dosbox-x

Here is a preview of DosBox-X 0.801 installers for both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.

Note:

If you install DosBox-X using the default installation options which targets 'Program Files' folder, you must run DosBox-X using administrative rights else it will crash.

(presently, there is no code in DosBox-X to make it fail gracefully in such case)

This is a release that should be further tested with games before merging with main branch.

• deadzone settings works fairly well, input is now silent when centered (on most games)
• response settings works well too, aiming precision gain when using cubic interpolation

Notes:

this topic is rather CPU cycle sensitive, calibration in-game can be frustrating so do not hesitate to calibrate again if it produces unexpected results (when calibrated properly, behavior is consistent).

shipped package with default config and free JOYCHECK program to test out.

PS: the mapping-related deadzone is coming in the next release

First working Mac OS X release. Dylib dependencies fixed. The .app should now run on any Mac OS X besides my own.

Windows build. ESS 688 emulation. More tweaks.

Numerous tweaks to Sound Blaster and Gravis Ultrasound emulation. S3 fixes. Numerous other fixes forgotten when Github mysterious failed to post my last binary release.

BIOS initialization and DOS device driver initialization fixes. Parallel port and serial port BIOS and DOS registration fixes. Parallel port emulation now allows you to specifically assign the Disney Sound Source in the [parallel] section to a specific port, in addition to using the widely used disney=true setting. 3Dfx/Voodoo PCI registration fixes, card now shows up in enumeration again. External patch provided by ghoul8765 to fix 3Dfx MMIO access.

Gravis ultrasound DMA, IRQ, and DMA streaming emulation fixes. Boot stage reorganization, to shift to hardware -> BIOS -> DOS bootup process. S3 graphics emulation fixes. Linear framebuffer fixes, Windows no longer crashes with S3 emulation. VESA BIOS hacks were added for games that have modelist reading problems.

GUS fixes, mapper fixes, some reorganization of the bootup process.

Minor enhancements. New support to try and develop keyboard layout support for Japanese keyboards (by request from issue tracker), not looking promising so far considering Windows is weird with the scan codes, but doing the best I can.

Normal core has been modified extensively to become more page fault reentrant. Windows 95, 98, and (mostly) ME are very stable now in DOSBox-X. Other minor fixes.

286 BIOS reset vector added. Some reset modes supported now. Added support to emulate double fault and triple fault exceptions. Doing so allows 286-based code to switch in and out of protected mode as needed. Added 8086, 80186, and 286 cpu types to normal core. The 286 core is mostly tested, while the 8086 and 80186 cores are experimental. It is now possible to run Windows 3.0 and 3.1 in standard mode with cputype=286, where if Windows detects a 286 it uses the BIOS reset vector and causes a triple fault as a method of returning back to real mode. Added code to FPU emulation where if cputype=286 it changes FCOMP emulation to act like a 287 (makes -inf == +inf which is the common test to determine 80287 vs 80387). Added code to zero INT 67h if ems=false, this was added for a DOS demo that refused to run because it thought EMM386.EXE was resident despite the fact that ems=false, it turned out the demo only checked to see if INT 67h was nonzero rather than properly checking for expanded memory services. Added code to setup the "default interrupt callback" in the DOS kernel such that INT 1 and INT 3 debug interrupts now point directly at the IRET instruction, which was added for another DOS demo that refused to run because it thought DOSBox's callback instruction was a debugger. More comments, and lots of other minor fixes.

Added Pause key mapping for debug builds. Updated Pause function so that while paused you can hit Spacebar to single-step frame-by-frame. You can exit pause mode by hitting pause again OR the Escape key.

Fixed 16-color planar mode hpel panning emulation. Hpel panning should not judder anymore, fixes Space Pigs "vicky" demo. Fixed "allow hpel effects" mode to obey Attribute Controller Mode register bit 5 that controls whether hpel is set to 0 on line compare. Fixed Disney sound source emulation, 64-bit builds can now use pure LPT DAC non-disney modes of the emulation. Fixed std::max() issue with VS2013.

VGA fixes: vlank_skip and panning/line compare fixes. Line Compare register is now re-read once per scanline, to emulate the fact most VGA cards do not double-buffer the value. Some demos rely on changing the Line Compare register to split-screen the VGA display multiple times or even to cause one scanline to repeat. More fixes.

Brand new AVI/WAV capture code. WAV code is cleaner and AVI writer uses OpenDML 2.0 format which allows AVI captures to grow past 2GB without problems in a way supported by all media playback software.

Floppy controller code now has basic stepping delays, read/write commands, and read ID.

Other minor fixes.

machine=pcjr fixes. More fixes to allow increasing conventional memory at some expense of DOS compatibility. Fix UMB allocation with EMS active.

Configurable IO and VGA memory delay for older code written for slow hardware.
Alternate "slow" VGA memory I/O for programs that use graphics controller bitmasks and ROPs in 320x200x256 mode (fixes "Legend" demo).
Tweaks to timing code, which seems to fix VGA raster fx errors in "Majic 12 Show" demo. Also allows Crystal Dream II to time the display properly if core=normal, no more flickering.
PIC dispatch bug fixes. Prior to the bugfix there were corner cases where IRQs would get stuck because of how DOSBox handled a global "PIC check IRQ" flag in response to raising/lowering IRQs and processing an IRQ. Some demos and games prior to the bugfix had problems with music "getting stuck" or Sound Blaster output abruptly stopping.

I got DOSBox-X to compile as 64-bit Windows! This is the first release with both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries provided.

Compile-time warning fixes especially for 64-bit. Though unlikely, there is a chance the fixes broke something.

New Expanded Memory control parameters. I also took existing (unused) code to allow starting the DOS VM in virtual 8086 mode and extended it to do basic virtualization. Some VCPI fixes, some EMS fixes, and XMS fixes. A particular demo on scene.org I found would not run without both expanded memory and virtual 8086 mode, which is why I added the virtual 8086 mode setting.

Known problems at this time: the virtual 8086 mode works perfectly fine with DOS programs. However for some odd reason Windows 3.1 and most DOS extenders complain about insufficient XMS memory (despite that MOST of it is free). Some other DOS extenders such as Microsoft DOSXNT and DOS32/a cause DOSBox-X to segfault or cause erratic crashes.

Also merged into this build are mainline DOSBox SVN commits from October 2014 to January 2015.

SVGA options, common "getopt" for option parsing that will hopefully entirely replace the kludgy "FindString" type parsing DOSBox-X does now. More fixes. A20 auto-enable hack for Windows 3.1 when a20=mask.