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[roundhead]

Got this top game to run using DOSBox but it's extremely slow and the sound is terribly chopped up.

Any (simple) solutions?

Regards.

[_r.u.s.s.]

os/cpu/dosbox version?

[Capo]

I play this with WinUae and work fine.

[roundhead]

Windows Vista\Intel Core 2 6600@2.4 GHz/DOSBox 0.72.

I'm sure that WinUae is splendid but after reading other postings I've weaned myself off D-Fend reloaded and other "front-ends" and am trying to stick with DOSBox.

"Psycho Pinball" works a treat after simple tweaks on the "options" screen.

That's why a simple solution would do for me!

Regards.

[_r.u.s.s.]

i dunno, try writing "core auto" and "cycles max" commands, then i don't konw but maybe vista doesn't give enough of process priority to dosbox? try closing all other apps

btw it works ok on dosbox too

[Eagle of Fire]

Pinball Dreams works flawlessly for me right out of the archive, using DOSBox 0.72. My core is set to normal.

I have however found very strange that you can control the ball itself with the arrows... I must say that I never made so high a score in a pinball game before.

[_r.u.s.s.]

yes this will definitely help to roundhead

[Eagle of Fire]

yes this will definitely help to roundhead

Hahaha, I guess not.

I went to DOSBOX website and searched their forum. And I've found the answer:

Re: DosBox and dual-core PC's :: 2006-12-23 @ 12:00 am
Blueboy, I hate to burst your bubble but having a second (or third, or fourth) core (whether that core be on another chip, or packaged on the same chip) is not going to help any applications that are single threaded, and guess what...yep, that would be DosBox.

DosBox has good company. I don't really know of any mainstream emulator that makes use of threading to increase performance. You see posts on the MAME bulletin board asking the same question and you'd think people would finally get a clue. The reasons are really not hard to fathom - the authors would have write code that attempts to see what instructions it could emulate in parallel on each of the cores, and then carefully coordinate their execution. In essense, you're asking the emulation authors to become chip microcode engineers. Uh, not.

There is far too much still to be done to focus on doing that, and besides, why bother, Moore's Law has given us speedier and speedier chips, so what doesn't work today might work in 2 years without having to radically recode the instruction emulation to use more than one core (a feat, at that). Granted, Moore's Law hasn't been too kind to us lately, because of a shift away from increasing processor speed (notice I didn't say cycles) in favor of using more cores, but things will pick up. Just be patient.

Unfortunatly, it seems that while my own computer is a 5 years old 1.99 GHz computer, it's faster and better at running DOSBox than Roundhead Intel Core 2 6600@2.4 GHz, for 2.4 GHz/2 = 1.2.

This is why you have choppy play Roundhead. If DOSBox, which is a single threaded programm, can't use both cores then you are stuck at emulating at 1.2 GHz (half your core power).

Sorry about that... Not much we can actualy do if it's really the real problem...

[roundhead]

Thanks for the replies.

So the simple solution to my query is that this particular piece of old software won't run properly on my newish machine running a DOS emulator although others will - fair enough, that's all I needed to know.

However, it's very off-putting and difficult for newer members (i.e me) with genuine questions to follow threads when senior members and moderators are conducting private "humorous" conversations between themselves at the same time.

Personally I'm not that bothered but the general tone of some replies might put off younger "newbies" which would be a shame because a good site like this needs fresh blood and new ideas or it will eventually get stuck in a rut.

Thanks again.

Regards.

[Eagle of Fire]

Thanks for your input Roundhead. I just been appointed Mod of Troubleshooting, but it's not my first time here. Back in the days I was very strict, and it did seem to put off some members because of it. I guess it's a matter of opinion.

What I was also known for, however, was to always try to help to the best of my capacities. For example, I don't know much about dual or quad cores but I already overheard this on another forum/chat: maybe you could look in your computer options (don't ask me where, unfortunatly) and force DOSBox to be ran on a particular core while the rest of your applications are run on the other core. This should optimize your DOSBox efficiency... And at 1.2 GHz, you'll need it.