Good afternoon,
I recently switched a couple of my DOS BBS nodes from dosemu to dosbox-x, at the request of the software maintainer. For the most part, the BBS works the same if not a little better. Despite the connect speed being reduced from 115200 to 57600, one of my telnet callers has reported that games like OOII areactually working fast enough that game play is no longer slugish.

However, I have run into an issue with BRE. Normally, when BRE starts, the first screen the caller sees (that gives them the version info) quickly clears and they are presented with the BRE ansi welcome screen.

Now that I have moved over to dosbox-x, there is a very noticable pause betweenthe version screen and the ANSI screen. Maybe 20 or more seconds before the
game continues. Once this happens, the game seems to run and exit just fine.

Is anyone else using dosbox-x with BRE? If so, did you have to do anything special to get it running?

Some pertinent settings from each environment...

dosemu:
cpu = 80586
ems = 8192
video = vga
all other cpu/memory/video settings left to default

dosbox-x:
cpu core = auto
cpu type = auto
ems = true
machine ("video") = svga_s3
all other settings left to default

I am running dosbox-x on a debian linux bookworm machine. I have tried changing the CPU setting to '386' and '486' (via the pull down menu) but that didn't seem to change the behavior (i.e. in dosbox-x).

Thanks,
Mike

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To: Mike Powell
Re: DOSBOX-X vs. dosemu issue
By: Mike Powell to ALL on Fri Aug 23 2024 11:05 am

However, I have run into an issue with BRE. Normally, when BRE starts, the first screen the caller sees (that gives them the version info) quickly clears and they are presented with the BRE ansi welcome screen.

Now that I have moved over to dosbox-x, there is a very noticable pause betweenthe version screen and the ANSI screen. Maybe 20 or more seconds before the
game continues. Once this happens, the game seems to run and exit just fine.

Is anyone else using dosbox-x with BRE? If so, did you have to do anything special to get it running?

Some pertinent settings from each environment...

dosemu:
cpu = 80586
ems = 8192
video = vga
all other cpu/memory/video settings left to default

dosbox-x:
cpu core = auto
cpu type = auto
ems = true
machine ("video") = svga_s3
all other settings left to default

I am running dosbox-x on a debian linux bookworm machine. I have tried changing the CPU setting to '386' and '486' (via the pull down menu) but that didn't seem to change the behavior (i.e. in dosbox-x).

Thanks,
Mike

maybe it's pausing because it's trying to detect something?
checking display settings
if ansi is loaded, check for rip or ansi,etc
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maybe it's pausing because it's trying to detect something?
checking display settings
if ansi is loaded, check for rip or ansi,etc

Yeah, I thought maybe it was trying to detect RIP as I had that problem
with a LORD league door. However, BRE doesn't support RIP. ANSI, OTOH, is
a possible factor.

Under dosemu I didn't load an ANSI driver. The game would send ANSI to the caller if they were logged in as ANSI=Y. ANSI was not displayed locally.

DOSBOX-X apparently has an internal ANSI driver and ANSI is also displayed locally if the caller is logged in as ANSI=Y, so maybe that is why it is pausing.

I will see if I can turn local ANSI "off" in DB-X & see if that changes
things.

Mike

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Now that I have moved over to dosbox-x, there is a very noticable pause betweenthe version screen and the ANSI screen. Maybe 20 or more seconds before the game continues. Once this happens, the game seems to run and exit just fine.

Is anyone else using dosbox-x with BRE? If so, did you have to do anything special to get it running?

I had this same issue on my Win 10 Pro/64 VM. I never could figure out what caused the issue. After re-launching my system on a Win 10 Pro/32 VM (which I created specifically for using NTVDM instead), and the problem promptly vanished.

There has to be a DOSBox-X setting we're missing somewhere.

Sorry I can't be of more help than just corroborating your findings.

RS

... When all else fails, blame auto-incorrect.

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I had this same issue on my Win 10 Pro/64 VM. I never could figure out what caused the issue. After re-launching my system on a Win 10 Pro/32 VM (which I created specifically for using NTVDM instead), and the problem promptly vanished.

There has to be a DOSBox-X setting we're missing somewhere.

Sorry I can't be of more help than just corroborating your findings.

Someone in another echo suggested that I (1) remove any unnessary files
from the BRE directory, so I moved the contents of \DOCS into its own
directory that was not under the BRE directory, and (2) that I tweak the "cycles" setting in the config file.

He gave me a starting point, and it was actually a little too fast for some other doors. So I worked it down to this and it seems to work:

cycles = auto 1000 15% 10000

I think his initial suggestion was this:

cycles = auto 3000 15% 30000

Mike

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