ for fan made patches & installers for the different series. They have several fan patches for Quest for Glory and that even take care of Error 52 in QFG4.
Oh yeah! this! I have D-Fend installed on my flash drive with Master of Magic and X-COM set up. It's handy.