Running an old DOS program

[BillW50]

Between versions of DOS. For example, there's a TREE command in DOS 6. Isn't
in DOS 7, for W9X foundation. But you can't use it even if you add it, it
will give a 'wrong DOS version' error. DOS v6.22 has a large set of native
commands, so if that one supports your program and runs in that emulator, use
it. Never mind not having obvious needs for specific tools, it's a full DOS
install, v7.1 wasn't intended to be one, and isn't.

One of the cool things I liked with Windows (v3.xx to Windows 7) is that
you can replace the desktop (shell) with something else. Like for
example under Windows 3.xx and Windows 9x, you can replace
shell=explorer.exe to command.com (I forget if it is in System.ini or
Win.ini).

And when you boot, you get a multitasking DOS. The full blown Windows is
still there if you ever need it. Say for example if you want to run
notepad, just type it through the command prompt. But what is also nice
about this multitasking DOS is that it also sports the better memory
management of Windows (VM).

 

[Industrial One]

I managed to install Soundblaster finally (I hate having a thousand
choices) and figured out why the sound was cracking up. When I set
core affinity to 1 the sound stopped crackling and was perfect. What
does core affinity have to do with sound quality, does anybody know?

I don't know what that means. If you're emulating DOS, there will be a text
mode, with a grid like I described. There IS no smooth mouse positioning in
that context. By definition, if you see smooth position changes, you're not
in DOS, you're in a window made by the OS. The distinction might be hard to
spot when using a DOS session in a windowed mode, but it's there. For
example. open ANY command line window, use Alt+Space, then E then K to
activate selection, and you can drag the selection by holdign down the left
mouse button. The pointer will move smoothly, but the test selection box will
not. If you're seeing sluggish motion, delays, that's something else,
something impeding system (window) messages.

http://www.zshare.net/video/9937683548863d42/
http://www.zshare.net/video/993768395f76905d/

First one is how it is right now (notice how I can't hit the "Full
screen" checkbox and a few others) second one is what it should look
like. I tried doing that alt+space thing and the cursor went out of
whack, clicking made it advance upwards one pace which was still about
30 pixels.

 

[Industrial One]

I can't see them. Just an ad then a popup then a file-not-found error.

Ugh, zshare sucks.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/uihtl4
http://www.sendspace.com/file/l6lasd

 

[Industrial One]

You might say that, but I couldn't possibly comment. (Which of course
means I already thought that zshare sucks, in exactly as many words..)


Can't see those either. Doesn't matter, I got the general idea anyway. (But
whatever format that is, avoid it! Stay with XviD, or even WMV, otherwise
people likely have to fight to get it, then can't see it even if they get
that far. Always go with formats that everyone can see. I couldn't see those,
or even identify the streams im MPC.

Good lord man...

They are Lagarith Lossless format. XviD sucks dick, nobody uses it
anymore and it doesn't support high-quality RGB like Lagarith. x264
does, but finding the right splitters to get it to play back correctly
is something that's a pain in the ass for me let alone a noob.
Download K-Lite codec pack and you'll never have to fight to play back
99% of formats out there.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/bzgp0v
http://www.sendspace.com/file/fjrv26

^ Shitty XviD format.

 

[Patok]

Good lord man...

They are Lagarith Lossless format. XviD sucks dick, nobody uses it
anymore and it doesn't support high-quality RGB like Lagarith. x264
does, but finding the right splitters to get it to play back correctly
is something that's a pain in the ass for me let alone a noob.
Download K-Lite codec pack and you'll never have to fight to play back
99% of formats out there.

You don't deserve any help with that attitude. It is quite insulting.
In addition to what Lostgallifreyan wrote, let me mention that I *do*
have K-lite c-pack installed, yet I could not play your video either. I
don't have the *latest* K-lite, of course, just the last where ffdshow
has encoding choice settings; I had to un-install the later one.
Never, ever, expect people to use new-fangled ills, OK? Everybody
that matters uses XviD. Those that don't, don't. Who cares about
lossless *video* ?!?! I'd understand audio, and to a lesser extent,
photos, but video? Stuff and nonsense! Next you'll expect people to use
smartphones!

 

[Industrial One]

HAHAHAHA!!

Calm down dudes, what's the problem here?

Obviously I am much more adept at video technology than you guys as I
am an enthusiast in the field, just like you guys are with old OSes. I
see you don't cope well with role-reversal. You seem only capable of
modesty when you have an opportunity to lecture but not learn. Rather
anti-intellectual stance there, don'cha think?

Sometimes it seems to me its the only reason your kind frequents
groups and forums like these, searching for narcissistic validations
out of newbs.

Grow up, I had the balls to come here to admit I knew jack shit about
something and ask for directions. Now anyone who looks up to me for my
DVD and Blu-ray rips can find a reason not to look up to me anymore by
finding this thread and realizing I'm not omniscient. See how that
works?

Anyway...

1. There was a good reason I used a lossless codec for those specific
video clips I uploaded. The content was very redundant and the
resulting output files were 500 and 1500 KB respectively. Not so
massive like you assumed, right? If I used XviD, the output would've
been bigger and much worse quality as XviD would auto downsample the
colordepth to YV12 which would **** up the once-vibrant colors. XviD
is for movies, not for computer screencaps.

2. x264 is state-of-the-art and kicks the shit out of XviD which I
normally use, and it also supports YV24 (RGB) colorspace but as said
before, even I have issues setting up MPC to play it back properly
because this feature is too modern and lacks widespread support, hence
I used a format that's easier to play back.

3. XviD is not in widespread usage anymore and shouldn't be, the
quality blows at reasonable bitrates and high quality requires
unreasonably high bitrates. Even YouTube doesn't use XviD anymore.
Even an eeePC can playback 720p H264 so if you really are concerned
with power consumption and efficiency, you'd best stop using XviD. My
i7 can playback 1080p with only one core, and my TDP is 95W.

4. All I hear is "we're using win98, it doesn't support all the latest
codecs n shit"! Well, that's your field. You are the classic OS
genius, figure out how to get the latest shit to work without it
needing to be a hassle if you insist on using an unsupported, outdated
system. I reject Vista and M$'s new era of bloatware garbage too, but
can't say XP is guilty of such a thang. You's be extremists.

But yeah, seriously. I uploaded XviD samples like you requested.
Prioritize your bitching, mang.

 

[Industrial One]

HAHAHAHA!!

Calm down dudes, what's the problem here?

Obviously I am much more adept at video technology than you guys as I
am an enthusiast in the field, just like you guys are with old OSes. I
see you don't cope well with role-reversal. You seem only capable of
modesty when you have an opportunity to lecture but not learn. Rather
anti-intellectual stance there, don'cha think?

Sometimes it seems to me its the only reason your kind frequents
groups and forums like these, searching for narcissistic validations
out of newbs.

Grow up, I had the balls to come here to admit I knew jack shit about
something and ask for directions. Now anyone who looks up to me for my
DVD and Blu-ray rips can find a reason not to look up to me anymore by
finding this thread and realizing I'm not omniscient. See how that
works?

Anyway...

1. There was a good reason I used a lossless codec for those specific
video clips I uploaded. The content was very redundant and the
resulting output files were 500 and 1500 KB respectively. Not so
massive like you assumed, right? If I used XviD, the output would've
been bigger and much worse quality as XviD would auto downsample the
colordepth to YV12 which would **** up the once-vibrant colors. XviD
is for movies, not for computer screencaps.

2. x264 is state-of-the-art and kicks the shit out of XviD which I
normally use, and it also supports YV24 (RGB) colorspace but as said
before, even I have issues setting up MPC to play it back properly
because this feature is too modern and lacks widespread support, hence
I used a format that's easier to play back.

3. XviD is not in widespread usage anymore and shouldn't be, the
quality blows at reasonable bitrates and high quality requires
unreasonably high bitrates. Even YouTube doesn't use XviD anymore.
Even an eeePC can playback 720p H264 so if you really are concerned
with power consumption and efficiency, you'd best stop using XviD. My
i7 can playback 1080p with only one core, and my TDP is 95W.

4. All I hear is "we're using win98, it doesn't support all the latest
codecs n shit"! Well, that's your field. You are the classic OS
genius, figure out how to get the latest shit to work without it
needing to be a hassle if you insist on using an unsupported, outdated
system. I reject Vista and M$'s new era of bloatware garbage too, but
can't say XP is guilty of such a thang. You's be extremists.

But yeah, seriously. I uploaded XviD samples like you requested.
Prioritize your bitching, mang.

 

[98 Guy]

4. All I hear is "we're using win98, it doesn't support all the
latest codecs n shit"! Well, that's your field. You are the
classic OS genius, figure out how to get the latest shit to
work without it needing to be a hassle

I haven't been following this thread, so I don't know what led to your
rant, and really it doesn't matter.

With regard to your comment (above) about x264 (or is it h264?) not
being compatible with win-98, I'm not sure who's saying that, but it's
probably someone here with an anemic PC (pentium 2, 300 mhz or some junk
like that) and who's never tried kernelex and VLC (that is probably
about half the people who read this win-98 newsgroup).

I do a lot of downloading and I'm seeing more video's (movies, tv-rips)
being posted as MPEG-4 (x264) and not xvid, and a lot of other people
are bitching about the end of Xvid in a lot of different forums (and I
don't know what their problem is), but win-98 and VLC can play 264 shit
no problem, and so can my NetGear EVA9150 (which is what I use to play
movies and TV episodes I download from torrents and file-lockers on my
TV).

 

[Industrial One]

I haven't been following this thread, so I don't know what led to your
rant, and really it doesn't matter.

They were helping me troubleshoot a DOS 6.22 problem and I uploaded
some screencaps to show the problem in a format Lostgallifreyan wasn't
able to play, so he got all sensitive and started bitching at me for
assuming he knew how to get them to play. I guess some people obtain
knowledge at the expense of social skills and offer help on forums for
narcissistic instead of altruistic reasons. or as I call them - dorks.

With regard to your comment (above) about x264 (or is it h264?) not
being compatible with win-98, I'm not sure who's saying that, but it's
probably someone here with an anemic PC (pentium 2, 300 mhz or some junk
like that) and who's never tried kernelex and VLC (that is probably
about half the people who read this win-98 newsgroup).

Most likely.

I do a lot of downloading and I'm seeing more video's (movies, tv-rips)
being posted as MPEG-4 (x264) and not xvid, and a lot of other people

XviD is MPEG-4 too, though it really should've been called MPEG-3. In
the ITU naming convention, XviD is the H.263 standard and MPEG-4 part
2 (ASP) is the ISO equivalent. Just like H.264 is MPEG-4 part 10
(AVC). I find the ITU terminology a lot simpler to follow. Don't
attempt to make sense out of them, I regret ever taking the time to do
so.

are bitching about the end of Xvid in a lot of different forums (and I
don't know what their problem is), but win-98 and VLC can play 264 shit

Problem is they are change-resistant fanboys who have no dick. Do
yourself a favor and don't attempt to understand them either, I regret
ever trying.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

The application itself is around 300 KB, the roms are between 2 to 6
MB. RAM usage shouldn't be above 60 MB.

I set up DOS 7.1 with Virtualbox because this was more intuitive than
having to restart the comp every time to get around issues. This
virtualization shit is kinda cool, the only disappointing thing is the
fact that I can't browse my regular OS from it. The only way I could
copy files to the virtual DOS is making a CD ISO of the directory with
my app and loading from there.

This has failed, though. There is no sound and the emulator freezes
the moment I tried to load a game. How do you set color depth on
Virtualbox btw? It says its on 32-bit and needs 16-bit but I don't see
such option anywhere.

ISTM that you could follow the procedure used by Seagate in its
firmware updates. These packages boot to FreeDOS. They then create a
RAM drive and copy their executables to it. The program is then
launched from the RAM drive.

Some CD ISO based update packages incorporate a 1.44MB floppy diskette
image, while others incorporate a HDD image.

You can see what I mean if you use IsoBuster, Winimage, and 7-Zip to
analyse Seagate's CD ISOs:
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931

- Franc Zabkar

 

[Jim Leonard]

The program is not a game, btw. It's an emulator that runs ROMs

Which emulator? There might be a more elegant solution than trying to
run it in a DOS-like environment.

 

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

The application itself is around 300 KB, the roms are between 2 to 6
MB. RAM usage shouldn't be above 60 MB.

60 MB? Okay, not that surprised, even DJGPP stuff uses a lot these
days, but it seems overkill for a few MB of data.

I set up DOS 7.1 with Virtualbox because this was more intuitive than
having to restart the comp every time to get around issues.

Yes, of course.

This virtualization shit is kinda cool, the only disappointing thing is the
fact that I can't browse my regular OS from it. The only way I could
copy files to the virtual DOS is making a CD ISO of the directory with
my app and loading from there.

You may be able to use MS NET and/or an FTP server. Check
lazybrowndog's networking guide. (Or if you later try VMware, then try
Eduardo's VMSMOUNT tool.)

http://lazybrowndog.net/freedos/virtualbox/

This has failed, though. There is no sound and the emulator freezes
the moment I tried to load a game. How do you set color depth on
Virtualbox btw? It says its on 32-bit and needs 16-bit but I don't see
such option anywhere.

Yeah, VBox has quite a few bugs in DOS emulation. If your cpu has VT-X
(which I guess not, sadly), it should work okay though. Too bad more
cpus don't support it.

 

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

I managed to install Soundblaster finally (I hate having a thousand
choices) and figured out why the sound was cracking up. When I set
core affinity to 1 the sound stopped crackling and was perfect. What
does core affinity have to do with sound quality, does anybody know?

In what, Windows or DOSBox? I'm not big on Windows internals, but I
think DOSBox uses SDL, and later versions (1.3 ??) are multi-
threaded / multi-core or whatever for better performance, though
DOSBox itself isn't. So maybe?? that's why? (Confusing.)

 

[Industrial One]

Hi,



60 MB? Okay, not that surprised, even DJGPP stuff uses a lot these
days, but it seems overkill for a few MB of data.

It was overkill actually, I set up a new VM with DOS 6.22 with 32 MB
of RAM this time and it works perfectly time. 60 MB was my upper
guestimate.

You may be able to use MS NET and/or an FTP server. Check
lazybrowndog's networking guide. (Or if you later try VMware, then try
Eduardo's VMSMOUNT tool.)

http://lazybrowndog.net/freedos/virtualbox/

Good to know, but it's allright. I never used a VM before so I
completely missed the point behind it which was to isolate itself
completely from the OS yet be operated from it. I thought it would
just be another directory on my hard disk where the files can be
manipulated from my physical OS.

In what, Windows or DOSBox? I'm not big on Windows internals, but I
think DOSBox uses SDL, and later versions (1.3 ??) are multi-
threaded / multi-core or whatever for better performance, though
DOSBox itself isn't. So maybe?? that's why? (Confusing.)

In the DOS VM, but on DOSBox too and this has happened with other
programs too. Could it be that my audio drivers are multithreaded or
something? I'm genuinely curious. This hasn't happened to anyone else,
apparently.

 

[Ronald Phillips]

It was overkill actually, I set up a new VM with DOS 6.22 with 32 MB
of RAM this time and it works perfectly time. 60 MB was my upper
guestimate.



Good to know, but it's allright. I never used a VM before so I
completely missed the point behind it which was to isolate itself
completely from the OS yet be operated from it. I thought it would
just be another directory on my hard disk where the files can be
manipulated from my physical OS.



In the DOS VM, but onDOSBoxtoo and this has happened with other
programs too. Could it be that my audio drivers are multithreaded or
something? I'm genuinely curious. This hasn't happened to anyone else,
apparently.

Almost all old programs do not use multiple threads. Setting affinity
to a single thread (or using Windows compatibilities modes which does
this automagically) is a common technique to get games to work that
don't like multiple processors.

 

[Paul]

Almost all old programs do not use multiple threads. Setting affinity
to a single thread (or using Windows compatibilities modes which does
this automagically) is a common technique to get games to work that
don't like multiple processors.

There are also launchers, which you could cobble together in a
shortcut, to launch something running on a single core.

http://smallvoid.com/article/winnt-process-affinity.html

Paul