Dosbox V0.7.1 10/09/2007 - DOS Emulator For PSP

[Murdock]

Performance of SQ2 & Navigator made it clear
that sync is faster than auto.As you guessed,Murdock,the problem
is specific to Pinball Fantasies.
Sync crashes in PF low res, Auto copes, but only at 60% speed.
Both struggle with sound emulation.

After much booting,tinkering,configging (& playtesting!) I've
achieved near FULL SPEED with lagless IN-GAME MUSIC & SFX.
Not perfect,but very playable.

Configs & guide in attached zip,
DCemu guests can d/l http://www.geocities.com/dangee63/PbfPspDb.zip

Hey!

VERY good guide!

I like it a lot! nice work

You've expressed yourself clearly, gave examples and so on. And thebest is you've linked my files :thumbup:

No really, I like it.

One thing I do not understand 100 % is why it takes more time to load when you've enabled sound. CrazyC said that it doesn't matter whether sound is enabled or disabled, because it's still emulated. This means there is no possibility to switch off sound emulation to save resources. Therefore, I am not quite sure why switching sound on makes the game load slower.

hmm, is the gameplay slower, too? I mean does the game run faster if you switch the sound off? That'd astonish me. The only thing I can guess atm is that the loading of the sound file(s) makes the load times longer, but the game itself should run at the same speed. Is this correct?


[EDIT] Oh, and did u change the conf file, too? Or is it still the same? Any new functions in dosbox.conf?

[dangee]

..is the gameplay slower,too?

Gameplay speed is near 100% with/without sound.
"no sound" is a PF game option ('nosound' in the .conf is unchanged).
I'm guessing it cuts load time by not loading/converting the .mod sound
files (total size about 1mb)

..and did U change the conf file,too?

lmao! - only MASSIVELY! have a look at PF.CFG
(and btw, try typing Z: at the C:\ prompt)

[MeX]

Ok, I've been trying to get this to work since it 1st aired on the news stream! But NO! For sum reason it doesn't like me.

Ive downloaded all the 'n00b' style versions of Dosbox I could find, the normal old 'heres the folder's and all the stuff just put it on the memory stick'. A lovely looking Boot shows up nicely,'DOSBox', playing music bla bla. But when we try to load it theres an error "The game could not be started (80020148)"

Now is it because I'm running 3.71 M33 and it just wont work?
Or is it that I haven't got the right configuration setup? eg. need 3.71 kernel etc.
Or is it something else.......

Please Help...

[Murdock]

Gameplay speed is near 100% with/without sound.
"no sound" is a PF game option ('nosound' in the .conf is unchanged).
I'm guessing it cuts load time by not loading/converting the .mod sound
files (total size about 1mb)

Yeah, right. I thought so, too!

lmao! - only MASSIVELY! have a look at PF.CFG
(and btw, try typing Z: at the C:\ prompt)

Yep, just had a look at ur dosbox.conf. You've disabled midi and reduced sound quality and stuff. Does this really improve the speed of DosBox? I mean generally, not only in one game.

I don'T see a reason to disable joystick emulation. I doubt this will improve the speed of DosBox in any way. Or why did u do this?


One thing I don't understand is this "scaler=" thing. What does it do?

Sorry, I don't have time to try your config with the game atm. Maybe next weekend.

Oh, and why did u disable the UMB, XMS and EMS?

[dangee]

Does this really improve the speed of DosBox?

Unsure,as it's the 1st game I've configged for Dosbox,but game
performance seemed specially sensitive to
maxcycles, and irq level of the sound emulator.

I usually disable all subsystems that are unused in software under
emu, to ease load on the CPU.
Before I found the low-res problem, I tried everyStupidThng
to pump up game speed%. Thats why those configs are off.

Don't know 2 what "scaler="

[Murdock]

Unsure,as it's the 1st game I've configged for Dosbox,but game
performance seemed specially sensitive to
maxcycles, and irq level of the sound emulator.

I usually disable all subsystems that are unused in software under
emu, to ease load on the CPU.
Before I found the low-res problem, I tried everyStupidThng
to pump up game speed%. Thats why those configs are off.

Don't know 2 what "scaler="

LOL u seem to be even more clueless than I am

maxcicles are the maximum number of "cicles" or herz emulated per second. It's the MHz/1000.

So of course setting this higher makes DosBox faster, IF cycles is NOT set to sync, I think.


That the IRQ effects the Speed of DosBox in anyway is very unlikely. Rather oplrate should affect the speed if it's set to a lower rate, but I haven't tested this yet. but try sth. around 11000, I think it's 11025. Got to look this up.

[dangee]

LOL u seem to be even more clueless than I am

Unsure about this. I'd have a better idea if I knew your
cluelessness level in % (eg 100 = total & absolute knowledge)

the irq effects overall performance (speed + sound quality), and yep, dropping oplrate
can help. I feel good about 14400 (below 8000 crashes dosbox)
maxcycles works with sync if autocycles=true

[Murdock]

the irq effects overall performance (speed + sound quality), and yep, dropping oplrate
can help. I feel good about 14400 (below 8000 crashes dosbox)
maxcycles works with sync if autocycles=true

can u explain me (the dummy ) how IRQ affects the speed of the emulator?

[borgqueenx]

Murdock, you like/add the games i pmmed you
didnt get any response...

[dangee]

can u explain me (the dummy ) how IRQ affects the speed of the emulator?

lol,you're no dummy,and your guide decreased
my cluelessness quotient.

I'd really like to hear a 'gods voice' about the irq.

atm, my best guess is that it emulates an x86 interrupt priority level,
Setting too high can swamp the CPU and slow down graphics, too
low can cause sound dropout.