Dosbox Pure manual clarification

RetroArch General
#1

I have been studying the documentation for dosbox pure https://github.com/schellingb/dosbox-pure and I wanted to make sure I understand what I’m reading correctly. I was told to make backup copies of things like other operating systems through pure, particularly right after installing one. I made a copy of the .img file found in the “System” folder but from what I read if I really want to make a backup of a system, such as windows 98, I need to make a copy of the .sav and .srm file correct?

I already installed Voodoo on my windows 98 system, and I’m not sure I did it correctly as I was following a youtube video that someone said made choices they wouldn’t make, is that going to be a problem?

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#2

Hello again @starfiretbt
The person who told you that has to be someone very wise. LOL

In a general sense it is correct, but let me clarify some concepts so that you can manage your system in the best possible way.

When you use MS-DOS, it doesn’t matter too much about the disks, in Windows you have to be especially careful with the drives…

‘.img’: When you install Windows a disk image is created in System, that is always the disk ‘C:’
After doing the full installation, drivers, DirectX, etc. It is advisable to make a backup. It never hurts to have a freshly installed clean Windows.

‘.sav’: This is the ‘D:’ disk. All the changes we make in the ‘D:’ disk are saved in that file.

‘.srm’ This is a saved file, does PURE use this type of file?

“.state”: They are core saved files, are only a snapshot of the memory, very useful for quick game saves, but they are not related to what happens in C: or D:

A practical example.

When we install a game, we select the disk ‘D:\pinball’ and a ‘pinball.sav’ is created, all the information about the game, the native saved, the achievements and others, will be in that file ‘pinball.sav’.
At the same time a registry of the newly installed game is created in Windows (in C:).

If you want to make a full backup, and use it on another PC, or format yours.
You have to save the save (.sav) and Windows (.img).
(And the .opt files inside config, if you change the PURE configuration, although in Windows this is not necessary, in DOS it is.)

If you have installed a lot of games, and you want to make a backup “as a precaution”, Windows.img is enough, the saves are not damaged.

If Windows crashes, you have all the game data in ‘D:’. Just unzip the Windows.img you backed up.
If for some strange reason the backup does not work.Just install the game in the same ‘D:\pinball’ directory and you will have everything in place.

You can install in ‘C:’ but it is not recommended, because you will install a giant ‘.img’ disk and if it gets damaged, you lose everything. That’s why the ‘D:’ disk was created to keep the games safe in another file independent from the OS.

PS: I have my Windows backups like this. Please note that I use .7z only for backups, because it compresses much more than .zip.
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#3

OK, thank you for that explanation. The windows 98 operating system is the .img file and that is the C drive equivalent while the .sav files are the individual games and programs installed.

Does that mean when I installed “Voodoo” in D drive it’s not in the .img C drive file? If so I assume if the operating system needs it then it will automatically run the .sav file without me having to do anything correct?

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#4

With pleasure.
Correct, and that .sav is equivalent to disk D:.

nope :thinking:

Ok, you cannot install a driver in D:. Drivers are always installed in the Windows registry, in C:.

When you load a zip (driver.zip), the files inside that zip appear in D:
From these files you start the installation or select it from the properties.

They are installed once and you forget about that file forever. If you want to see if you have voodoo installed, right click on the desktop and select Properties. If you have a voodoo tab, you do.

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Note that there are cases (such as DirectX) that are an .exe, and it is actually a self-executable compressed file. These files are unzipped in some folder and then the driver is installed.

#5

Glad to see you are gradually getting more comfortable with DOSBOX-Pure than you were in the beginning.

I was thinking when I referred to a different topic, the sav file that DOSBOX-Pure is named after is a system file that is written to the D drive when you start Windows. The already formatted D drive means that the Windows header files are written to it.

If you boot directly from Windows without mounting any games and shut down without doing anything, you will have a sav file with the name DOSBOX-Pure on it, which is a piece of drive D. If you are not using any DOS games, you can delete it periodically. If you don’t use any DOS games, it’s no problem to delete them periodically.

I thought, but I know users around Win7, 8, 10, 11 have a hard time understanding these areas. Windows now seems to be running as an all-in-one and users can operate it without any difficulty.

But the old Windows didn’t work that way. I don’t know if there is a book called The Old Windows Guidebook, or if it is on Kindle, but you would be lucky to find it at a used bookstore.

It has the same Windows name, but it feels like a vintage PC.

I have a question, have you seen the opposite phenomenon of inconvenience with the introduction of the Voodoo driver?

#6

I have not seen any change with the voodoo driver, but then I haven’t actually done anything with windows 98 prior to installing voodoo. I installed windows 98 and then voodoo as was recommended.

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#7

As far as I can ascertain, IBM PC or PC/AT machines from the time when there was no such thing as today’s GPU cards were equipped with Voodoo chips. Therefore, it makes sense to put in a Voodoo driver…but in Windows 98, when you put in a Voodoo driver, you get a hop-up that says the Win98 built-in Voodoo driver is newer. I saw that.

Perhaps this confused you as to what to do. I just overwrote it as is.

Win95 did not get that hop-up.

#8

Not quite. :grin:

Voodoo1 came out in 1995, ATI Rage 3D in 1996, and the Pentuim CPU in 1993.

IMB PC = 8088, PC/AT = 286/386/486. There were no Voodoo “chips” and until the modern gaming rig, very few PCs were equipped with 3D graphics OTB.

Unless you had a Silicon Graphics workstation, until Windows got Direct3D in 1995, you used software rendering.

The reason DOSBox and PC emulators use Voodoo emulation is that, while there were a very few Rage 3D patches for DOS games, there were far more Voodoo patches.

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#9

I see. I seem to have said incorrect information. My apologies for that.

I was under the understanding that the division between IBM PC and PC/AT was the difference between having PC-DOS or MS-DOS installed.

Come to think of it…the existence of PowerVR was a headache…PowerVR dedicated games, etc… :joy:

#10

Actually, the only thing they had integrated was the Keyboard port. LOL

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Everything else was put on cards. You needed one for video (2d), for sound, for ports, even for floppies and hard drives.

If you wanted to install VooDoo, or a Roland, or UltraSound, you needed an additional card and five hundred cables to connect behind the computer.

IBM-PC (Personal Compute) / AT (Advance Technology), was the model.

It was the first computer “PC Compatible” and the beginning of absolutely everything we know today (even the phone you hold in your hands). All modern technologies were created in that generation and all manufacturers adopted the AT standard.

XT (Extended Technology) was created by IBM as the successor of AT, but it was a failure, as AT already dominated the market.

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#11

Unless you had a PowerVR card.

Until Windows 7, most of the graphic elements in Windows were rendered by the CPU.

Back in Win 3.1/ Windows 95, some users purchased a “Windows Accelerator” card that had elements of the UI embedded on chip. With PowerVR you could keep the acceleration card and add 3D. (The PowerVR was an addon card that had no video output port.)

I remember getting 155 FPS on Flight Simulator 95.

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