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Total Dos Collection


nikeymikey

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Hi, just looking for a tutorial or guide here really. I have just acquired a set of MSDos games called Total Dos Collection. My question is.... is there any easy way to import the whole set into LB and have it all launching??

I know I'm gonna need dosbox but I have noooo idea about setting it all up so that LB can launch the games.

 

Thanks in advance

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DOSBox comes with LaunchBox, but no, it will not config anything for you. That's part of the reason why I love the eXoDOS Collection, each game has a conf file where it's needed. So all you need to do is edit the game to make sure the exe is correct (any game you import will be a guess like that, because DOS), and go to the custom conf tab and set it up where needed. Sometimes, you'll need to run the setups or configs as well, but that's also common with a lot of DOS Games regardless of set. I have that set, and I want to play around with importing it myself.

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It's a matter of opinion at this point, so not necessarily. The eXoDOS collection is MUCH larger, more complete, is a complete package. When it's working so that you can essentially drop the eXoDOS collection in to LB (exo and Jason are working on it), then it's a no brainier. For now, try and work with what you got, and see if you like it.

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48 minutes ago, SentaiBrad said:

It's a matter of opinion at this point, so not necessarily. The eXoDOS collection is MUCH larger, more complete, is a complete package. When it's working so that you can essentially drop the eXoDOS collection in to LB (exo and Jason are working on it), then it's a no brainier. For now, try and work with what you got, and see if you like it.

is this still true? looking at a site with pleasure in it xD . the eXoDOS sets i see is from 2014 and Total D just had a update.

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eXo updated not too long ago, but I recall PD not carrying them for their size or something, I don't know. I don't remember the ins and outs. eXo really went for quality. I haven't fully checked out this package, but I don't think they come with the original media and specialized and game specific conf files.

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Because I can’t directly link to it I’ll just quote the wiki page from a certain dome which explains the differences between eXoDOS and Total DOS. That should hopefully answer all your questions.

Quote

Total DOS Collection versus eXoDOS

Below are Hargle's answers on questions about the differences between Total DOS Collection (maintained by Hargle) and eXoDOS (maintained by eXo):

 

Answer #1

eXoDOS torrents are (typically) English only games, ready to run with dosbox configs if needed. eXo does not collect every game nor every version of every game, nor are most shareware titles included, except for the big hitters like Doom.

TDC is an attempt to identify and archive every game that ever came out for DOS. So TDC will have literally 20 copies of DOOM II because it came out in various forms.

This means that one day in the future, every valid game in every eXoDOS release will find its way into TDC too, you just have to be patient.

There are other minor differences between the collections, but that's the main points.

Don't confuse torrent size with completeness.

eXo's collections are hand-picked games, and lots of those games are from the era when games were released on CDs and are thus quite large.

TDC started the archival process by working mostly chronologically from 1981 and we're just now getting into 1994 where CDs started coming on the scene. To put this into perspective, the entire first decade (roughly 5,500 titles) of MS-DOS games is barely one GB of data. Just 1 game in eXo's collection could dwarf more than 5 years of work done in TDC.

Also remember that TDC isn't finished yet.[it likely never will be] so all of those CD based games will eventually get pulled into TDC too and then you'll be wishing for a smaller torrent to download. :)

 

Answer #2

The TDC archive has a larger quantity of games than eXoDOS, but eXoDOS has some newer, CD based titles that haven't yet gotten into TDC which makes the physical size of the eXoDOS collection larger. The way things are headed, all of the remaining titles in eXoDOS will be absorbed into TDC by release #14. Thus is the nature of TDC- we're trying to archive everything and thus all collections out there will eventually get pulled into TDC.

eXoDOS provides a valuable service with the dosbox config files and front-end support. TDC is more of an academic/research project.

In MAME terms, think of eXoDOS as one of those 48-in-one boards where you just hook it up and play, and think of the TDC archive as a MAME ROM set with all it's games, both good and crappy, and all the hacks and variations of those games- games that you will likely never play, but you're glad to have a copy of just in case!

Both projects have unique values and I hope that both can grow together as a resource we can all enjoy.

 

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Thanks Cid, that will help some of the confusion. I prefer eXo, the same way I prefer No-Intro, less extra BS. I do consider eXo more complete though, because the cd's are included where needed (even not as needed), and conf files are made available too. @ALIE I can't point you anywhere sadly. I recall him telling me about a small update, but it was made to the torrent that was available not that there was ever a new release. That's what I remember, but we talked quite a while ago at this point. There is no new version for eXoDOS.

Edit: I only brought it up to make the point that he's not ignoring it or letting the project go. He's still involved.

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The above posts have cleared up some questions I had about the two different dos sets! I was wondering about the size difference as the whole TDC torrent is just under 50gigs and the smallest volume is exoDos is only just less than that!! I suppose it comes down to all the extras in exoDos, where as TDC is just purely the games.

 

And hi ptondo! I recognised your name straight away ? Shame about xyz....

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For what its worth, I have the newest (I think?) ExoDOS collection, and I imported the entire thing into LB. 

Most games work first try.  A few need tweaking.   My virus scanner said 2 - 3 of them were dangerous, so I nuked those specific games (didn't recognize the names anyway).

Took a VERY long time to unzip them all, and even longer to import them into LB.  lol

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I'm in the process of downloading eXoDOS v2 which I believe is the latest version.  The compressed file is 375.7GB so hopefully you have bandwidth and the space available to extract it.  I have not been able to locate chunks nor does the torrent allow you to only download what you want so its all or none.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok,

I also downloaded the TDC set.  At the time I assumed that this was the way to go for a more complete set in terms of "all the games"... 

Now I am having some trouble getting some of the games to work in launchbox.  

If I read correctly this is because I need the iso files?  Is there a TDC ISO package I need to download? 

It also sounds like I am going to need to create custom configuration files as needed.  Any information on how to do this?

While I did appreciate the tutorial that Brad did, and it was full of good information, none of this was really discussed...

Also I keep hearing about Daemon tools lite needed to mount the iso in a vritual drive.  It seems that launchbox has this function built in.  Is this really needed?

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1 minute ago, Coleman said:

Ok,

I also downloaded the TDC set.  At the time I assumed that this was the way to go for a more complete set in terms of "all the games"... 

Now I am having some trouble getting some of the games to work in launchbox.  

If I read correctly this is because I need the iso files?  Is there a TDC ISO package I need to download? 

It also sounds like I am going to need to create custom configuration files as needed.  Any information on how to do this?

While I did appreciate the tutorial that Brad did, and it was full of good information, none of this was really discussed...

Also I keep hearing about Daemon tools lite needed to mount the iso in a vritual drive.  It seems that launchbox has this function built in.  Is this really needed?

Hi there, idumped the whole TDC collection and started again with eXoDOS. Although eXoDOS has its own front end/launcher, Jason and eXo are in the process of making launchbox 100% compatible with eXoDOS and to that respect also the Win3xO collection will benifit from this too, i believe. 


For now if i wanna play a DOS game i just use the eXoDOS launcher, how long it will take jason and eXo to get it sorted, i dont know, but i can wait :)

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