DOS ain't dead - DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Wengier

01.12.2021, 10:57
(edited by Wengier, 01.12.2021, 11:13)

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released! (Announce)

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 has now been released! Designing to be a cross-platform DOS emulator, it is the goal of DOSBox-X to cover essentially everything in the DOS scene, and also intends to implement accurate emulation, accurate enough to help make new DOS developments possible with confidence the program will run properly on actual DOS systems.

DOSBox-X provides official DOS versions in addition to other platforms. You can now download both the latest HX-DOS and LOADLIN DOS packages for DOSBox-X 0.83.20 from the DOSBox-X project homepage:

https://dosbox-x.com/

There are quite a lot of new features and other improvements in this latest version, and you can find the release notes for this version (containing the change history) here:

* https://dosbox-x.com/release-0.83.20.html

Both HX-DOS and LOADLIN DOS package are self-contained so that you can simply unzip the file and type DOSBOX-X to run in DOS. It is confirmed to work in DOS, and read the included README.TXT file for more information. The U.S. keyboard layout issue previously reported is fixed in this version.

rosegondon

C:\DOS,
02.12.2021, 07:55

@ Wengier

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Post reply

> DOSBox-X 0.83.20[/b] has now been released!

Not working under Windows XP (tried both VC and MinGW builds).

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echo g=ffff:0|debug>nul

Wengier 02.12.2021, 09:08 (edited by Wengier, 02.12.2021, 09:34) @ rosegondon	DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released! Post reply
	> > DOSBox-X 0.83.20[/b] has now been released! > > Not working under Windows XP (tried both VC and MinGW builds). Try the Visual Studio builds (either SDL1 or SDL2) included in the 32-bit Windows installer, which should work in Windows XP. On the other hand, MinGW builds will no longer work in Windows XP.

rosegondon

C:\DOS,
02.12.2021, 16:36

@ Wengier

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Post reply

> > > DOSBox-X 0.83.20[/b] has now been released!
> >
> > Not working under Windows XP (tried both VC and MinGW builds).
>
> Try the Visual Studio builds (either SDL1 or SDL2) included in the 32-bit
> Windows installer, which should work in Windows XP. On the other hand,
> MinGW builds will no longer work in Windows XP.

Thank you, sir. Your solution worked for me.
Can one expect that future portable builds will be XP-compatible?

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echo g=ffff:0|debug>nul

Wengier

03.12.2021, 01:06

@ rosegondon

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Post reply

> > > > DOSBox-X 0.83.20[/b] has now been released!
> > >
> > > Not working under Windows XP (tried both VC and MinGW builds).
> >
> > Try the Visual Studio builds (either SDL1 or SDL2) included in the
> 32-bit
> > Windows installer, which should work in Windows XP. On the other hand,
> > MinGW builds will no longer work in Windows XP.
>
> Thank you, sir. Your solution worked for me.
> Can one expect that future portable builds will be XP-compatible?

Perhaps, but it is always recommended to use the Windows installer(s), which will provide optimized settings for DOSBox-X.

RayeR

CZ,
03.12.2021, 06:04

@ Wengier

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Post reply

But MSVC build is slower than MinGW build (compared to previous v0.83.19) - 27 vs 34 FPS in quake timerefresh...

rr is able to compile new BOCHS for WXP with MinGW so why not Dosbox?

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Wengier

03.12.2021, 10:33

@ RayeR

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Post reply

> But MSVC build is slower than MinGW build (compared to previous v0.83.19) -
> 27 vs 34 FPS in quake timerefresh...
>
> rr is able to compile new BOCHS for WXP with MinGW so why not Dosbox?

If I have the correct version of MinGW then I can also try it. But latest versions of MinGW-w64 apparently do not support Windows XP any more, and it is not so easy to install some specific older version of MinGW-w64 as you do with the latest version.

Zyzzle

05.12.2021, 02:05

@ RayeR

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Post reply

> But MSVC build is slower than MinGW build (compared to previous v0.83.19) -
> 27 vs 34 FPS in quake timerefresh...
>
> rr is able to compile new BOCHS for WXP with MinGW so why not Dosbox?

Thanks for letting us know about the speed decrease.

That speed drop seems a very serious regression and setback.

So, for now, if you want maximum emulated speed, one should use 0.83.19 unless one wants a ~20% drop in emulated performance?

Wengier

05.12.2021, 02:42
(edited by Wengier, 05.12.2021, 03:45)

@ Zyzzle

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Post reply

> > But MSVC build is slower than MinGW build (compared to previous v0.83.19)
> -
> > 27 vs 34 FPS in quake timerefresh...
> >
> > rr is able to compile new BOCHS for WXP with MinGW so why not Dosbox?
>
> Thanks for letting us know about the speed decrease.
>
> That speed drop seems a very serious regression and setback.
>
> So, for now, if you want maximum emulated speed, one should use 0.83.19
> unless one wants a ~20% drop in emulated performance?

I think he was talking about running Visual Studio builds (in general) vs running MinGW builds of 0.83.19, not between MinGW builds of 0.83.20 and MinGW builds of 0.83.19. So it is certainly NOT a regression. The only catch is that the official MinGW builds of 0.83.20 do not run in Windows XP, due to the issue with compiling tools. But on the plus side, the official 32/64 bit MinGW builds of 0.83.20 come with Slirp backend support for the NE2000 networking, which does not exist in 32-bit MinGW builds of 0.83.19. It is simply impossible for the same MinGW build to support Windows XP and the Slirp backend at the same time. Meanwhile, if one wants to run MinGW builds in Windows XP please feel free to compile the source code by themselves and post the builds here.

Zyzzle

05.12.2021, 22:22

@ Wengier

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Post reply

> > > But MSVC build is slower than MinGW build (compared to previous
> v0.83.19)
> > -
> > > 27 vs 34 FPS in quake timerefresh...
> > >
> > > rr is able to compile new BOCHS for WXP with MinGW so why not Dosbox?
> >
> > Thanks for letting us know about the speed decrease.
> >
> > That speed drop seems a very serious regression and setback.
> >
> > So, for now, if you want maximum emulated speed, one should use 0.83.19
> > unless one wants a ~20% drop in emulated performance?
>
> I think he was talking about running Visual Studio builds (in general) vs
> running MinGW builds of 0.83.19, not between MinGW builds of 0.83.20 and
> MinGW builds of 0.83.19. So it is certainly NOT a regression. The
> only catch is that the official MinGW builds of 0.83.20 do not run in
> Windows XP, due to the issue with compiling tools. But on the plus
> side, the official 32/64 bit MinGW builds of 0.83.20 come with Slirp
> backend support for the NE2000 networking, which does not exist in 32-bit
> MinGW builds of 0.83.19. It is simply impossible for the same MinGW
> build to support Windows XP and the Slirp backend at the same time.
> Meanwhile, if one wants to run MinGW builds in Windows XP please feel free
> to compile the source code by themselves and post the builds here.

Thanks for clarifying. If I run DOSBox-X, for those rare cases when running DOS on baremetal doesn't suffice for my needs, I run it in pure DOS under HX anyway. If I understand you correctly, the 0.83.20 MinGW build will still work under HX, and run as similar speed as the old 0.83.19 MinGW 32-bit build.

Wengier

06.12.2021, 10:56

@ Zyzzle

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Post reply

> Thanks for clarifying. If I run DOSBox-X, for those rare cases when running
> DOS on baremetal doesn't suffice for my needs, I run it in pure DOS under
> HX anyway. If I understand you correctly, the 0.83.20 MinGW build will
> still work under HX, and run as similar speed as the old 0.83.19 MinGW
> 32-bit build.

The HX-DOS build is compiled with the "old" MinGW (or mingw32) project, which will work in pure DOS. The MinGW Windows builds are compiled with the "new" MinGW-w64 project, including 32-bit and 64-bit components of MinGW-w64. The MinGW Windows builds of DOSBox-X 0.83.20 should run as similar speeds as the MinGW Windows builds of DOSBox-X 0.83.19. The main differences are that the 32-bit MinGW Windows builds now support the Slirp backend for the NE2000 networking, while no longer supporting Windows XP (which is unfortunately no longer supported by recent versions of MinGW-w64).

RayeR

CZ,
06.12.2021, 22:04

@ Wengier

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Post reply

> The HX-DOS build is compiled with the "old" MinGW (or mingw32) project,
> which will work in pure DOS. The MinGW Windows builds are compiled with the
> "new" MinGW-w64 project, including 32-bit and 64-bit components of
> MinGW-w64. The MinGW Windows builds of DOSBox-X 0.83.20 should run as
> similar speeds as the MinGW Windows builds of DOSBox-X 0.83.19. The main
> differences are that the 32-bit MinGW Windows builds now support the Slirp
> backend for the NE2000 networking, while no longer supporting Windows XP
> (which is unfortunately no longer supported by recent versions of
> MinGW-w64).

And isn't possible to compile WXP version with that old MinGW32 used for DOS version? With accepting the limitation of NE2000... I don't know how much differ the various targets but I think adding some #ifdef could solve it. It seems to me a paradox that it runs on much more limited OS like DOS with HW but cannot run on old Windows that still supports 100x more wider API...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Wengier

07.12.2021, 05:27
(edited by Wengier, 07.12.2021, 08:07)

@ RayeR

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Post reply

> And isn't possible to compile WXP version with that old MinGW32 used for
> DOS version? With accepting the limitation of NE2000... I don't know how
> much differ the various targets but I think adding some #ifdef could solve
> it. It seems to me a paradox that it runs on much more limited OS like DOS
> with HW but cannot run on old Windows that still supports 100x more wider
> API...

It is indeed possible, but it is also difficult for such a build to have features like FluidSynth working, due to the limitations of the original MinGW32 project. You can download the build I compiled with MinGW32 from:

* dosbox-x-mingw-win32-lowend-0.83.20.zip

Tested to work in Windows XP. It has also been added to the 32-bit Windows installer as a separate mingw-lowend build.

RayeR

CZ,
09.12.2021, 05:12

@ Wengier

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Post reply

> It is indeed possible, but it is also difficult for such a build to have
> features like FluidSynth working, due to the limitations of the original
> MinGW32 project. You can download the build I compiled with MinGW32 from:

Yes it works. I think it would be good to include it as standard target for future builds, it's acceptable that some features are limited.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Wengier 10.12.2021, 17:15 @ RayeR	DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released! Post reply
	> Yes it works. I think it would be good to include it as standard target for > future builds, it's acceptable that some features are limited. Yes, I will try to include such a build as a standard target in all future versions, although it won’t be the default build since most users do have later versions of Windows and may want features not available in this build.

Rugxulo Usono, 03.12.2021, 01:20 @ Wengier	DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released! Post reply
	> The U.S. keyboard layout issue previously reported is fixed in this > version. I "BOOT"-ed a FD.IMG file that I was using under 8086tinyplus, but then the keyboard went back to whatever (British??) it was before. Otherwise it was fine. Just FYI.

KormaX

04.12.2021, 18:40

@ Wengier

DOSBox-X 0.83.20 is now released!

Post reply

The new CPU speed emulations are very useful. Of course the games are still slower than they're when running directly on the metal, but much closer than they did and they have sound this way.

Thanks.

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DOS isn't about why. It's about why not.