DosBox Pure and the Screamer Games

[aorin1]

haha, no worries, but in any case, there must be some way to make it work in Pure. I think Atlantis: The Lost Tales is one of these games I can’t load directly from the zip as well, Time Commando used to be a bit tricky in the past, but it now runs from a zip file and it’s a CD based game.

In any case, thanks for taking a look and indeed, these Screamer games are SEGA fun to play and need to be more widespread. I wonder, can we make it work in pure zipped? Otherwise I see no point as in SVN it works just great!

[GemaH]

Yes, i tried the unmodified zip and it didn’t work with those suggested core options.

I think i’m happy with my fix. It’s not that i modified the zips “heavily”. It’s only a root folder. I can still add it if needed. I only use Pure either way and with this small modification it works with the music and all directly from the zip, without installation. Even the 3DFX version works.

[alexb3d]

@aorin1

haha, no worries, but in any case, there must be some way to make it work in Pure.

Honestly, I don’t care. I do care that I answered you directly how to install and make it work directly from the zip and you can’t seem to understand it. It doesn’t affect me directly but I know what you are going through, we are living in difficult times, you have to focus, it’s important.

@GemaH

It’s not that i modified the zips “heavily”. It’s only a root folder.

Of course, all exo’s that have some important settings you have to delete the folder. DOSBox mounts that folder as root, but PURE uses the native/original installation path of the game.

[alexb3d]

WTF!!?? Screamer is not from SEGA.

@aorin1

I think Atlantis: The Lost Tales is one of these games I can’t load directly from the zip as well, Time Commando used to be a bit tricky in the past, but it now runs from a zip file and it’s a CD based game.

I guess you have already read the documentation? Screamer 2 I installed it from a zip.

Step by step:

• Get a CD image (it can be the one inside the exodos) and compress it in .zip.

• Load the Screamer 2.zip with PURE and start the installation with install.bat. When finished, the setup starts, but it does not work.

• We need to configure CPU to set up the game.In the Core Options the quick menu select, Emulated Performance » 486DX (13400 cps) and in, System Options » CPU Type »486 (slow), restart and run the setup, configure everything you want.
  [ You can place only the option Pentium type CPUs (slow), but this depends on the speed of your PC and it is better to play it safe. ]

• When you are done configuring, go back to the quick menu and set the options to auto, restart and you can start the game from “C:\S2\S2.BAT”

Press once to the right to start it automatically each time you load it.

I’m going to try the others, but I’m short on time.

[aorin1]

Maybe you’re not getting it, but if installing a game is required, it’s not something that worth looking into, specially since I didn’t need to do this using the SVN core, when we mention Pure, it’s launching a game directly almost like we do in any console. Installing a game in Pure means it will indeed install a few assets into disk, the system folder or something. If it’s already working otherwise, there’s not much else to do.

As for the “screamer is not from SEGA”, indeed, maybe English is not your primary language? I meant it’s SEGA fun in the sense it’s as fun as SEGA racing games.

[thingsiplay]

I just tried these games for the first time. Screamer 1 and Screamer Rally worked without making any changes to the folder or archive file playing DOSBox Pure. Screamer Rally runs with the main folder (from exo) and CD music as well the 3dfx version works just fine. I installed from D:\INSTALL.BAT and then after setup just run C:\SCRMRAL\RUN.BAT . The only thing I changed is the file extension .zip to .dosz (for file associations outside of RetroArch GUI), otherwise unmodified ZIP files.

As the exo package includes the CD data already, there is no need for repackaging. It can be installed from the package using the D:\ path as described previously. I need to test Screamer 2 too.

[thealidev]

Will dosbox run “shadow of tomb raider” or a game like that Or if tomb raider not then gta vice city or sam andryas

[thingsiplay]

DOSBox is an emulator for DOS based games. Shadow of Tomb Raider is a modern Windows (or Linux) game not compatible with ancient DOS systems from the 90s. Here you can learn more about what this emulator is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOSBox and here the documentation for a special version created for RetroArch: https://docs.libretro.com/library/dosbox_pure/

[GemaH]

I try to play all these games directly from the zip, like a console game. I don’t want to install them. That’s the point of using Pure over other DosBox cores.

[alexb3d]

@aorin1

it’s launching a game directly almost like we do in any console

PC is not a console, “load” is different from “run”, you are linking the terms and confusing me.

You know the funniest thing? The PC is so diverse that Atlantis on DOS “DOES NOT INSTALL”, it is a game that runs directly from CD.
not working for you? exodos? LOL

Time commando, I had the demo on a 386 laptop. Nice memories. I really liked the graphical part, but the gameplay sucks.

I can’t do more, I just recommend you to read the official documentation of the retroarch and the project in Github, there it explains what, how, when and why the games are loaded, executed or installed.

P.S.: My English is very bad, I definitely need to improve it, that’s why I asked a polyglot friend of mine, who speaks 5 languages, including Chinese and French, and is a professional translator of books and documents, if this sentence is correct. She told me that it is not well written.

@aorin1

these Screamer games are SEGA fun to play and need to be more widespread

[alexb3d]

@thingsiplay

DOSBox is an emulator for DOS based games. Shadow of Tomb Raider is a modern Windows (or Linux) game not compatible with ancient DOS systems from the 90s.

DOSBox is an x86 emulator. And PURE if you can install Windows games of the 3x and 9x generations.

DOSBox official (standalone) is a very old version, you can install Windows but it does not allow to run or install anything.

DOSBox SVN, the official development version, does support Windows 9x max. Installation of programs only with software acceleration (there are some unofficial forks that give hardware support).

DOSBox PURE, is based on the latest SVN and supports Windows 3/9x, it also implemented Voodoo 1 emulation (from MAME) to support OpenGL and DirectX (v9 max.) hardware acceleration on Windows.
Any game prior to Windows XP runs on PURE. Obviously with the hardware limitations of the "Voodoo 1, and the resources of the emulating device.
It also constantly adds changes and fixes to run games that SVN can’t or make them faster.

[DaveTheMan1985]

@aorin1

Maybe you’re not getting it, but if installing a game is required, it’s not something that worth looking into,

Why Not?

Not that Hard or Long to do

[DaveTheMan1985]

@GemaH

I try to play all these games directly from the zip, like a console game. I don’t want to install them. That’s the point of using Pure over other DosBox cores.

You can Install the Game then Zip up from the Installed it from

[thealidev]

So They should develop core for wine

[aorin1]

It’s OK, all mentioned games in this thread, from Time Commando, Atlantis, the Screamer games and so on are working fine for years, the only thing is that some of these games weren’t working out of the box in Pure as the core usually works. It’s otherwise not necessary to come back to get these if everything is, like I said, working already for a long time. It’s not impossible to make them work in Pure, but if they work in SVN similarly, all good

[alexb3d]

One of the main features of DOSBox PURE is that it “loads” the game from a .zip file, unlike DOSBox/SVN which has to load the games from a folder.

In many cases it has the virtue of running the games directly for two main reasons:

• At the beginning of the era games and programs were run directly from the Floppy because HD’s had no capacity
• You get packages with pre-installed compiled games, “which is not pre-configured”. As is the case of TDC (Total DOS Collections) and others less famous.

PURE uses TDC to develop the core and all the features for two reasons, “it is the package with DOS games that exists” and “it keeps the original directory structures”.

It happens that, in TDC, you are going to get:

• Games that run natively without installation
• Pre-installed games that run from the .exe directly
• Floppy and CD images, that run directly or install
• Installation files extracted from some media.

In TCD you can find games with everything and games with only installer. In these cases you have to install the game and if it has a patch, you have to install it too.

PURE uses the native directory structure of the games and automatically generates configurations based on the game features.
Pre-configured" packages such as eXo or any package that says “DOSBox ready” are not recommended for use in PURE because they have custom structures and configuration files (Yes! Pure is compatible with configuration files, but you have to use them differently).

From my own experience, (almost 900 games) games that have demanding configurations do not work partially or completely. It is not my intention to criticize this project, it is admirable and very well organized, but it is intended for DOSBox standalone or any fork and therefore any SVN development version.

PURE does the installation in a RetroArch save file only once, if in the future you want to play again without installing, just save this save instead and load the game zip.
This is how PURE works.

This was not invented by me, this information is on the documentation, PURE github and the DOSBox forums.

As this forum is about solutions and you just want to load the zip and it works, I can only recommend that you learn to edit the zip exo, the first thing is to lower the folders one level, if it still does not work or loses features, you have to edit the .bat and .conf.

It is evident that you ignore me, I don’t care about that, what I really regret is the attitude that long time users of the forum take with PURE, it is a marvel and it is exclusive of RetroArch. Don’t expect more answers from me.

[GemaH]

@alexb3d

It is evident that you ignore me, I don’t care about that, what I really regret is the attitude that long time users of the forum take with PURE, it is a marvel and it is exclusive of RetroArch. Don’t expect more answers from me.

If that makes you feel better, i find the information that the installed game being stored in the saves folder as a zip and how you can use that instead, very useful. Though Screamer II didn’t work this way, it needed the folder deletion.

Not sure if i’m one of those users you talk about, thing is i have downloaded the eXoDOS pack and use that for some time now. I even have all the media assets for it. So it’s not an easy task to throw it away and get a different pack that may also have a completely different naming scheme.

Also, for every game that doesn’t work or it’s not easy to make it work, 10 will do. It’s a good enough ratio for me. Just the fact that you can load the games from the zip like a rom was too good to be true already for me.

That’s why i prefer finding a solution like this than spend who knows how many days to replace the whole thing. And if i don’t find a solution, i may just get that specific rom from a different pack or play with a different core.

[alexb3d]

I think I am not explaining myself well. It’s not about feeling good.
There is a problem, the game does not work in PURE and I try to explain why and the correct way to run it, to help in the best way I can based on my expertise.

Most of the time it is related to exodus. As is the case in this thread, Screamer 1, 2, Rally, Atlantis, don’t work because it loads them directly from an exo, the others I haven’t tested.

If you have the library with exodos and feel comfortable, I’m fine with that, everyone can do what they want, that’s not what I want to address with my comments.

Yes, the zip saves that PURE generates are loaded as a C disk, that’s where everything is installed and the game saves its saves and changes, I don’t understand why you have to delete the file.

In this short video I show how Screamer 2 installs and works. Sorry for the sloooowness, my machine is modest.

Screamer 2 - DOSBox PURE - RetroArch

If you save that file, you never have to reinstall, you can even copy the content inside the game zip and you will have it installed, just remember that in the saves the games and achievements are saved.

With this I do not mean that you change exodos, but, if someday you get a game that does not have it, which are many, or want to install the game in another language other than English, or add expansions or add-ons like DOOM megawad, that’s the way to do it.