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Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1096729
01/14/17 10:53 PM
01/14/17 10:53 PM
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Jenny and Marion Thank you! I have given up for now, but will try in a day or so. I am whipped and have some paper work to try and get done and unfortunately I will probably have more difficulty with it than with DosBox.

Take care and thank you so very much. I will get it running.

Bill

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1096867
01/15/17 03:43 PM
01/15/17 03:43 PM
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Marian,

When the game is trying to be started, does the CD have to remain in the DVD drive during the start and play?

Bill

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1096868
01/15/17 03:50 PM
01/15/17 03:50 PM
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Originally Posted By: mrbill
Marian,

When the game is trying to be started, does the CD have to remain in the DVD drive during the start and play?

Yes. No DOS game had a complete install from CD. Hard drives weren't large enough at the time.

However you can make an image of the CD and use that instead of the CD in the drive. You can install and play using the drive image. Then use the "imgmount" in the mount line instead of "mount" and give the path to the image file.
For example from https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/MOUNT
Quote:
Mounting an ISO-File as volume

Z:\>IMGMOUNT E C:\Images\MyImage.iso -t iso


It's more complicated if the game uses Redbook files -- you have to make a cue/bin pair from the CD instead of an iso.

Quote:
Mounting a CUE/BIN-Pair as volume

If the game plays additional music tracks from the cd (mixed mode), you can still mount it as an image file. Since ISO can only contain pure data, the image has to be in the CUE/BIN format. You mount it with

Z:\>IMGMOUNT E C:\Images\MyImage.cue -t iso

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1096937
01/16/17 12:04 AM
01/16/17 12:04 AM
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People make DOSBox far harder to use than needs be. It is fine to have it installed in the %ProgramFiles% directory, which is its default. It is a modern application and writes its files in the User's %AppData%\Local\DOSBox path as fits best practices. It can be called from anywhere, but you do not want to have your games under any system folder.

Install your games in a non protected folder, say "C:\Games" or somewhere under your user folder. One of the best ways to setup games with DOSBox is to place a custom DOSBox configuration file (dosbox.conf) in the game's folder. The only thing that needs to be in it are settings that the game might need and personal preferences like preferred render modes and most importantly mounting commands for that game under the [autoexec] section.

DOSBox can be called with a batch file or Windows shortcut using the "-conf <path_to_your_custom_conf>", replacing the <path_to_your_custom_conf> with the path to your actual conf file. If the game was installed in say "C:\Games\Chewy" the shortcut or batch file would have.

"C:\Program Files\DOSBox 0.74" -conf "C:\Games\Chewy\dosbox.conf"

Be sure to enclose your paths with quotes if it has any spaces. You will also need to run the game's setup from within DOSBox to set the sound, etc. Once done and if the game has been properly setup you will be able to start the game from this shortcut or batch file.

Note that for fast testing if no additional settings or mountings are required you can quickly start a game by dropping the game's exe onto a shortcut to DOSBox. This will automatically mount the exe's folder as the "C:" drive and start the EXE in DOSBox. Dropping a folder onto a shortcut to DOSBox will mount that folder as "C:". You can then run any program within the game's folder by simply typing the name of the program. Such as to run the game's setup program type the name of the setup program after mounting the game's folder.

Last edited by Collector; 01/16/17 12:06 AM.

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Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1097985
01/23/17 04:34 PM
01/23/17 04:34 PM
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Hi Marian and Jenny.

I have it running finally.

Thank you.

Now, How do I place those lines at the end of the config file so I don't have to type them in all the time.

Also how do I get the screen larger? It is a little bigger then DosBox that is in the background. A lot of my desktop shows and the game is up and to the left (not in the corner though). DosBox starts out up to the left. Is there a way to center it.

Again Thank You.

Is there a way to get a menu formed of games to play in DosBox like I have in ScummVM?
That should be the next DosBox project. When I double click SkummVM I get a list of 8 or 10 games I have setup with it to play (just click on one and away we go. smile

Cheers,

Bill

Last edited by mrbill; 01/23/17 04:37 PM.
Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1097987
01/23/17 04:47 PM
01/23/17 04:47 PM
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Hi Mr. Bill,

I am on my way out for some errands, but just wanted to say that's great that you got the game running. To make games fullscreen in DOSBox, hit alt + enter. Sorry I didn't mention that before. wave

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1097988
01/23/17 04:51 PM
01/23/17 04:51 PM
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Originally Posted By: mrbill
How do I place those lines at the end of the config file so I don't have to type them in all the time.

You edit the dosbox-0.74.conf file (or whatever .conf file you're using for the game).
Paste the lines at the end of the file under where it says

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
# You can put your MOUNT lines here.

Quote:
Also how do I get the screen larger? It is a little bigger then DosBox that is in the background. A lot of my desktop shows and the game is up and to the left (not in the corner though). DosBox starts out up to the left. Is there a way to center it.

It sounds like you need to adjust the settings in the dosbox-0.74.conf file (not the ones having to do with mount). Look where it says

fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=original
windowresolution=original
output=surface
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper-0.74.map
usescancodes=true

or something like that.
fullresolution is the resolution of your monitor.
windowresolution is the resolution of the game window.
fullscreen= is where you choose if you want DOSBox to open fullscreen or not.

You may want to change output= to output=opengl or output=openglnb if you're adjusting windowresolution=
Read what it says in the dosbox-0.74.conf file using Notepad and/or watch the philscomputerlab tweak guides to learn how to setting.

Further down is a section saying something like this

frameskip=0
aspect=false
scaler=normal2x

Change scaler= to scaler=normal3x
That should make the window a little bigger.

If you're playing a game that is 640x480 you don't have to worry about aspect. If you're playing a game that is 320x200 you probably want to change it to aspect=true.

Quote:
Is there a way to get a menu formed of games to play in DosBox like I have in ScummVM?

I think there are DOSBox front ends that do something like that.
http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098026
01/23/17 08:28 PM
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Thank you Marian, Jenny and Mr. Bill. I printed this out and am going to try and get Chewy working tomorrow. I have been having nostalgia lately and want to play my old games, but, dosbox seems too hard for me. But, I will give it a whirl with these printed out directions. thanks again.

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mbday630] #1098028
01/23/17 08:37 PM
01/23/17 08:37 PM
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Good luck. I will do what I can to help, should problems arise. luck

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098029
01/23/17 08:44 PM
01/23/17 08:44 PM
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Thought I included a link to Phil's Tweak Guides, but it was in a different thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQD7hPMsGm4&list=PL5T8bmLxd_T0QGChQWeqhEnFp3ioEtZ2h&index=17

Look at how he tweaks DOSBox for different games to suit his monitor.

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098037
01/23/17 09:40 PM
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Thank you again Marian and Jenny.

All I did to get full screen was to change it from false to true in the config file.

fullscreen=true

The main thing that was messing me up was typing everything exact. Capital versus small letters, placement of dots, backslashes, colons, etc., etc., etc. I had forgotten just how fussy DOS was. smile

Question: Can you give me an example of the lines that you say go under the two lines below:

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
# You can put your MOUNT lines here.
z:>mount c c:\ChewyF5
z:>mount d e:\ -t cdrom
z:>c:
c:>cd CHEWY_F5
c:CHEWY_F5>CHEWY

This is exactly what I had to do to get the game running. Is this correct or I don't need to add all of them and does the # symbol go in front of them like the two lines above?

Now in my case my DVD Drive is E. But if it were D you would still have to type at z the following:

z:>mount d d:\ -t cdrom

Thank you

Bill

Last edited by mrbill; 01/23/17 09:42 PM.
Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098044
01/23/17 10:49 PM
01/23/17 10:49 PM
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When you type into the dosbox-0.74.conf file, you don't need to include the prompt.
So it looks more like

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
# You can put your MOUNT lines here.
mount c c:\ChewyF5
mount d e:\ -t cdrom
c:
cd CHEWY_F5
CHEWY

The above automatically starts the game.
If you want the prompt to get to the CHEWY file without automatically starting the game, leave the CHEWY off the end.

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098117
01/24/17 11:52 AM
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Thank you Jenny and Marian,

I get it now. I only hope I can remember it long enough for the next game. smile I know, I am taking careful notes.

I surprised myself when I realized that including the Z:> prompt and other prompts probably wasn't necessary because it was giving me error messages so I took them out and when I double clicked on the DosBox shortcut, the game started up automatically.

I went WOW! Then you confirmed what I had done and a smile came over my face. Thank you!

Cheers,

Bill

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098118
01/24/17 12:15 PM
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Way to go, Mr. Bill. bravo

It's nice to be able to make these older games useful as well as ornamental, isn't it? joy

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098119
01/24/17 12:17 PM
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Amen To That! That includes us old folks as well doesn't it? Just look at my picture to the left. I'm ornamental and useful now.

Mr. Bill

Last edited by mrbill; 01/24/17 02:48 PM.
Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098143
01/24/17 03:15 PM
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grin

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098175
01/24/17 10:13 PM
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You can have different shortcuts to start different DOS games on your desktop by using the procedure Collector described, using a different autoexec configuration for each dosbox.conf file in the game folder and and pointing the shortcut to it. I usually name my .conf files after the game.

You can also play Windows 3.1 games like Shivers using DOSBox. Follow the instructions at
http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=9405
for installing Windows 3.1 (or 3.11) and you can play many early Windows games as well as DOS games.

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098388
01/26/17 02:36 PM
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Hi Jenny, Can you give me an example of the quote below so I can try it with Chewy.

Quote:
You can have different shortcuts to start different DOS games on your desktop by using the procedure Collector described, using a different autoexec configuration for each dosbox.conf file in the game folder and and pointing the shortcut to it. I usually name my .conf files after the game.


Another question:

If your DVD (CDROM) drive is D to begin with do you need to mount it or just change to it.

z:\>d d:\ -t cdrom (hit enter) or
z:\>d: (hit enter)
D:\>

Thank you,

Bill

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098393
01/26/17 03:17 PM
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There is information about desktop shortcuts to DOSBox here
http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/DOSBoxShortcuts

As an example this line could be in the target line of a shortcut

"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -conf "C:\Games\Chewy\dosbox.conf"

The "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" is the location of your DOSBox executable -- wherever you installed it.

The -conf "C:\DOSgames\Chewy\dosbox.conf" would be the location of the configuration file for that particular game. You could call the .conf file anything -- it doesn't have to be dosbox.conf. In this example you could call it chewy.conf. What's important is that you copy the contents of your normal dosbox-0.74.conf file into the chewy.conf and then edit it to be specific for your Chewy game.

DOS and Windows don't care about upper and lower case, but they usually do care about spaces and punctuation. If there is a space in a path name, you have to put quotes around it. So
"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe"
needs quotes around it.
With
-conf "C:\DOSgames\Chewy\dosbox.conf"
the quotes are optional, and if you use them you don't include the -conf in them.

1. Make a desktop shortcut that points to DOSBox.exe

One way to make a shortcut is to browse to the DOSBox.exe file, right-click it, and choose Send to Desktop. So the target line might look something like this
"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe"

2. Create a .conf file to go with the game.
Copy the the original dosbox-0.74.conf file to the game folder. You can rename it to something shorter if you want, like chewy.conf
Make the changes to the chewy.conf file that are specific for the game. For Chewy you might want

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
# You can put your MOUNT lines here.
mount c c:\ChewyF5
mount d e:\ -t cdrom
c:
cd CHEWY_F5
CHEWY

but a different game might be in a different folder.

3. Once you have the shortcut and the .conf file, you need to configure the shortcut to use that .conf file. So you add
-conf "C:\DOSgames\Chewy\chewy.conf"
to the target line of the shortcut and get something like
"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -conf "C:\DOSgames\Chewy\chewy.conf"

(assuming your game is installed in C:\DOSgames\Chewy and your chewy.conf file is located in the game folder.)

Once again, you can name the .conf file pretty much whatever you like. You can keep it as dosbox-0.74.conf if you want as long as you put a copy in the game folder and point the DOSBox shortcut at that particular dosbox-0.74.conf file.

Originally Posted By: mrbill
Another question:

If your DVD (CDROM) drive is D to begin with do you need to mount it or just change to it.

z:\>d d:\ -t cdrom (hit enter) or
z:\>d: (hit enter)
D:\>


Don't forget the mount command.
Think about what the line is doing.

mount D D:\ -t cdrom
is mounting your Windows D: drive (the first D) as D:\ in DOSBox.

If you said
mount D -t cdrom
DOSBox would think "mount what as my D:\ drive ? I'm supposed to mount something as my D:\ drive. Wonder what that could be."

DOSBox needs to associate your Windows drive with its internal D: drive (what the game sees), so you need both letters even if they happen to be the same letter. It won't assume you want a drive mounted unless you specify what that drive is in Windows and what letter you want your DOS game to see it as.

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098412
01/26/17 06:19 PM
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Thank you Jenny.

I have printed your instructions and that on shortcuts at the DosBox Website. I will study it and get back with you if I have some difficulty.

Am I correct that the shortcut on the desktop starts DosBox and leads it to the chewy config file which is in the CHEWY_F5 game folder. And that the DosBox config file is identical to the chewy config file except that the chewy one may have some specifications for the chewy game itself as well as the auto-execute portion which gets it ready to start or automatically starts it like mine use to do. I took the extra CHEWY out. Is this oversimplification Ok? We have one DosBox which is linked with each game that it may help to install, and runs each game through each game's special shortcut.

Again Thank you!

Bill

Last edited by mrbill; 01/26/17 06:22 PM.
Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098413
01/26/17 06:35 PM
01/26/17 06:35 PM
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Originally Posted By: mrbill
I have printed your instructions and that on shortcuts at the DosBox Website. I will study it and get back with you if I have some difficulty.

Just keep in mind you may need to adjust the path depending on where things are on your computer.

Quote:
Am I correct that the shortcut on the desktop starts DosBox and leads it to the chewy config file which is in the CHEWY_F5 game folder.

Yes, and the chewy config file tells it what drives to mount and any other information it needs to play the game (or tweak settings like window size).

Quote:
And that the DosBox config file is identical to the chewy config file except that the chewy one may have some specifications for the chewy game itself as well as the auto-execute portion which gets it ready to start or automatically starts it like mine use to do.

If I understand you right, then yes. You added mount commands to the end of your dosbox-0.74.conf file but it's not much changed from original. For a different game you might change the mounted folder and location of the gamename.conf file (whatever name you have for the other game's .conf file).

Quote:
I took the extra CHEWY out. Is this oversimplification Ok? We have one DosBox which is linked with each game that it helps to install, and runs each game through each game's special shortcut.

If it works, you did it right.
If it doesn't work, check your paths.

You can have different versions of DOSBox because they install in different folders. So if you have a game that for whatever reason works better in DOSBox version 0.72 instead of 0.74, you can aim your shortcut's target line at the older version. If you check DOSBox's compatibility list
http://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?letter=a
you will sometimes find a game where someone says the game works better with the older version of DOSBox. (Games that don't work as well with the latest version seem to be the exception, but if you run into one, there's the ability to use an older version DOSBox without uninstalling the current one.)

Re: Chewy - Esc From F5 [Re: mrbill] #1098414
01/26/17 09:01 PM
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Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Jenny.

I greatly appreciate your help and Marians. I look forward to trying and experimenting with all of this information.

Take care.

Bill

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