IS DosBox or Bochs possible on the DS ?

[tobytyke]

Hi everybody,

I think i've asked this before but didn't get any answers. But does anybody think that Dosbox or Bochs would be possible on the DS.

It would be great to play some of the older Dos games on the move.

I know that you can do this on the GP2X but its a pain without the keyboard.

On the DS you can have a virtual keyboards same as DSLinux or FrodoDS.

[Tetris999]

No it just wouldnt.... dos games are waaaay too powerful for the ds man...

OR ARE THEY?

but just see the emu for the ds its supposebly can emulate the snes but wow it doesnt go fast

[Pogo708]

No it just wouldnt.... dos games are waaaay too powerful for the ds man...

OR ARE THEY?

but just see the emu for the ds its supposebly can emulate the snes but wow it doesnt go fast

Have you tried SnezziDS? Nearly any game it runs is at full speed, with maybe one or two exceptions. Megaman X and the Donkey Kong Countries are some great examples of what games run perfectly, along with F-Zero and the Mario games.

[scrabbus]

No it just wouldnt.... dos games are waaaay too powerful for the ds man...

OR ARE THEY?

but just see the emu for the ds its supposebly can emulate the snes but wow it doesnt go fast


Well, the ds could easily do DosBox, but alas it doesnt look like anyone is bothered, except me, sniffle, weep, wail... I WANNA PLAY COLONIZATION ON MY DS

[jamiegibson]

It would be good if we could play Dos Games on DS. You could try and play the original GTA which would be fun.

[HellsDelight]

Ok, ScummVM can do it with for example Sam & Max WITH Speech on the DS (over 100MB) so I think other things on the DosBox like Rise of the Triad or Duke Nukem 3D would be also possible (I hope): http://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?t=3332

The DosBox is on so many other consoles why not on the DS? :(

[Anhaedra]

Ok, ScummVM can do it with for example Sam & Max WITH Speech on the DS (over 100MB) so I think other things on the DosBox like Rise of the Triad or Duke Nukem 3D would be also possible (I hope): http://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?t=3332

The DosBox is on so many other consoles why not on the DS? :(

Well ScummVM is completely different from Dosbox... That's why it runs well, it doesn't have to emulate an entire PC. And the DS only runs at like 66mhz, so it would be emulating a PC at about 3mhz probably. The GP2X runs at 200mhz, and can be overclocked to over 300mhz, and it still runs dosbox pretty badly. The GP2X uses the same type of CPU as the DS, too.

[spannernick]

Has anyone tried porting DosBox,Just wondered..?

[DanTheManMS]

I believe GPF made a port at one point, but he didn't release it, and it didn't perform well at all.

[RemyK313]

I should believe DOSBox is possible. You'd have to implement DOS on the DS. If I remember correctly, some talented guys were able to run linux on the DS. There's no reason why they couldn't implement DOS on the DS.

It would be a helluva project, though. Have you guys ever seen the number of interrupts and modes on that damn thing? And then you'd have to implement each one individually? I'd believe that it would be easier to just port Duke Nukem 3D to the DS rather than implement DOS and THEN trying to run that game... seeing as the source code is available for that...

[DanTheManMS]

Funny you should mention Duke Nukem 3D (http://gpf.dcemu.co.uk/duke3ds-duke-nukem-3d-for-ds-80584.html)... >_>

Also, since I missed this the first time around, Rise of the Triad also has a native port to the DS, no DOS needed.

DSLinux does exist, but it's rather limited, and in order to get the best performance out of it you have to have some sort of RAM in slot-2. I mostly use it for web browsing, where IMO it excels in speed and usability.

However, as DOS has no sourcecode, I'm guessing something like FreeDOS would have to be ported if the same approach was to be used, right?

[Akoi Meexx]

Yeah, but I wouldn't even attempt to run a game on FreeDOS after porting it to DS, let alone expect anything to run well.

[lorddeathmark]

It IS possible to emulate DOS on a DS.
The memory problem means NO REAL MODE.
So anything running on a 386 is pretty much unloadable.

I was able to run 2400ad for DOS, but TONS of apple II games run using an emulator. Often times games published on IBM compatibles got a port to apple II and a few other popular systems from the time.

Apogee games seem to be the real exception from the period, the Texas based publisher didn't have the access or need to port most of their work.

A very wise GPF once told me that the way to get a game to run right is to port it, using a specialized program that loads the original game files. His version of Flashback is a prefect example. As is ScummVM for DS.

The memory problem is made more complex by the 3rd party memory extenders that would have to supported along-side the Opera expansion. Considering the trouble that alone would cause makes the DSi a far better candidate. Here's hoping.