DSx86 News - Dos Emulator for DS - v0.01 Alpha Released!

[wraggster]

Pate has finally released an alpha build of his promising Dos emulator for DS, heres the news from him:

Well, somewhat surprisingly, I found the nastiest bugs in the code yesterday, and now DSx86 seems to be running reasonably well so that I dare release the first alpha version. Please note that it still is very much work-in-progress, so don't expect it to work properly all the time (or even most of the time).

You need to have 4DOS as a command shell, without that you can't do anything with DSx86. See the download page for download links. Naturally libFAT has to work on your setup as well, else all you get is this:


As you can see, the user interface also needs a lot of work still (if you are graphically inclined and feel like designing a user interface for DSx86, I would much appreciate your help!). You can click on the reddish items on the Screen configuration section to change the screen update behaviour on-the-fly. Other configuration changes need to be done via DSx86.ini file.

Phew, managed to get the first version released with a few days remaining on my vacation!

Games working with this release include LineWars II, Paratrooper, Alley Cat, Wing Commander II, Solar Winds and Leisure Suit Larry 3.

See if you can get more working

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[sku11kid]

! AHHHHHH!
Yes finally a DOS emulator
Do you think that in future releases it can support games like elder scrolls arena? never played it (to young) and its the bomb on dosbox!
thanks much, great work

[crookedmouth]

Very cool, I guess it's time to start testing.

[JDvorak]

I haven't gotten anything to run on it yet except for the games listed to run. I'll keep testing and update as I find something that actually runs!

[LDAsh]

Hopefully some compatibility list can be created so people won't have to test it all themselves. I think the performance of this is impressive, so if it has compatibility it will be a truly great homebrew.

Doesn't seem to support any VGA graphics though? Highest is MCGA, although I think they are very similar standards, no VGA support means many later DOS games won't work.

[JDvorak]

MCGA is 320x200 in 256 colors with a palette of 262,144 colors at 70mhz refresh rate. It was developed for IBM's PS2 line of computers. VGA on the other hand can do 640x480. Since this program would have to rescale everything to the resolution of the DS MCGA is a better match. I am sure full VGA resolution would slow it down a lot.

The DSi might run it, but with all the trouble he is having with it I am sure that just making it run a handful of games for now is a lot of work! Also as stated most everything past a 186 or 286 processor won't run anyway. So don't expect anything that takes a 386 and up to run.

Now you can run CGA (4 color out of 16, and more with dithering) and MCGA at 320x200 but EGA graphics can be higher resolution also at 640x200 and support lower resolution of 320x200 (don't know if they will work probably not). Then there were monochrome hercules graphics that were high resolution and a B&W mode of CGA that was also 640x200. So games either supported all of these or just some of these. Besides most games looked best in the 256 color MCGA and would look just fine on the DS's small screen.

Most games that supported VGA in 256 colors and 640x200 and higher resolutions in DOS required VESA graphics mode which I am sure will not be supported ever. This reminds me of the Bleem emulator for the Sega Dreamcast where the emulator played a lot of games but not well at all. That is why the team released single game packs that supported the game it played perfectly with better graphics than the PS1.

One last thing I just found out that MCGA graphics supports another graphics mode of 640x200 in 2 colors. Never seen it used though. Perhaps by IBM's OS/2 operating system but not sure about that even.