DosBox problem.(kind of solved)

E.K.Virtanen · Post by **E.K.Virtanen** » Mar 27, 2006 16:13

I could not figure out does dosbox support 32bit mode.
I tryed to compile on it with fb dos.
"You need at least 486 to use this program" (or something similar, i forgot allready lol) was output after fbc test.bas.

Any way to use fb on dosbox? Some one done so succesfully?

Fragmeister · Post by **Fragmeister** » Mar 27, 2006 16:20

why use dosbox in the first place? And what OS are you using? winxp could cause some problems with a program detecting your processor type if it's an older one, I think. (and I'm not sure if dosbox is still maintained as I don't use it)

E.K.Virtanen · Post by **E.K.Virtanen** » Mar 27, 2006 17:06

Fragmeister wrote:why use dosbox in the first place? And what OS are you using?

Ubuntu linux

unknown · Post by **unknown** » Mar 27, 2006 17:41

Lurah, you may be interested in Boch's. It is a very advance emulator. I'm not certain, but it may be for Linux.

http://bochs.sourceforge.net/

Sterling Christensen · Post by **Sterling Christensen** » Mar 27, 2006 18:14

DosBox can run protected mode 32 bit DOS executables, at least I know Doom 1 and C&C: Tiberian Dawn run fine in it (if you crank up the emulated megahertz).

I think the problem is probably that it emulates a 386.

Alternative options:
1. QEMU is way faster - DosBox is designed for OLD dos games, not for speed. I'm pretty sure Ubuntu has a package for it. The FreeOSZoo has a preinstalled FreeDOS harddrive image. You can use the "-hdb fat:/path/to/folder" option to mount a folder as a hard disk to get to your FB-related files.
EDIT: The FreeDOS image comes with a French keyboard layout enabled. You can disable it if you can manage to type "keyb /U", then take it out of autoexec.bat.

2. Wine has some limited ability to run DOS executables (QB 4.5's BC.EXE runs!), maybe FB for DOS would work?

3. Bochs. I only tried it once, several years ago - it was slow. It might not be so bad these days.

E.K.Virtanen · Post by **E.K.Virtanen** » Mar 27, 2006 18:15

Thanks for the tip.
Looks interesting project =)

marcov · Post by **marcov** » Mar 27, 2006 19:47

lurah wrote:Thanks for the tip.
Looks interesting project =)

Dosemu is also a possibility, specially for compiler use. With a compiler there is no need to emulate timings, just APIs, and it might run way faster than a emulation for games.

I don't know what extender FB uses, but I assume it is Go32v2, and to my knowledge that works in dosemu

Post by **v1ctor** » Mar 27, 2006 19:51

Try: -arch 386, FB will use some 486+ instructions by default.

E.K.Virtanen · Post by **E.K.Virtanen** » Mar 27, 2006 20:26

Thank you all. Just installing dosemu and wana check other suggestions too.

v1ctor wrote:Try: -arch 386, FB will use some 486+ instructions by default.

Tested, no help :(

DrV · Post by **DrV** » Mar 28, 2006 2:48

You'd have to rebuild the compiler; by default, it is built with -arch 486, and due to the CPU check added some time ago, programs with error checking turned on will refuse to run on processors below their -arch setting.