ExoDOS Import

[Retrofrogg]

Just to check - do we need to run the setup on these packs if we are importing stuff manually (i.e. does it still need to extract)?

[JamesBond@ge]

You're not very adventurous, are you Dan?

[Retrofrogg]

In the digital realm, perhaps not! Just keen to make sure I get it right first time, as I've got a knack for crapping things up sometimes.

[JamesBond@ge]

That Strategy pack is roughly 50GB. You must have a spare 200GB somewhere. Copy it there, blam that Setup batch file with reckless abandon, throwing your hands in the air like you just don't care and watch what happens. A little bit of testing and observation. It has to be better than sitting around 'waiting by the phone' for eXo to answer your question, that he has probably answered 10 times before in this thread.

Live a little. Do it......

Edited May 26, 2018 by JamesBond@ge

[Retrofrogg]

Instructions unclear, PC stuck to light fitting. 

[JamesBond@ge]

We need to put you on light duties.

This video at 0:55. Let's pretend that eXo is the Overlord, the minions are the common users like myself and others (who have long since worked out how to install this), and you're the dude saying "where are we going again?".

 

Edited May 26, 2018 by JamesBond@ge

[PhuriousGeorge]

My method of merging eXoDOS with existing MS-DOS library (whether that be your own games or existing eXoDOS packs):

Step 0: BACKUP YOUR EXISTING LB\Data folder & HAVE LAUNCHBOX CLOSED!
Step 1: setup.bat (note: if you're like me, and do this outside the intended final location, you'll have to edit meager.ini when you move the folders if you intend on using meager)
Step 2: Wait
Step 3: Y/N to the aspect ratio question
Step 4: Wait
Step 5: Delete LaunchBox.zip & ***Metadata.zip (optional, not needed unless you want to save space, don't plan on updating the pack, or figure you're going to have to re-dl in future updates anyways)
Step 7: Open your LaunchBox\Data\Platforms\MS-DOS.xml in a text editor (props if you're using Notepad++)
Step 8: Open the eXoDOS\Data\Platforms\MS-DOS.xml
Step 9: Copy contents of the new eXoDOS MS-DOS.xml....  See additional notes below
Step 9 Note A: Start from the beginning of the line with the 1st <Game> tag, and end after the last </AdditionalApplication> tag
Step 9 Note B: All you should be missing from your copy, are the 1st two lines of the xml containing <?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?> and <LaunchBox> and the very last line that contains </LaunchBox>
Step 10: On your existing LB MS-DOS.xml, scroll to the bottom and add a line just before the </LaunchBox> tag.
Step 11: Paste the contents you copied from the eXoDOS MS-DOS.xml

Hard part is over, now to move directories and cleanup
Step 12: Delete unnecessary and conflicting files from the eXo DL so you don't botch-up your existing LB.  Delete the following directories FROM THE eXoDOS download:
\Backups
\CDRDAO
\Data
\DOSBox
\Metadata
\Plugins
\ScummVM
\Themes
\Updates
\VLC

Step 13: I also delete all the loose files in the base directory, except the Collection ReadMe.txt
Step 14: Enter the \Images directory & delete the .background file (unless you like eXo's background ;))
Step 15: Delete the None folder (optional - it bothers me)
Step 16: Move the remaining files in your eXoDOS*** download directory into your BASE LB directory.

You're all set.  Crank up LaunchBox and start playing.  You may have to refresh images to get the new content's images to show to your specifications, but you should be good to go!

I think I captured all the steps as basically and with as much explanation as should be needed...did this after the fact, so let me know if I missed something.

@Jason Carr If this is helpful, would you mind editing your post in the very 1st reply of this topic and hotlink people to this post?  Would have saved me reading 33 pages when I 1st did this originally 

Edited May 27, 2018 by PhuriousGeorge

[FistyDollars]

On 5/15/2018 at 8:32 PM, erebus44 said:

I have been (slowly) working on putting the win 3.1 games in the database.  If you do end up working on them, perhaps staring with the Z's and working backwards and we will meet in the middle somewhere?

Sounds good. I can see you've been progressing pretty steadily. I can't go at nearly the same pace as I did with the eXoDOS collection, but I'll get started at the back of the alphabet and move to the front. Fortunately, there are a lot less games in this collection than in eXoDOS.

[erebus44]

10 hours ago, FistyDollars said:

Sounds good. I can see you've been progressing pretty steadily. I can't go at nearly the same pace as I did with the eXoDOS collection, but I'll get started at the back of the alphabet and move to the front. Fortunately, there are a lot less games in this collection than in eXoDOS.

That's great. I should be finished with the A's today. 

[Retrofrogg]

Got vol's 1-3 up an running in LB. Only thing is, the "additional apps" (e.g. hint books, etc) open fine in LB as PDFs, but in BB I just get a blank screen when trying to open these. Manuals themselves open fine in BB. Any idea what's going on?

Also, does anyone know how I can use a different version of DOSBOX with some of these games? I tried editing the games, but the use DOSBOX box isn't even ticked!

[eXo]

Sounds like big box mode doesn't handle additional apps the same way as LB does. Considering they are in the same format (predominately pdf's), that would mean the issue is with big box mode itself. I would submit the issue for Jason & Co. to look into.

Second, I'm curiuous why you are trying to change the version of dosbox? Of the games that use the vanilla version, they are all on 0.74, which was the latest release. However some of these games use SVN versions, which means they won't work with another version.  Apart from that, these are not treated by LB as typical DOS games. All LB is doing is displaying them. My files take care of the launching of each game, pointing to the proper conf file, etc... To change the version of launchbox would require editing the batch file that the LB front end points to. There is no way to universally change which version of dosbox every single game uses without breaking the pack, mainly since so many games require one of 4 different versions of dosbox that I pack in.

[Retrofrogg]

Many thanks eXo.

@Jason Carr - any thoughts regarding the above and the extra PDFs (hint books etc) working in LB but not BB?

@eXo - the reason that I was looking into using a different version of DOSBOX was because I was keen to apply some kind of shader effect to make the games more like they did on the original machines. I understand that the standard DOSBOX cannot do this, though that there are other versions which can. Please correct me if I am wrong! From your reply however it sounds like this might be untenable, and if so no problem. Perhaps there might be another workaround. 

[eXo]

Are you trying to add scanlines?

The games are being rendered identical to how they were originally written, with the only exception being a 2x zoom (so each pixel is twice as big as it would have been, however this only affects windowed mode and prevents the window from being so tiny you can hardly see it).

When you install a game it asks a few questions. Enforcing aspect ratio will retain the original 4x3 ratio and prevent it from stretching to fit your entire monitor.

It also asks if you want to change scaler. This affects how it renders. However none of these can make it look more original than it already is. 

What sort of filter/effect are you looking for?

Edited June 4, 2018 by eXo

[Jason Carr]

2 hours ago, Dan said:

Many thanks eXo.

@Jason Carr - any thoughts regarding the above and the extra PDFs (hint books etc) working in LB but not BB?

@eXo - the reason that I was looking into using a different version of DOSBOX was because I was keen to apply some kind of shader effect to make the games more like they did on the original machines. I understand that the standard DOSBOX cannot do this, though that there are other versions which can. Please correct me if I am wrong! From your reply however it sounds like this might be untenable, and if so no problem. Perhaps there might be another workaround. 

There's a setting to use the built-in PDF reader in Big Box. It sounds like maybe that's not working? I'm not sure why that would be but you can turn it off in the options.

[Retrofrogg]

@eXo - yes, I am sure that the game is being rendered fine. I am trying to recreate the effect of the monitor that the game would have been run on - which would indeed include scanlines, and often other processing. Is this possible? Hope this is more clear. 

@Jason Carr - the build in PDF reader in Big Box works fine for all the PDF manuals; just not the extra PDF items that are listed under "additional apps". It's almost like Big Box does not treat things listed under additional apps as PDFs. Is this the case?

[eXo]

12 minutes ago, Dan said:

@eXo - yes, I am sure that the game is being rendered fine. I am trying to recreate the effect of the monitor that the game would have been run on - which would indeed include scanlines, and often other processing. Is this possible? Hope this is more clear. 

@Jason Carr - the build in PDF reader in Big Box works fine for all the PDF manuals; just not the extra PDF items that are listed under "additional apps". It's almost like Big Box does not treat things listed under additional apps as PDFs. Is this the case?

Jason - I suspect it isn't that it can't read PDF files, I suspect it is because my "additional assets" do not reside in the same location as manuals. Manuals are right in the main LB folder, in a manuals folder. "Additional Apps" are found in their original location, so something like \lb\exodos\games\GameName\Extras. If it works on manuals but not additional assets, then the only difference would be this path. It must be playing a role in the error.

Dan - Scanlines are a simple scaler, any version of dosbox can handle those. Here is some info on the various scalers:

https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Scaler

One of the scaler options I included in eXoDOS is TV2x. Try that one. It adds the lines without going into fullblown missing lines like scan2x does. To get this, when you run an install on a game, first choose whether you want aspect correction, then choose fullscreen or windowed, and finally choose YES to change your graphics filter.  Option 9 is 'tv2x'. See how that works for you.

What "other processing" are you referring to though? Apart from scanlines, your monitor shouldn't have been affecting your image that much.

[Jason Carr]

17 minutes ago, eXo said:

Jason - I suspect it isn't that it can't read PDF files, I suspect it is because my "additional assets" do not reside in the same location as manuals. Manuals are right in the main LB folder, in a manuals folder. "Additional Apps" are found in their original location, so something like \lb\exodos\games\GameName\Extras. If it works on manuals but not additional assets, then the only difference would be this path. It must be playing a role in the error.

It could be a permissions issue. The built-in PDF reader has some weird issues with paths and permissions. This is a known issue that I plan to address.

[FistyDollars]

It's funny this was brought up, I was just thinking about this after reading this thread on the emulation subreddit. I primarily use retroarch for my emulation for a number of reasons, one of them being the amazing glsl shaders that are included. Being able to recreate the actual feel of the tvs and monitors of the time goes a long way towards making the experience accurate, and is the way it was meant to be played. Scanlines are a stopgap measure at best, but they don't really do the same thing. I'd post image links but I'm on mobile right now.

My point is that I think including a fork of dosbox that supports some truly advanced shaders could be the missing piece of the puzzle needed to make eXoDOS the definitive DOS experience. Just my two cents.

[Retrofrogg]

@eXo - other processing would include screen curvature for one. Fisty puts it quite well above - MAME and Retroarch are able to employ complex shaders that utilise various processes to re-create the feel of the original monitors that the games were intended for. Applying this to the DOS games would really bring things to life and take away the feel that we are playing an emulated version on an LCD screen. I will look into the shaders you mention and report back though. 

@Jason Carr - glad to hear that you recognise the issue and plan to address it, cheers! 

 

 

[eXo]

I'd argue that DOS games were not intended for monitors such as that. I mean, first of all, DOS is one of the few game platforms that was active for a solid 2 decades. In that time it went from text only, to monochrome (both shaded and 4-color), to 16 color, to 256 color, to a palette of 16 million colors. During this time there was a high variable of screens with ever increasing refresh rates, less curvature, and better screen controls to minimize such issues.  I personally never had any curvature on my 386 and later machines as I could even things out using my monitor controls. Point being, things changed a LOT during that 20 years. 

Essentially, the games were not built that way because that's how the developers *wanted* it. They were built that way because they had no choice. But those people with higher quality setups had much less pronounced issues. Not to mention flat screen monitors actually did exist in the 90's, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit of the more well off developers were using them. 

MAME is a different beast. The actual manufacturer built those machines. And apart from operators who were swapping boards into normally incompatible cabs, the manufacturer knew exactly what type of monitor, what size monitor, and what specs each machine would be when it left the factory floor. So a MAME game was designed for that cab. A DOS game was designed for any number of countless PC compatible machines. What is "accurate" to you may not be "accurate" to someone else. DOSBox is designed to emulate the operating system and hardware interfaces that powered those games. I'd argue it is not designed to mimic the exact monitor you owned. 

I mean, if that type of accuracy is the goal here, then you need a serial port mouse, a gravis gamepad, a pair of $20 speakers, and box that makes really loud clicking sounds every time the games thinks it is accessing the disk drive. Might as well throw in the acrid smell of smoke for those of us who used their dad's or uncles computers. Also, I want it to take about 5 minutes from the time I hit start to actually load the game and I want to have to switch disks 10 or 12 times before the first level.  And when I get stuck in a game I want to have to drop to my terminal, dial-up to a emulated BBS, and watch it load character by character on an emulated 1200 baud modem. ?

I'm exaggerating a bit here for the fun of it, but the overall point stands. DOSBox makes old games run on newer computers. The high variability of hardware at the time makes it nearly impossible to recreate the exact way that you experienced the game versus the way I experienced it. For me, personally, scan lines and screen curvature were things to try and work around or minimize.

From an options perspective, I'd love to see those capabilities introduced at some point, but in relation to eXoDOS that becomes very tricky. As I mentioned before, I rely on several different branches of dosbox to get the collection working. Some of those branches are dead. 

DOSBox *is* the definitive dos experience right now outside of playing something on an actual DOS machine. Nothing will ever be the same as playing it directly on an older machine. Even though I was sort of joking above, all of those little things i talked about do play into what it was like to be a DOS gamer in the 80's and 90's. 

You want the "realest" display emulation? Don't emulate. Get an old SVGA monitor, hook it up to a VGA-HDMI adapter, and plug it into your machine. Voila - all the scan lines and curvature your heart desires.

Edited June 4, 2018 by eXo