What's your preferred method for launching DOS games? I use DOS Box when it works, but Retroarch DOS Box when it doesn't... but Retroarch use keyboard hotkeys for its interface, which interferes with using a keyboard to play.

[PurpleTentacle]

tl;dr: I'm trying to decide on the best method for running DOS games. At the moment, I use DOS Box when I can, but Retroach for games that need them.

So my situation is like this:

DOS Box seems to play most games, but for reasons I can't quite figure out, some games just don't run, although they run using Retroarch. I tried adjusting some of the settings like the video output method (I.E. Surface/Overlay/DirectDraw), or the machine type (I know some games require a specific output method, but that doesn't seem to always be the case).

 

I'd consider just going full RetroArch to make things easier for me (game speed seems to also work well by default). Unfortunately, like I mentioned in the title, Retroarch has the keyboard shortcuts on by default, so pressing the spacebar, for instance, will fast forward. Now, I saved a config where the "End" key was used to enable hotkeys, which turns the hotkeys off by default, so it doesn't interfere with keyboard input for the games. Unfortunately, that effects *all* other systems, and on top of that, pressing the "End" key doesn't actually turn on keyboard shortcuts, so there's no way to open up the Retroarch menu (I guess turning off keyboard shortcuts oddly turns off the ability to enable them through a keyboard shortcut).

 

So is there a better way to do this? Is there a command line parameter to load a specific config so that it only does that for DOS games? Also, how do I tell what config Retroarch is using for DOS Box? They usually run well, but I'd like to be able to tweak them, but I don't know how.

 

Problem I'm having with a specific game - Scorched Earth in DOS Box has the mouse act weird (it's very wonky, hard to describe), but the mouse works fine in Retroarch. On the other hand, Scorched Earth runs rather slowly in Retroarch (the explosions & the starting screen load REALLY slowly, everything else is fine). Retroarch makes it actually playable, but the waiting for the explosions & such makes me not want to play it.

[sundogak]

@PurpleTentacleFor RA you can do one of two ways to direct keys to the emulator rather than to RA.  Both settings are located here: In RA, go to Settings, Input,Input Hotkey Binds. 

If you look at the Game Focus Toggle (default is Scroll Lock), that button if pressed will toggle so that keys go to emulator (i.e., pressing "F" sends "F" to emulator, not a command to RA to toggle full screen). 

The other option is to assign a key to "Enable Hotkeys". If you do this, then it always sends keys to the emulator unless you press the assigned hotkey which then sends to RA as a normal command.

[damageinc86]

i'm way outdated with this one, but I love d-fend reloaded.  I know it's technically another layer between you and the games (it's sort of its own little frontend) but I just love using it. 

[PurpleTentacle]

12 hours ago, sundogak said:

@PurpleTentacleFor RA you can do one of two ways to direct keys to the emulator rather than to RA.  Both settings are located here: In RA, go to Settings, Input,Input Hotkey Binds. 

If you look at the Game Focus Toggle (default is Scroll Lock), that button if pressed will toggle so that keys go to emulator (i.e., pressing "F" sends "F" to emulator, not a command to RA to toggle full screen). 

The other option is to assign a key to "Enable Hotkeys". If you do this, then it always sends keys to the emulator unless you press the assigned hotkey which then sends to RA as a normal command.

huh, I think the game focus option is what I want to use. For some reason, the Enable Hotkeys option doesn't seem to work for me, or maybe I don't understand how it works. It never seems to send the command to RA. I think I'll use the Game Focus option, and instruct anyone who plays it to use that when playing DOS games.

[PurpleTentacle]

10 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

i'm way outdated with this one, but I love d-fend reloaded.  I know it's technically another layer between you and the games (it's sort of its own little frontend) but I just love using it. 

I used to use D-Fend Reloaded, actually! It might have been what kept me from fully switching to LaunchBox originally. I really enjoy how it has some preconfiged settings for specific machines. Makes it easy to find a good starting point for a game if you know what speed CPU the game was written for. 

 

Gonna stick with LaunchBox because one of my main intentions is to use it for BigBox, and throwing in another front end could get messy (I suppose I could always take the DOS Box configs made by D-Fend & use them in LaunchBox).

[damageinc86]

Well at least the startup screens might now cover up launching Dfend.  I've been using rocketlauncher's fades for about 5 years now to cover up dfend, works great.  Haven't messed with launchbox startup screens much yet though, but looks very promising, especially for systems like this.  using just the configs is a good idea.

[PurpleTentacle]

Yeah, I gotta figure that if D-Fend can launch it by creating DOS Box configs, then it should be no problem to transfer the those configs to the games' directory within LaunchBox. I don't remember D-Fend doing anything special beyond that, but it's been awhile since I've used it.

[Lordmonkus]

Why not just use the "Create Shortcut" function in D-Fend and then put all your shortcutes in a folder which essentially just becomes a roms folder and then import the shortcut files into LB like any other Windows game ?

[damageinc86]

That's right, there is a nice make shortcut option in there. 

[PurpleTentacle]

7 hours ago, Lordmonkus said:

Why not just use the "Create Shortcut" function in D-Fend and then put all your shortcutes in a folder which essentially just becomes a roms folder and then import the shortcut files into LB like any other Windows game ?

Looks like I have a new project for today.

 

Honestly, figuring out tricks like this is one of the fun parts of LaunchBox (at least as far as it relates to not playing games). Creating a script to load & run a BASIC script was kind of satisfying, even if it's not exactly sophisticated. 

[DOS76]

wait what is playing games I thought it was all about compulsive configuration and obtaining media resources for everything! (I kid I'm well past that stage and now do just enjoy playing games took about 2 2 and a half years)

[PurpleTentacle]

I went through that with my Raspberry Pi, lol. I *really* enjoyed configuring it, setting it up, and I did play it for awhile... and then just stopped. Fortunately, once I got a 13" monitor for my bedroom, it gave me a reason to play it again.