Notices

Pushwall, this release is for you. Added ability to categorize games and RubyBox now asks which name to use when importing game settings. Report possible bugs as usual. Get it from post 55.

Excellent work, ukki. Having alphabetical sorting is very nice plus being able to categorize the games is icing on the cake....thank you!!

Since when is Pushwall deserving of a release in his name?!!?!!?

I must have missed the post where he became all Mr. Fancy Pants around these parts!

But yeah, sounds like a great idea, Ukki!

I definitely will be contributing as much as possible with settings and junk for games that are compatible with Dosbox... just give me a few days when I have some time to waste.

However, I'll still be continuing to post in this thread since certain games require special instructions on how to get them fully optimized.

Thanks a bunch Ukki!

Just make requests and I'll see what I can do

Minor release, fixed few typos and made few changes.

Bobby Fisher Teaches Chess

Things changed from ArnimS's sample dosbox.conf file:

cpu cycles= 800 (this might not be optimum however, it's tough to know what the top rate is)
dosbox machine= vga
render frameskip= 0
sblaster sbtype= none
sdl fullscreen= true
sdl sensitivity= 250
sdl autolock= false
speaker pcspeaker= false

Screenshot:




First, forget about the sound, it's not worth it, also there's no perfect setting for mouse control.

If you map one of your hardware keys to be used as a spacebar, there's really no reason to use the mouse cursor at all anyway though.

The only real buttons you need are
Escape - Also gets you into the top menu options
Spacebar - This makes selctions for you in the options
Enter and Dpad for movement and control

The negatives:
Poor sound (not including me shouting at the computer screen ), can't save user settings - only game saves, and bad mouse control support (not the game's fault though).

The positives:
It uses VESA graphics which makes it look like it's not even a DOS game!
An extensive library of Bobby Fischer's games which are reviewable.
Most important feature is that it uses a scoring system which very few chess games seem to offer.
It generates a simple number score based on piece position and strength... it kind of gives you a general picture on if you're winning or losing the match.

Overall rating for this game: 4 1/4 stars out of 5

Castle of Dr. Brain

Things changed from ArnimS's sample dosbox.conf file:

cpu cycles= 700
dosbox machine= vga
render frameskip= 4
sblaster sbtype= sb1
sdl fullscreen= true
sdl sensitivity= 100
mixer prebuffer = 400
sdl autolock= false

Screenshot:




First, the game runs pretty slow and chunky at times, but personally I think the speed is fine.

Trying to figure out a puzzle is going to slow down gameplay much more than the game itself will, so for me, the slowdown and framerate is almost negligible to the point of not even worth mentioning.

You might need to drag the cursor to one of the four corners of the screen to get the mouse lined up perfectly with your stylus.

Also, I tend to use up on the D PAD to get into the menu bar.

This is a favorite, old school, cult classic of mine that I've had for quite some time now. It's great to revisit this on my handheld since I never originally finished the game so long ago.

Overall rating for this game: 4 1/2 stars out of 5


Edit: Forgot to mention, make sure you don't use IBM PC or Compatible Internal Speaker when installing the game. It sounds horrible and actually slows down the speed even more so than if using the settings for real speaker sound.

Sensible Soccer v 1.1

Things changed from ArnimS's sample dosbox.conf file:

cpu cycles= 500
dosbox machine= vga
render frameskip= 0
sblaster sbtype= sb1
sdl fullscreen= true
sdl sensitivity= 100
mixer prebuffer = 400
sdl autolock= false

Screenshot:




The loading of the game is a little lengthy, but nothing too unbearable.

The gameplay speed is just incredible as well as the music and sound!

The folks over at Sensible Software, Ltd. sure knew how to program efficiently since this is a 1993 game that runs super fast, even with low cycle speeds and no frameskipping.

I doubt you'll find a faster sports game than this one.

For me, I personally would rather watch 3 and a half hours of farming than a full game of soccer.

However, Sensible Soccer was great back in the day since it almost played like an arcade game. I'd compare this more to a hockey game than actual soccer.

So yeah, charming and addictive gameplay, great speed, instant replays, league matches, etc. quite a lot of fun junk is packaged in this.

It's even entertaining just to watch two computers play against one another during those painfully boring lectures or meetings at work.

This is too much of a great classic for me to not get excited about on how well this runs in Dosbox!

Overall rating for this game: 5 stars out of 5

Thanks for the detailed game info, Addison. To tell the truth I haven't played them before. I'll check them out especially Sensible Soccer which looks cool.

Hey Ukki!

Okay, so I uploaded a good dozen or more game settings with the your latest Rubybox version.

But right now, I don't think I'm getting what all that did.

Am I just backing up my own personal settings that can only be seen by me and the same goes for others as well?

I thought the whole purpose of this was to share info with each other here.

Is there a way to see what everyone else has contributed too or isn't that your design on this?


Also, Push!

Yeah, Sensible Soccer is pure awesomeness!

It actually runs even better at cycle speeds of 700, possibly even higher.

At 500 though is the point where the music doesn't skip.

So if you were to set cycles up to 200, once you turn off the music, in game, then you can give it an additional boost in speed. Am I making any sense on this?

Oh, and I meant to say pressing the Escape key gets you into the game menu in Castle of Dr. Brain... I have no idea why I said D Pad up.

I think it might have something to do with me having deep, personal issues.