System Setup Help - MS-DOS w/ DOSBox

[SkyHighGam3r]

Hey Guys,

So I stumbled across a fantastic data cash of every MS-DOS game ever (or so it claims) Anyway, I never really played with DOS (outside of my DOOM 2 CD back in the day) and I'm not sure how to set this up.

I setup DosBox on the computer, and have it auto-mount my GameDrive (X:\ in this case)
I set it up in Hyperspin as the default Emulator for system: Microsoft MS-DOS

But now I'm sort of stuck...

The zip files that contain the games seem to be the contents of the floppy and CD-ROM... so it's like I have to install them... but (using Ultimate DOOM as the example) It's not letting me install to X:\Games\Microsoft MS-DOS as there are no spaces allowed....

Is there an easier way to do this system??? I was hoping I could just extract the game-files into a folder like X:\Games\Microsoft MS-DOS\DOOM, The Ultimate\<files>

I didn't see any MS-DOS videos by simply austin, unfortunately lol

[Guest]

Hey Guys,

So I stumbled across a fantastic data cash of every MS-DOS game ever (or so it claims) Anyway, I never really played with DOS (outside of my DOOM 2 CD back in the day) and I'm not sure how to set this up.

I setup DosBox on the computer, and have it auto-mount my GameDrive (X:\ in this case)

I set it up in Hyperspin as the default Emulator for system: Microsoft MS-DOS

But now I'm sort of stuck...

The zip files that contain the games seem to be the contents of the floppy and CD-ROM... so it's like I have to install them... but (using Ultimate DOOM as the example) It's not letting me install to X:\Games\Microsoft MS-DOS as there are no spaces allowed....

Is there an easier way to do this system??? I was hoping I could just extract the game-files into a folder like X:\Games\Microsoft MS-DOS\DOOM, The Ultimate\<files>

I didn't see any MS-DOS videos by simply austin, unfortunately lol

Is it exo's set you're using?

[SkyHighGam3r]

Is it exo's set you're using?

I don't know what that is lol.

It's an absurdly large disc iso (18GB) full of zip files.

Inside each zip is what seems to be the contents of the install floppies.

Is 'Exo's set' traditionally what is used? I don't mind replacing what I have with something else out there... honestly I won't touch 90% of these as it is.

Now, all that being said... I did make some progress.

I renamed the 'rom' folder X:\Games\MS-DOS which solved my install problem and I was able to install Ultimate DOOM just fine to that directory. "X:\Games\MS-DOS\DOOM"

Grabbed some cover art and set everything up in RocketLauncher...

Now when I try to launch it, I'm told it can't find the dosbox configuration file in X:\Games\MS-DOS\DOOM\!dos\DOOM

I changed the directory for the config file to the Dosbox directory C:\Hyperspin\Emulators\MS-DOS\DOSBox ... but it still adds "\DOOM\<Config file>" to the end of it.

Almost like it's asking for a different configuration for every game.

[Guest]

I don't know what that is lol.

It's an absurdly large disc iso (18GB) full of zip files.

Inside each zip is what seems to be the contents of the install floppies.

Is 'Exo's set' traditionally what is used? I don't mind replacing what I have with something else out there... honestly I won't touch 90% of these as it is.

Now, all that being said... I did make some progress.

I renamed the 'rom' folder X:\Games\MS-DOS which solved my install problem and I was able to install Ultimate DOOM just fine to that directory. "X:\Games\MS-DOS\DOOM"

Grabbed some cover art and set everything up in RocketLauncher...

Now when I try to launch it, I'm told it can't find the dosbox configuration file in X:\Games\MS-DOS\DOOM\!dos\DOOM

I changed the directory for the config file to the Dosbox directory C:\Hyperspin\Emulators\MS-DOS\DOSBox ... but it still adds "\DOOM\<Config file>" to the end of it.

Almost like it's asking for a different configuration for every game.

Yeah, for DOS and Win3.x games you want the sets from Exo. They are preconfigured to work out of the box, and HS with RL has great built in support for them. That's not to say other solutions wont work, because they will if you configure them right. With the Exo sets all the hard work is done for you.

These are what you want:

eXoDOS v2.0 - DOS set

Win3x0 - Win 3.x set

[SkyHighGam3r]

Yeah, for DOS and Win3.x games you want the sets from Exo. They are preconfigured to work out of the box, and HS with RL has great built in support for them. That's not to say other solutions wont work, because they will if you configure them right. With the Exo sets all the hard work is done for you.

These are what you want:

eXoDOS v2.0 - DOS set

Win3x0 - Win 3.x set

That's great to know... but... wait... MS-DOS and Win 3.x games are different!?

[Guest]

That's great to know... but... wait... MS-DOS and Win 3.x games are different!?

It's just how Exo classifies them.

[SkyHighGam3r]

It's just how Exo classifies them.

Oh... so they all still run via DOSbox then? lol sorry If I am asking stupid questions. I'm normally much more informed about this, but PC gaming is 'fringe' in my familiarity.

[Guest]

Oh... so they all still run via DOSbox then? lol sorry If I am asking stupid questions. I'm normally much more informed about this, but PC gaming is 'fringe' in my familiarity.

 

 

They do yeah.  They are preconfigured though - so when you run the game, it boots dosbox with the required settings for that game.  Dosbox is integrated with the sets.

 

The only stupid question is the one that isn't asked!

[wesfranks]

Like everything else in emulation, DOSBox keeps getting expanded features which made it compatible with the Win3x0 Project, as well as eXoDOS.

 

For the Win9x Project, eXo had been talking about using virtual images of Window 9x but had complications with the various versions of required files (especially DirectX), possibly requiring a separate Windows image for each game so the settings weren't overwritten.

 

Since February, he has instead been looking at a variant of DOSBox (DOSBox-X) which supports Windows emulation up to Windows98. This possibly due to DOS being the underlying core of all consumer Windows versions until it was ripped out with WinXP switch to NT core. This will probably stop the progression of DOSBox compatibility with Win98 games, but who knows.

[SkyHighGam3r]

Dear sweet lord, the eXoDOS set is 376GB??? How... how is there even that much? lol the set I had was only 18Gb! hahaha.

Maybe I'll just install those as I find good ones, WOW.

Haven't been able to find the 3.x set though...

[SkyHighGam3r]

The 3.x set isn't much smaller at 323GB

Yeah I'm going to have to just pick a handful of highlights and set each of these up. lol

Then I'll do research into which ones I should get.

Any suggestions on Win3.x games? I will probably just use the DOOM series for setting up DOS, but I don't even know what a 3.x game is other than maybe skifree lol

[wesfranks]

Dear sweet lord, the eXoDOS set is 376GB??? How... how is there even that much? lol the set I had was only 18Gb! hahaha.

Maybe I'll just install those as I find good ones, WOW.

Haven't been able to find the 3.x set though...

Oh, you need all of them. That way you don't wake up in the middle of the night wondering if you missed out on anything. At least DOS will be covered.

 

When you mentioned the "complete" set at 18gb I was waiting because I knew eXoDOS was going to come up. Your reaction aka "Dear sweet lord" was worth the wait. And then Win3Xo was the cherry on the cake. That one has me thinking also. I mostly defaulted to DOS as long as I could, to avoid "dll hell". Not familiar with any 3.x exclusives other than the ski game you mentioned.

 

Waiting to see what he does with SW Rogue Squadron 3d with the Win9x Project. Miss that game.

[JayC]

Be sure to check out the DOS wheels project as well, we are pretty close to releasing a pack. There are A LOT of wheels in there and some top 100 lists have been looked at. So you can always filter by wheel image to get the set smaller. And yes...it's named from the eXoDOS set.

[KlopjerO]

I submitted 375 MS-DOS Video snaps to Circo, he would check them out and add them to hypersync/hyperbaselive

[SkyHighGam3r]

Oh, you need all of them. That way you don't wake up in the middle of the night wondering if you missed out on anything. At least DOS will be covered.

 

When you mentioned the "complete" set at 18gb I was waiting because I knew eXoDOS was going to come up. Your reaction aka "Dear sweet lord" was worth the wait. And then Win3Xo was the cherry on the cake. That one has me thinking also. I mostly defaulted to DOS as long as I could, to avoid "dll hell". Not familiar with any 3.x exclusives other than the ski game you mentioned.

 

Waiting to see what he does with SW Rogue Squadron 3d with the Win9x Project. Miss that game.

Hahaha, I'm glad your patience paid off.

Also, isn't Rogue Squadron 3D working on modern windows? I know GOG has a release of it now.

[SkyHighGam3r]

Be sure to check out the DOS wheels project as well, we are pretty close to releasing a pack. There are A LOT of wheels in there and some top 100 lists have been looked at. So you can always filter by wheel image to get the set smaller. And yes...it's named from the eXoDOS set.

I actually don't use any wheel-art in my system wheels. It just became too much of a headache to work with. Especially when an obscure game didn't have one...

Instead, I use box-art as wheel art, and just have a video. Simple and Clean. (though not very high quality if I am going honest).

[SkyHighGam3r]

I managed to get DOSBox to work... albeit in a roundabout way haha.

I actually listed PCLauncher as the default emulator, then have a folder for shortcuts that boot the DOS games... just pointed it towards that and BAM.

Now I just need to get that Commodore Amiga thing working... and then I think I'm basically done with everything but one-by-one testing and filling in little art holes. I think I've managed to get everything else running from MS-DOS to Xbox One & Playstation 4 now.

[badboo]

I managed to get DOSBox to work... albeit in a roundabout way haha.

I actually listed PCLauncher as the default emulator, then have a folder for shortcuts that boot the DOS games... just pointed it towards that and BAM.

Now I just need to get that Commodore Amiga thing working... and then I think I'm basically done with everything but one-by-one testing and filling in little art holes. I think I've managed to get everything else running from MS-DOS to Xbox One & Playstation 4 now.

 

I think I got the same collection of DOS games, but I never managed to make it work. It was so annoying and it was sitting there in my collection taking space. Besides, I didn't have a good collection for art.

 

So what I did is I managed to get a DOS collection collection from a spanish guy (From Spain) with its own frontendm which it looks really good. So how I made it work is pretty much, a frontend (hyperspin) oppening another frontend (DOS Collection).

[SkyHighGam3r]

I think I got the same collection of DOS games, but I never managed to make it work. It was so annoying and it was sitting there in my collection taking space. Besides, I didn't have a good collection for art.

 

So what I did is I managed to get a DOS collection collection from a spanish guy (From Spain) with its own frontendm which it looks really good. So how I made it work is pretty much, a frontend (hyperspin) oppening another frontend (DOS Collection).

That's kind of interesting. I'll have to look that up.

Yeah it's a mess of a set now that I've taken a closer look... I've managed to pull some out of it so far.

DOOM

DOOM 2

Final DOOM

Wolfenstein 3D

Spear of Destiny

Ghostbusters 2 (Seriously the GEM of this collection for me... I never played this version or knew it existed until recently)

It's a tedious process though, add the game to the XML, extract it from the iso, extract the zip file to a folder, inspect the folder (because SOME are floppy images, and some are already copies of an installation) transfer it to a new folder (or install it via dosbox) on the gamedrive, run the settings/setup file via dosbox, create a shortcut, add the paramaters of a shortcut, move the shortcut to the shortcut folder, open RL, Edit the PClauncher module, add the game, locate the shortcut file, enter the paramaters AGAIN.... *breathe* and THEN test it to make sure it runs, create a custom xpadder profile, grab some box-art, edit boxart to clean and fit right, boot up hyperspin, test the game....

That's for EVERY ONE OF THEM lol Luckily I won't be doing many I don't think...

Oh, and plus I have to go find a video clip somewhere. I don't have FTP so it's either ALL of DOS, get one from youtube, or make my own. lol

[badboo]

That's kind of interesting. I'll have to look that up.

Yeah it's a mess of a set now that I've taken a closer look... I've managed to pull some out of it so far.

DOOM

DOOM 2

Final DOOM

Wolfenstein 3D

Spear of Destiny

Ghostbusters 2 (Seriously the GEM of this collection for me... I never played this version or knew it existed until recently)

It's a tedious process though, add the game to the XML, extract it from the iso, extract the zip file to a folder, inspect the folder (because SOME are floppy images, and some are already copies of an installation) transfer it to a new folder (or install it via dosbox) on the gamedrive, run the settings/setup file via dosbox, create a shortcut, add the paramaters of a shortcut, move the shortcut to the shortcut folder, open RL, Edit the PClauncher module, add the game, locate the shortcut file, enter the paramaters AGAIN.... *breathe* and THEN test it to make sure it runs, create a custom xpadder profile, grab some box-art, edit boxart to clean and fit right, boot up hyperspin, test the game....

That's for EVERY ONE OF THEM lol Luckily I won't be doing many I don't think...

Oh, and plus I have to go find a video clip somewhere. I don't have FTP so it's either ALL of DOS, get one from youtube, or make my own. lol

 

OMG, that is a lot of work... well, I think everyone here at some point, has done some tedious work like that to make HS work as one wants. Maybe I just burned out from many hours of work on this, but I still enjoy it. 

 

Regarding MS-DOS, I had that collection with thousand of games and the media that I had was poor, so I decided not to put hours of work into this. Even though I tried to find a good DOS media but no luck at all. So the MSDOS spanish frontend I mentioned before, came with its own media and art, which it worked well for me. It is kind of cool though.

 

Maybe I will make a video and upload it on youtube to be more specific.

[damageinc86]

Yowza, this all does seem like a lot of crap to do.  I have had great luck with Dfend Reloaded, easy to import and run most DOS games i've wanted to play so far.  

[SkyHighGam3r]

Well the end result melds really well with hyperspin doing it this way as well.

I think it will just depend on how many DOS games I end up installing.