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Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw

Ah poopers.

I didn't read the fine print that it was the middle key plus the +/- keys at the same time.

What's my I.Q. again? :confused:

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw

Been doing some dosbox build performance tests with various compile-time flags. Finding a reasonable benchmark hasn't been easy. Since dosbox emulates several PC subsystems, I choose to test real-world apps. In this case Doom timedemos.

The results indicate time to start dosbox, run the timedemo and exit dosbox (from script). To compute the mean run time, I discard the slowest score of 5. Because a 'clean' run can be broken by various unknowns, the curve is more of a poisson than a binomial distribution.

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_a -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -fforce-addr -fforce-mem -falign-loops=2 -falign-functions=2 -falign-jumps=2 -funroll-loops -mabi=aapcs-linux -mcpu=arm1136j-s -mfpu=vfp -mfloat-abi=softfp

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_novfp -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -fforce-addr -fforce-mem -falign-loops=2 -falign-functions=2 -falign-jumps=2 -funroll-loops -mabi=aapcs-linux -mcpu=arm1136j-s

dosbox_feb12 -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -mabi=aapcs-linux -mcpu=arm1136j-s -mfpu=vfp -mfloat-abi=softfp

dosbox_feb14a -Os -fomit-frame-pointer -fforce-addr -fforce-mem -falign-loops=2 -falign-functions=2 -falign-jumps=2 -mabi=aapcs-linux -mcpu=arm1136j-s -mfpu=vfp -mfloat-abi=softfp

dosbox_feb14b -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -fforce-addr -fforce-mem -falign-loops=2 -falign-functions=2 -falign-jumps=2 -mabi=aapcs-linux -mcpu=arm1136j-s -mtune=arm1136j-s -mfpu=vfp -mfloat-abi=softfp -ffast-math

dosbox_feb14c same but with --disable-core-inline

Code:

core simple, cycles 1800, fs 5, no scaler, -timedemo demo3

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_a           5:56  4:26  5:07

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_novfp       4:45  5:06  4:43

dosbox_feb12                    4:52  5:03  4:57



core simple, cycles 2500, fs 5, no scaler, -timedemo demo3

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_a           4:13  4:15  4:32  4:23  4:33 : 4:20.75

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_novfp       4:31  4:25  4:22  4:27  4:23 : 4:24.25

dosbox_feb12                    4:42  4:33  4:27  4:39  4:26 : 4:31.25



core simple, cycles 2500, fs 5, no scaler, -timedemo demo3 'performance' profile

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_a           4:24  4:52  4:23  4:40  4:33 : 4:30.00

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_novfp       4:33  4:32  4:20  4:39  4:21 : 4:26.40

dosbox_feb12                    4:31  4:28  4:30  4:33  5:05 : 4:30.50



core simple, cycles 3600, fs 5, no scaler, -timedemo demo3 'performance' profile

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_a           4:17  5:38  4:17  4:13  4:14 : 4:15.25

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_novfp       4:19  4:21  4:14  4:17  4:13 : 4:15.75

dosbox_feb12                    4:18  4:19  5:00  4:17  4:31 : 4:21.25

dosbox_feb14a                   4:55  5:49  4:49  4:58  4:48 : 4:52.50

dosbox_feb14b                   4:02  4:41  4:38  4:05  4:01 : 4:11.50

dosbox_feb14c                   4:51  4:55  4:54  4:50  4:59 : 4:52.50



core normal, cycles 3600, fs 5, no scaler, -timedemo demo3 'performance' profile

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_a           5:47  5:21  5:36  5:33  5:38 : 5:32.00

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_novfp       6:01  6:06  6:06  5:59  7:12 : 6:03.00

dosbox_feb12                    6:02  5:51  6:01  6:10  5:52 : 5:56.50



core full, cycles 3600, fs 5, no scaler, -timedemo demo3 'performance' profile

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_a           6:25  6:25  6:47  6:33  6:22 : 6:26.25

dosbox_cvs_01_01_25_novfp       5:43  5:43  5:43  5:44  5:52 : 5:43.25

dosbox_feb12                    5:57  6:06  5:55  5:55  5:57 : 5:56.00

While the data are inconclusive on effects of build flags, I think we can conclude that for doom timedemo, variance is reduced when the dosbox cycles significantly exceed what the emulator can achieve in realtime.

It appears that increasing cycles well above the point at which dosbox pegs the N810 CPU effectively defeats doom's internal frameskip so that a faster dosbox build+options will finish the run earlier than a slower one.

A seperate test series would be manually running the timedemos and jotting down doom's internal performance reports, using a very small game window and cycles=max.

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw

Greetings again ArnimS.

I'm not all too sure what those numbers mean with your testing results for the Doom demo but could you also run them in comparison to the latest version of the OS 2007 software?

I'm still on 2007 because of the unusual feedback by some of the members here on how it's less stable than 2008. I'm just not finding the courage to upgrade since I can't seem to understand the reasons to do so at the moment.

I've only got Dosbox and Xkbd running on a fresh install of 2007 and nothing else, no other applications have been downloaded. Would I see a better performance if I went ahead and upgraded?

I posted this earlier, but your mapper keys for the cycles, for some reason, isn't working again. I don't know what happened because there's nothing that stands out on what I'm doing differently than before.

There's something wrong with the mapper.txt feature but I can't make any connection on what might be causing the problems.

Don't get me wrong on this, your releases are extremely cool. The only thing is, you usually have very poor documentation for extreme newbies, such as myself, to help understand the genius world that you come from.

A little knowledge thrown my way and to others would very much be appreciated (but most likely still misunderstood) :)

Thanks chief!

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw

Quote:

Originally Posted by Addison (Post 141864)

Would I see a better performance if I went ahead and upgraded?

Considering that you get 70 extra megahertz . . . yes.

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw

Quote:

Considering that you get 70 extra megahertz . . . yes.

I'm sorry, complete newbie here, but is that money? :o

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw

Speed, not money.. the CPU runs faster (330 MHz -> 400 MHz) with OS2008.

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw

Quote:

Originally Posted by Addison (Post 141864)

I'm still on 2007 because of the unusual feedback by some of the members here on how it's less stable than 2008. I'm just not finding the courage to upgrade since I can't seem to understand the reasons to do so at the moment.

The one thing I find a bit unstable is xkbd in OS2008. To do commands in DOS most times I have to have the CapsLock key turned on or it won't work. And then sometimes it won't work and sometimes it will with games using the alphabetic keys (it's hit or miss). Since your sidescreen-key version doesn't have CapsLock, that was one of the reasons why I haven't used it. Looks nice though. Other than that, DosBox seems to work fine in OS2008.

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw

Quote:

Originally Posted by Addison (Post 141864)

could you also run them in comparison to the latest version of the OS 2007 software?

There's no reason to. I posted these as references to people who might want to do similar tests. One thing that does seem clear is that for Doom at least, cpu=simple is much faster than either 'normal' or 'full'.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Addison (Post 141864)

Would I see a better performance if I went ahead and upgraded?

Yes

Quote:

Originally Posted by Addison (Post 141864)

I posted this earlier, but your mapper keys for the cycles, for some reason, isn't working again. I don't know what happened because there's nothing that stands out on what I'm doing differently than before.

I just confirmed that latest hosted build http://pupnik.de/dosbox_N8x0.tgz works with the mapped keys (cycle up/down and fullscreen toggle). I don't know why they stopped working for you. If you inadvertently changed something then

make sure you are launching the latest dosbox
redownload the mapper.txt
make sure that .dosboxrc or dosbox.conf points to the mapper

Quote:

Originally Posted by Addison (Post 141864)

Don't get me wrong on this, your releases are extremely cool. The only thing is, you usually have very poor documentation for extreme newbies, such as myself

Acknowledged.

These newbie difficulties occur because there is no gui frontend.

There are things standing in the way of a gui-frontend.

DosBox as-is runs too slow on the N8x0s for everything but cga/pcspeaker era games.

An effective gui frontend will need configuration profiles and mappers for various games.

Creating these profiles with a broken/slow core dosbox build is useless because when that is fixed, they will all need to be redone.

so....

I'm trying to fix the sound/performance problem so that at least 286-class games using vga/ega and sound blaster can run playably.

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArnimS (Post 142167)

No f4ck it, i don't give a f4ck about anybody.

i don't owe anyone anywhting/ eat rice.

Something must have gone seriously wrong...

Re: DOSBox 0.65 ... ftw

Quote:

Originally Posted by spirytsick (Post 142181)

Something must have gone seriously wrong...

Hope not. I've heavily relied on ArnimS's expertise on helping me get this cool gaming stuff running on my N800 and owe a ton of thanks. I hope ArnimS is okay and everything is fine.