DOSBox

From Pandora Wiki
Revision as of 11:45, 28 February 2011 by Esn (talk | contribs) (Assigning action keys to A/B/X/Y: to make things easier)
Jump to: navigation, search
DOSBox
Download(s) File Archive
License {{{license}}}
Developer(s)
Porting
developer(s)
Pickle
Version 0.74svn
Status Available
Webpage dosbox.com
DOSBox compatibility list
Non-Pandora-specific compatibility list
Forum Discussion About Compatibility

DOSBox is an emulator for older x86 systems. Latest update: Nov. 9, 2010.

The Pandora can emulate "about 5000 cycles in DosBox, which is roughly a 386/33Mhz x86 PC.

Note: In order to use the colon symbol, you have to press shift (left shoulder button) + Fn + ";". This also goes for the underscore symbol.

Simple way to get DOSBox working

1. Put your DOS game directories in /media/[your SD card]/pandora/appdata/dosbox/games

2. Open up dboxfe, the DOSBox GUI that comes with the download.

3. Click on the default profile, click "start". (before doing that, you can click on the "systems" tab, and set "cycles" to "max", for better speed)

4. Type in cd [directory where your game is located]. For example, if you want to play Keen 4 and it's in the directory "Keen4", you would type in cd keen4

5. Type in the name of the executable file for your game, with or without the extension (it's usually the one ending in .exe or .bat). So for "keen4.exe", you would type in keen4. (some games will want you to run setup.exe first - in which case, you type in setup)

6. The game should now start. By the way, at any time in steps 4 or 5, you can type in dir to see a list of the files and directories in that folder

7. To quit DOSBox, close your game (in most games, you press the "Esc" key), then type in exit.

Assigning action keys to A/B/X/Y

By default, DOSBox on the Pandora just assigns keys to their regular keyboard positions. This makes playing games very awkward unless you remap them to the action buttons.

1. Open dboxfe, select your profile, press "start".

2. As it says on the blue box at the top, press Ctrl+F1 to active the keymapper (by the way: R is also Ctrl on the Pandora)

3. A screen will pop up. Use the touchscreen to select keys. The bottom part of the screen is below the taskbar on the Pandora, so you'll need to press Shift+leftclick to move the window around. The easiest way is to hold the left shoulder button (which is "Shift", by default) while moving the window with the stylus.

4. "Ctrl", "Alt", "Shift" and "Space" are used as the action keys by most DOS games. By default, A/B/X/Y are mapped to home/end/pg up/pg down.[1] Remove the mappings for those keys (select them in the keymapper window, and press "del" for each in turn), and then map "Ctrl", "Alt", "Shift" and "Space" to A/B/X/Y.

Alternate, quicker method

Sometimes, bringing up the keymapper doesn't work ([2]). A simpler method may be to go to pandora\appdata\dosbox\.dboxfe directory on your SD card, and edit the mapper.txt file.

To make things really simple, download this mapper.txt file and copy it into that directory, replacing the existing mapper.txt file. Then you'll get the following key mappings:

A (key 278)=lctrl

B (key 279)=rshift

Y (key 280)=space

X (key 281)=lalt

L (key 303)=rshift

R (key 305)=lalt

Mounting ISOs

Read this.

Other tips

Replace DOS4GW with DOS/32A extender (Not working for some games...for example, later Sierra Games like Larry 7 or Gabriel Knight 2). Every little bit helps. -[3]

An important thing to try when game doesn't work or is unstable is to run it with the normal core setting rather than dynamic. -[4]

External links

Videos: