eXoDOS v4

[eXo]

I understand your thought process, but using your examples, there is no benefit to tomb raider and tomb raider gold both being in the pack. Gold was the definitive release. For the same reason I don't put multiple versions of DOOM in the pack, i try to stick with final releases. If there was content on the original Tomb Raider disk that had been removed from the Gold version, then I would consider adding it.

Magic Carpet is similar. The main difference being that the add on for it was released as a separate commercial download.  For bullfrog games such as this and syndicate, it made sense to include the "plus" versions, as again, these are patched versions that do not remove content from the original releases.

From a playability standpoint, the way it is set up now let's you play the games sad they were originally released, but also with the option of the add-on packs. I'm Tomb Raider's case it is the "Unfinished Business" extra level.

From a preservation standpoint, I see your point, but I also wonder where the line gets drawn. Do I include every version of the same game that had a commercial release? Do I include every game as it was originally released and then again on it's final patched release?

Over the course of a project this size, it could easily balloon by 100's of gigabytes, attempting to put all these versions in. And the bigger the set gets, the less people download it. Which in turn hurts it's preservation.

All this has to be taken into account when deciding where to draw lines as to what goes in 

[an531]

Doesn't Total DOS Collection (TDC) attempt to do exactly that, i.e. preserve every known release for DOS? So, if someone wants to do preservation, then he should definitely check out TDC and other archives. Not sure what the point would be in having another collection exactly like that. From a manageability and playability perspective, having multiple versions (as opposed to one best version) is really a nuisance to deal with, especially since there just isn't enough lifetime to even enjoy the one best version of each game... This is similar to the case of TOSEC vs No-Intro. The only people that I know to get TOSEC are the ones who just hoard it and not actually use/play the games.

Edited December 27, 2020 by an531

[Imgema]

On 12/27/2020 at 6:56 PM, eXo said:

I understand your thought process, but using your examples, there is no benefit to tomb raider and tomb raider gold both being in the pack. Gold was the definitive release. For the same reason I don't put multiple versions of DOOM in the pack, i try to stick with final releases. If there was content on the original Tomb Raider disk that had been removed from the Gold version, then I would consider adding it.

Magic Carpet is similar. The main difference being that the add on for it was released as a separate commercial download.  For bullfrog games such as this and syndicate, it made sense to include the "plus" versions, as again, these are patched versions that do not remove content from the original releases.

From a playability standpoint, the way it is set up now let's you play the games sad they were originally released, but also with the option of the add-on packs. I'm Tomb Raider's case it is the "Unfinished Business" extra level.

From a preservation standpoint, I see your point, but I also wonder where the line gets drawn. Do I include every version of the same game that had a commercial release? Do I include every game as it was originally released and then again on it's final patched release?

Over the course of a project this size, it could easily balloon by 100's of gigabytes, attempting to put all these versions in. And the bigger the set gets, the less people download it. Which in turn hurts it's preservation.

All this has to be taken into account when deciding where to draw lines as to what goes in 

Yeah, i see your point also.

Still though, it's a bit weird having a huge DOS collection with all classic games and in 1994 releases you don't see the original Magic Carpet or in 1995 the original Tomb Raider. With their original, familiar box art images and all. Feels like there's something missing. Well, one can still add those from other packs i suppose so it's all good.

[Fablog]

@eXo, will you use DosBox pure in a next release or there is no point to do that?

[eXo]

Pure is currently missing many features that I rely on.

Keep in mind that I am currently using vanilla 0.74, svn daum, ece (an older version because they regressed pixel perfect functionality from it), and dosbox x. Then, I have another 6-10 custom builds designed for one off game compatibility. Such as MS Flight Sim 1, which does not run properly on any other version.

The reasons I use all these versions are highly varied. DOSbox X for example handles games that use the DAC on pc speaker to play tones. This allowed games without a sound card to sound much better than standard beeps and boops. However, because it was a hack, standard dosbox, svn, and ece don't support this.

I also use extended features like ipx/null modem, composite cga, mt-32, sound canvas 55 fluidsynth sound font, Tandy 3 voice, pixel perfect, scalers and shaders, 3Dfx, IDE pass through to full MS-DOS images, etc etc etc. A majority, if not all, of the above features are not supported in Pure currently.

Personally, I don't believe there will ever be a single version of DOSbox that will be capable of launching every game. I am hoping that the dosbox staging crew gets close though. They have a pipeline for properly testing regressions, while also doing their work in a properly documented and public github. 

Pure is currently a single person who has a private repository and does code dumps every so often.

Pure is, quite simply, a very basic version of DOSBox aimed at retroarch. So, refund that is great for some specific use case scenarios, it is *far* from being a preservation level utility. 

Pure makes a lot of assumptions. For example, it forces aspect ratio on. While this might make sense at first glance, we have lists of games that are broken and distorted by this setting. We have custom scripts in place to ensure games like this are run properly, no matter what settings outside conf files try to set.

Pure also seems to want to treat dos games like rom files. Console games are preinstalled games with a very low amount of variation. They do not have setup utilities that are capable of thousands of combinations of sound, video, network, and game play options. Console game zips do not have raw media images in them that have to be mounted in specific ways in order to run properly. This means, that for Pure to run properly requires the game be a rip. It can't handle a bin/cue image. It can't handle an eXoDOS zip file that has the games bin/cue in one folder and the installed game in another.

So, that means Pure HURTS game preservation by preferring game rips over original media.

The reason I took the time to write all this up is because there is a ton of hype and excitement over Pure in the past few months. From my perspective it prefers butchered games, makes assumptions about your setup that can conflict with the game, and force you to play using whatever basic settings he already choose (vga and soundblaster, for example).

eXoDOS uses original media, allows you to launch multiple versions of the same games, choose nearly any supported sound card, play ipx multiplayer, use shaders, use scalers, turn aspect ratio on and off, play with pixel perfect, use composite video modes, hear proper DAC audio, choose multiple video types, and honestly... There is a lot more but I have trouble remembering everything we have setup in eXoDOS.

So for people who want to throw a copy of DOOM they downloaded from some abandonware site on their retropie to play with a control pad using basic sound and resolution settings, pure may very well be your easiest route. Not the best. The easiest.

For a project that looks too preserve DOS games with their original media and as many launch options and possible... It's actually totally the opposite of what we need.

I hope all that makes sense. Thanks for reading.

[eXo]

On 12/30/2020 at 7:34 PM, Imgema said:

Yeah, i see your point also.

Still though, it's a bit weird having a huge DOS collection with all classic games and in 1994 releases you don't see the original Magic Carpet or in 1995 the original Tomb Raider. With their original, familiar box art images and all. Feels like there's something missing. Well, one can still add those from other packs i suppose so it's all good.

I'll look into it and see about adding them.

Nothing says I can't make an exception sometimes.

Maybe I'll replace the bullfrog games with the individual releases.

[Lordmonkus]

39 minutes ago, eXo said:

there is a ton of hype and excitement over Pure in the past few months.

People love to jump on the "new hype" without any real thought as to what it really entails.

[Imgema]

DosBox Pure is working great on my end. Being able to load games from zip archives, with full gamepad support and even save states, completely changed DOS gaming for me. It's almost as easy as loading a console game.

Oh and it runs any eXoDOS zip file i threw at it, complete with CD music support. I also managed to find a good general midi soundfont so general midi supported games sound good. The author said MPU-401 is in the To-Do list so i'm looking forward to it.

The core also shows everything you need in the main menu when you launch a game. You can run the setup and change resolutions, sound cards, etc, just like any DosBox version. So i don't understand the issue with the core itself, if it's compatible with eXoDOS packs then how is it any different than any other DosBox version, other than the few extras it has? In fact, i don't have any DOS games other than the ones from the eXoDOS packs. I don't use files from abandonware sites.

 

@eXo

Here's a suggestion. You could keep the re-released versions in the main pack as you have them now and keep the originals in a different folder, separately, for those who want to use them. I don't expect those to be tons of games, i personally found 5 or 6. Magic Carpet, Tomb Raider, Carmageddon, Worms and maybe a couple i'm forgetting. So i don't think it would be a huge deal size wise, the pack is already 600+ GBs, a couple more won't do a huge difference. Just my 2 cents.

 

 

Edited January 2, 2021 by Imgema

[eXo]

People love to try 5 or 6 popular games and decide that since those worked, the other 7,194 must work as well.

Spend 12 years setting up every game in the pack and then come tell me with confidence that Pure handles all the games just fine.

This isn't a debate. Pure is hyped up shit. It's not open source. It's missing tons of features. And it encourages game rips, which fucks over preservation.

I will not support it. I already gave the long winded reasonable statement. I'm not going to bother arguing it with people. 

I will not support that piece of shit port in any way. It compromises the integrity of the original game and strips out all the choices I hadn't spent years creating to try and "consolize" computer games.

You can not play over half the collection on a game pad. We have about 2,300 games mapped on our joy2key mapper protect. 2,300 mappings that the Pure author outright stole from our project. That leaves 4,900 or so games that have no support.

So AGAIN, for those of you who want to play DOOM on your retropie. Have at it. But don't expect me to support some shitty port that doesn't work with most of my options and compromises the rest with assumed settings.

[Imgema]

Sorry, i didn't ask you to support it, i just wondered why such dislike for it, as an outsider end user. And it seems you have your legit reasons to hate it. I won't argue about it, especially considering you are probably the more knowledgeable in the topic of DOS games around here. I will continue using it in silence.

However, if you assume i'm playing DOS games on a Pi and only tested 5 or 6 popular games, you'd be wrong. Just because i treasure couch gaming, doesn't mean i want to compromise on accuracy/quality. And i'm pretty aware the majority of DOS games aren't meant to be played with a gamepad but i do like the option, even if it's not the optimal way to play.

 

[eXo]

Keep in mind that my response above was directly to someone who was asking me if I would be supporting it.

It doesn't bother me if people use it. I was just explaining why it doesn't work for my project.

Ever since it's first hype video I've gotten *dozens* of pm's acting as though I can toss out everything else and this will be the only DOSBox I'll every need. I was getting messages like that before it had even released, when it was just a hype video.

And if I point out features it doesn't have, I'm either told "he is adding them" or "I don't use those anyways". 

So when I approach it from a rational perspective, one based on juggling multiple versions of DOSBox for years, it's hard to see why this particular port has generated such a fierce following so quickly.

If it is still in development in two years or more, and it starts to reach parity with other versions like ECE and Staging, then I'll see if it brings anything to the table that I don't already have access to. 

For now, it simply makes no sense to put major lifting into porting my projects to a dosbox version that is lacking features I need and has only been around for a month.

I've watched multiple dosbox ports come and go in the past decade. And the unfortunate truth is, the dead ones were all run by single person setups.

The story of DOSBox is "good enough". Devs get whatever games they care about most working, and then basically just stop and call it good enough. 

Even vanilla dosbox has been stalled at version 0.74 for almost as long as I've been doing this. At this point, it is based on DOS 5.0 and is a hodge podge of diff patches and strangely emulated hardware. Buuuuut, in general it works.... So.... Good enough. 

DOS emulation is difficult, but it is also leagues behind other platforms (mainly due to the wide variety of hardware configurations and the fact that what currently exists is "good enough").

So, that said, it's going to take a monumental shift in the way things are done to really change that. Currently, Staging is the only project I've seen that is working towards that properly. And to be very clear, I was highly skeptical of them at first as well. They also talked about Gabe's as roms. But unlike the Pure author, they spent time talking to me to learn from what I had dealt with over the years and make their project better for it. They have shown they are dedicated to it, and they have shown they understand the difficulties they face. 

I'll take that over a hype video any day.

[Headrush69]

15 hours ago, eXo said:

This isn't a debate. Pure is hyped up shit. It's not open source. It's missing tons of features. And it encourages game rips, which fucks over preservation.

I will not support it. I already gave the long winded reasonable statement. I'm not going to bother arguing it with people. 

I will not support that piece of shit port in any way. It compromises the integrity of the original game and strips out all the choices I hadn't spent years creating to try and "consolize" computer games.

You can not play over half the collection on a game pad. We have about 2,300 games mapped on our joy2key mapper protect. 2,300 mappings that the Pure author outright stole from our project. That leaves 4,900 or so games that have no support.

So AGAIN, for those of you who want to play DOOM on your retropie. Have at it. But don't expect me to support some shitty port that doesn't work with most of my options and compromises the rest with assumed settings.

Don't disagree with anything you said, but in the end DOSBox-Pure is just a tool and in some cases it's not the right choice, in others it might be best.

I think a lot of the hype is just because it is a libretro core and with that comes the thinking that ultimately it will be one of the better solutions. As we know that isn't always true. Excluding ExoDOS, I can understand how a user looking at all the DOSBox variants and reading so much old information about what each does or doesn't do or needing specific versions could be confusing for some users and the promise of a simple solution with Retroarch and it's bells and whistles could sound tantalizing.

With a massive DOS collection of 13 games, I'm quite indifferent to DOSBox versions and they all work for what I need, but I have tested many out. I didn't know Pure wasn't open source, I thought all libretro cores were. 

P.S. Exo, I applaud the amount of work and dedication you have put into exoDOS. As end users we sometimes forget the work and effort and time people put into these projects.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Headrush69

[Psyraven]

I made DOSBox Pure to work as good as possible with DOS games no matter the source, be it some collection, some shady abandonware site, GOG or someones own floppy disks they have in their garage. When I started half a year ago, I looked around what people use to store DOS games, and it seems ZIP was very common. I found out about the archiving that was done by the Total DOS Collection which also uses ZIP so it seemed to make sense. Everyone knows ZIP, everyone can make and modify ZIP. It's a free and simple format for development purposes as well. For me it is clearly the best choice to make something that works in 2020 to use ZIP.

Exodos? I haven't even heard about until after I made the announcement of my project. For me it was just another archival project that luckily also uses ZIP. Ok, nice, I thought. Later someone on the libretro Discord convinced me to look at incorporating the keyb2joy.pad project which lead me to join it's Discord instance to ask if that's ok and chat about the possibilities. The people behind the keyb2joy.pad project were enthusiastic about the idea and remained positive about the whole thing. There's a public comment by one of the authors on my YouTube video "DOSBox Pure - Automatic Game Pad Control Mappings".

It happened that the keyb2joy.pad project shared the discord with the exodos project. And somehow there me and my project was already a target for mockery by the people behind exodos. I truly have no idea what brought the anger upon me. Now I can only guess it is because people I don't know at all are asking the exodos people to use/support/do something with their project and DOSBox Pure?? I don't even know why that would be asked. It's another DOSBox fork among many, sharing the same core, quirks, problems and greatness.

That means it's not meant to be 100% perfect DOS emulation. It means feasibility, the balance of compatibility and performance. DOS doesn't yet have someone like Byuu that has the technical skills and motivation to truly care about preservation on the emulation level. I'm a big supporter of game preservation, it's the art form I certainly care the most about. For DOS I think at this point that means making sure files are not getting lost. As long as we have the files, the technicalities can be solved by someone talented some day in the future.

Just like regular DOSBox, DOSBox Pure is a best effort thing. I never touted anything about this being about game preservation. I wanted an easier way to play DOS games on my Raspberry Pi, I made DOSBox Pure, it's really that simple. 

So @eXo, I don't know why you seem angry at my project. I can't apologize for people I don't know if you feel bothered by them suggesting you to do something with my project. I certainly am not suggesting anything. But please don't tout shit like I stole the keyb2joy.pad project when I went and clearly got permission. Don't tout shit like "It's not open source" because I think you know what the GPL entails (source is on GitHub). Don't go around rabble-rousing your goons so they come and call me a thief or worse, OK? If you have beef to settle or have ideas how to better approach preservation from a technical standpoint with a new DOSBox fork, you have my discord number thingy. And if you truly don't give a shit, then act like you don't. Maybe just ignore the requests?

[eXo]

Don't cry about being judged for what others are saying to me about your project while simultaneously accusing me of "riling up my goons". No one here is stupid enough to fall for that double sided bullshit.

The keytojoypad project doesn't "happen to share a discord" with eXoDOS. It is a subset of my project that two of my staff members have been working on.

As far as being a "target for mockery", Jesus man, did you just log into the internet yesterday? You are going to have a really hard time working on a pubic project with skin that thin.

Before Pure was released and it was just a hype video, I got tired of those people you mentioned earlier asking me about it. After all, like you said, ultimately it's just another fork. And with nothing to actually even look at or test, it was meaningless and pointless. So, as a joke, our local bot (who makes fun of tons of stuff because my discord isn't some super PC hug time friend zone) responded to "Pure" with a cartoon of a person shaving their ass. Because shaving your own ass is about as useful as a version of dosbox that wasn't even released yet.

Once you released, I removed the image link because the joke was over. 

But you couldn't be bothered to actually introduce yourself, or ask anyone anything. All you cared about was taking my guys work and then running away claiming to be a victim of Peter Molyneux (my bot).

I guarantee you, had you taken the time to say hello and try talking to people there would be a much better relationship between our project and yours. My team is a group of people who have been writing on preserving and getting DOS games to work over 10x longer than you have been working on your port. So maybe, just maybe, there are people there who could have helped you, provided knowledge, etc. We have everyone from original dosbox authors, to specific port authors, to game developers (both celebrity and mundane), game preservationists from multiple organisations, and a hundred specialists in between. All active, friendly, and interested in preserving DOS games and making them work properly on modern hardware.

But Peter, (who is a total joke himself and based on Molyneux's constant need to hype himself), made fun of you :(. And eXo is "riling up his goons". Fuck off with all that. If you want to start over, I'm fine with that. But playing victim like this is just pathetic.

[DOS76]

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