Finally! Reactos becoming DOS friendly

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N0t_mINe
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Finally! Reactos becoming DOS friendly

Post by N0t_mINe »

http://www.reactos.com/node/728

That's a link to the Reactos newsletter section. From what I understand wine also has a 16 bit kernel project, probably far ahead of what the reactos guys have put together. If memory serves, some of the key issues facing DOS games are hardware specific, not sure how they'll overcome such issues.
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Re: Finally! Reactos becoming DOS friendly

Post by Tchernobog »

Since when was Dosbox really that hard to configure? Although, this is from the same group that thought UNIX was simply too inescapably hard for any normal person to use. :roll:
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Re: Finally! Reactos becoming DOS friendly

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Tchernobog wrote:Since when was Dosbox really that hard to configure? Although, this is from the same group that thought UNIX was simply too inescapably hard for any normal person to use. :roll:
Dosbox is another layer of nonsense to worry about in what is already tricky situation (setting up Blood). I've never been through an entire episode of blood without something happening, often DB related. Emulation is not a good solution, having Blood run natively is the ideal. I know you're above what's considered average from a technical perspective Tcherno, but some of us don't need an endless session of setting changes.

Last year I fired up my first run through cryptic passage, got all the way to the monastery map, suddenly water sectors started bleeding into land sectors, cultists were swimming in mid air. I went back to several saved games and had the same thing happening. Even before CP became unplayable, there was video tearing during jumps, frame rate slowdowns and other minor issues.

DosBox solves nothing. It is a temporary solution at best and seriously needs to be replaced.
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Re: Finally! Reactos becoming DOS friendly

Post by Tchernobog »

Native would of course be best, but I am not going to have an entire operating system installed just devoted to playing Blood. I would much rather have a dedicated MS DOS computer setup than having to mess around with dual booting or virtualization. I pin my hopes more on BloodXL than on anything this might accomplish, although they are of course welcome to try.

That being said, Dosbox simply has not been a huge pain for me. Sure, I have made few changes to the configuration file, but nothing that hard to comprehend. I have them documented here:
http://www.blood-wiki.org/index.php/Ins ... th_Blood_2

The main problem with Dosbox is that it is CPU hungry - but if you have a dual core or more you should be pretty much alright. I can also agree with Cryptic Passage being a bit of a pain to play, but to be honest that is partly Sunstorm's fault for making a buggy product, as it never ran like a pearl to start with. To say that Dosbox solves nothing is patently absurd.
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Re: Finally! Reactos becoming DOS friendly

Post by N0t_mINe »

Tchernobog:
To say that Dosbox solves nothing is patently absurd.
Especially when the poster calls it a temporary solution in the very next sentence. :?
Anyway gog got around most of DB's issues. We are biased by our first impressions to be sure.
To make matters worse I'm assured by GoG installer that my OS hasn't got the 3.5 version of netframework even though I most certainly do, just ask Paint.Net :o. So I hope you'll pardon my outbursts as DB will be a little touchy for me even if it is a pretty decent set up.
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Re: Finally! Reactos becoming DOS friendly

Post by Tchernobog »

N0t_mINe wrote:Especially when the poster calls it a temporary solution in the very next sentence. :?
That was at the end of my statement, so I do not follow. Regardless, what I said is that while native would be better, Dosbox does allow me to play Blood easily and fairly conveniently. As such, it most definitely solves its purpose.
N0t_mINe wrote:Anyway gog got around most of DB's issues. We are biased by our first impressions to be sure.
I myself have never used the GoG version, as it is tied to a Windows copy of Dosbox. I could of course put the work into making it work with my native install, but why would I bother when I already have a non-attached copy of Blood to use with it?
N0t_mINe wrote:So I hope you'll pardon my outbursts as DB will be a little touchy for me even if it is a pretty decent set up.
I have nothing to pardon you for as you never did anything out of line. Sharing your opinion is fine; I am just countering it.
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Re: Finally! Reactos becoming DOS friendly

Post by N0t_mINe »

Tchernobog wrote:
N0t_mINe wrote:Especially when the poster calls it a temporary solution in the very next sentence. :?
That was at the end of my statement, so I do not follow. Regardless, what I said is that while native would be better, Dosbox does allow me to play Blood easily and fairly conveniently. As such, it most definitely solves its purpose.


Shoulda' quoted myself on that one. I was referring to my own statement, not yours.

N0t_mine:
DosBox solves nothing. It is a temporary solution at best and seriously needs to be replaced.
Italics added for emphasis.
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