DOS ain't dead

I thought I'd bring EMSMagic up, since it's probably one of the coolest pieces of software I've seen in a long time.

http://www.phatcode.net/projects.php?id=102

I was setting Ultima Underworld up under Windows XP on my brothers laptop, but the EMS emulation feature wasn't working at all. It kept whining about no EMS being found. Some googling revealed that EMS emulation doesn't work on some systems under XP, and EMSMagic was linked.

As was this project:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound/

VDMSound emulates a sound blaster.

These options turned out to be a lot better than DOSBox, which couldn't run the game at a decent speed.

Now, why I say EMSMagic is one of the coolest pieces of software I've seen in a long time is because it's actually a legit DOS app. It takes XMS and emulates EMS with it, and can be run after bootup, even obviously under Windows. Great if you almost never need EMS - you can just run your games that require it in a batch, and unload after they quit.

Yes, EMSmagic is most probably a amazing tool but I am not really interrested because on one of my machines is dual boot Win98/FreeDOS and on the second one is FreeDOS only. So I don't need to "hack" some WinXP issues.

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DOS-u-akbar!

> Yes, EMSmagic is most probably a amazing tool but I am not really
> interrested because on one of my machines is dual boot Win98/FreeDOS and
> on the second one is FreeDOS only. So I don't need to "hack" some WinXP
> issues.

Why do you even reply when you don't read my post?

> I thought I'd bring EMSMagic up, since it's probably one of the coolest
> pieces of software I've seen in a long time.

It was mentioned just one month ago: EMS magic 1.1

> I was setting Ultima Underworld up under Windows XP on my brothers laptop,
> but the EMS emulation feature wasn't working at all. It kept whining about
> no EMS being found. Some googling revealed that EMS emulation doesn't work
> on some systems under XP, and EMSMagic was linked.
>
> As was this project:
>
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound/
>
> VDMSound emulates a sound blaster.
>
> These options turned out to be a lot better than DOSBox, which couldn't
> run the game at a decent speed.

I cannot confirm this. VDMSound works very bad on my PC, it's virtually unusable. And for Ultima Underworld DosBox should be fast enough on a P4.

> Now, why I say EMSMagic is one of the coolest pieces of software I've seen
> in a long time is because it's actually a legit DOS app. It takes XMS and
> emulates EMS with it, and can be run after bootup, even obviously under
> Windows. Great if you almost never need EMS - you can just run your games
> that require it in a batch, and unload after they quit.

Yes, but it needs 64 kB low DOS memory for the EMS window, which will make many games complain because they run out of conventional memory.

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MS-DOS forever!

> As was this project:
>
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound/
>
> VDMSound emulates a sound blaster.

Not to forget: https://sourceforge.net/projects/solvbe/

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Forum admin

> > These options turned out to be a lot better than DOSBox, which couldn't
> > run the game at a decent speed.
>
> I cannot confirm this. VDMSound works very bad on my PC, it's virtually
> unusable. And for Ultima Underworld DosBox should be fast enough on a P4.

DOSBox just is so darn slow (relatively). I mean, my P166 is faster. I'm not saying it's not amazing (it is), but yeah, it could be faster.

> > Now, why I say EMSMagic is one of the coolest pieces of software I've
> seen
> > in a long time is because it's actually a legit DOS app. It takes XMS
> and
> > emulates EMS with it, and can be run after bootup, even obviously under
> > Windows. Great if you almost never need EMS - you can just run your
> games
> > that require it in a batch, and unload after they quit.
>
> Yes, but it needs 64 kB low DOS memory for the EMS window, which will make
> many games complain because they run out of conventional memory.

And it's abandoned without source available, so no more updates! But at least it doesn't need V86 mode.

> > I cannot confirm this. VDMSound works very bad on my PC, it's virtually
> > unusable. And for Ultima Underworld DosBox should be fast enough on a
> P4.
>
> DOSBox just is so darn slow (relatively). I mean, my P166 is faster. I'm
> not saying it's not amazing (it is), but yeah, it could be faster.

I have a Core 2 Duo @ 3.00 GHz & 2gb of RAM. It plays, but it's laggy.

> And it's abandoned without source available, so no more updates! But at
> least it doesn't need V86 mode.

How is it abandoned? The author replies to e-mail, and his last release was like a month ago.

Also, that 64k loads high, I think :)

> I cannot confirm this. VDMSound works very bad on my PC, it's virtually
> unusable. And for Ultima Underworld DosBox should be fast enough on a P4.

Are you using latest 2.1.0?
On my system VMSound works fine, if the game doesn't have other problems with XP (VESA can be solved by nolfb and dgvoodoo vesa-to-directx driver) it's the best way (except working real DOS machine :). Good for Buld engine based games.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> Not to forget: https://sourceforge.net/projects/solvbe/

Interestin sw, but it runs extremely slow on my system in XP SP3 (tried VESA and VGA13h mode, various scalings and options), about 0,5FPS. Via dgVoodoo VESA it runs perfectly smooth.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> I have a Core 2 Duo @ 3.00 GHz & 2gb of RAM. It plays, but it's laggy.

Well, it wasn't until recently that GCC (4.3.x) started supporting -march=core2, and I don't think the DOSBox guys have started using that build yet (well, last official release was in August, so I doubt it). Besides, it's not multi-core aware yet, AFAICT, if ever (maybe too hard ??). Also, remember it's full emulation of a fast 486, not true virtualization.

If you can, you may have better luck with DOSEMU, which does have binary builds available on SourceForge.

> > And it's abandoned without source available, so no more updates! But at
> > least it doesn't need V86 mode.
>
> How is it abandoned? The author replies to e-mail, and his last release
> was like a month ago.

"I have updated Phat Code with my last project, a BIOS for XT computers. The site will remain online but will no longer be updated. The forum will be disabled to prevent spam."

> Also, that 64k loads high, I think :)

"Unlike EMM386, EMS Magic does not use Virtual 8086 (V86) mode to enable hardware paging. Instead, data is copied to and from the page frame with XMS moves. Because hardware paging is not used, the page frame does not have to be aligned on a 4K/16K page boundary. Furthermore, because EMS Magic itself operates entirely in real mode, it does not cause problems when the CPU is already running in V86 or protected mode, as is the case with Windows."

"EMS Magic also tries to create a page frame in the UMA, but if there is no space, it will create the page frame in conventional memory."

> > Yes, EMSmagic is most probably a amazing tool but I am not really
> > interrested because on one of my machines is dual boot Win98/FreeDOS
> and
> > on the second one is FreeDOS only. So I don't need to "hack" some WinXP
> > issues.
>
> Why do you even reply when you don't read my post?

???
I read your post carefuly. Well,the feature about temporary EMS is usable for non XP users too. But I personaly prefer to have EMS installed all the time.

---
DOS-u-akbar!

> I thought I'd bring EMSMagic up, since it's probably one of the coolest
> pieces of software I've seen in a long time.



+ FreeDOS is mentioned as supported (but not preferred)
+ Works to some degree in DOS
+ Faking EMS via XMS indeed seems to be a less bad hack than EMM386
+ Text manual included
+ DESI-III starts with it (but still buggy, as with JEMM )

EMS Magic 1.1 (Windows installer) 360 kb emsmagic11.exe
EMS Magic 1.1 (Manual install)    51 kb  emsmagic11.zip

-- Adding a 360 KiB non-DOS bloat "professional" installer ...
- Designed mostly (?) for XP
- XMS hack not needed, DOS doesn't suffer from crappy XMS 2.0 (thanks HIMEMX & Japheth & M.D. )
- Manual is full of XP
- Included PHATCODE.EXE raises a hard freezer when ran on DOS
- The argument about loading and unloading MAGIC from commandline is no longer relevant since JEMM can also

> http://sourceforge.net/projects/voidmsound/
> VDMSound emulates a sound blaster.

Exactly 0.00000000000000000000000000000000 relevance for DOS

> because it's actually a legit DOS app.

YES

The problem is that many poorly designed apps and games not only require EMS, but at same time are very low memory hoggy, so this hack might not work with them. Anyone tested some more on DOS ?

Laaca wrote:

> the second one is FreeDOS only. So I don't need to "hack" some WinXP issues.



> But I personaly prefer to have EMS installed all the time.

I prefer real mode and DPMI

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This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> > > Yes, EMSmagic is most probably a amazing tool but I am not really
> > > interrested because on one of my machines is dual boot Win98/FreeDOS
> > and
> > > on the second one is FreeDOS only. So I don't need to "hack" some
> WinXP
> > > issues.
> >
> > Why do you even reply when you don't read my post?
>
> ???
> I read your post carefuly. Well,the feature about temporary EMS is usable
> for non XP users too. But I personaly prefer to have EMS installed all the
> time.

"...dual boot Win98/FreeDOS" - which EMSMagic would be useful for, since you may need EMS in Windows, and it's stupid to run an EMS manager with 9x.

And your second PC is FreeDOS only, which EMSMagic would run well in. It doesn't matter if you wouldn't use it, it's a DOS tool.

You didn't notice in your original reply because you didn't read the post carefully the first time around. Why not grow some balls and say "You're right, I didn't read it, sorry." ?

> You didn't notice in your original reply because you didn't read the post
> carefully the first time around. Why not grow some balls and say "You're
> right, I didn't read it, sorry." ?

Now that Khusraw and Lucho are gone, be nice to each other!

---
Forum admin

> > But I personaly prefer to have EMS installed all the time.
>
> I prefer real mode and DPMI

The only issues you may have there are (obviously) lack of emulated EMS plus lack of free memory for shelled-out (child) apps. (See here.) Also, CWSDPMI needs more RAM if the DJGPP .EXE has a bigger than default (16k) transfer buffer (see stubedit). Of course, being able to load / unload JEMMEX is indeed nice for such a reason (although no UMBs available). BTW, I haven't benchmarked it, but XMS/real mode is supposed to be faster than EMM386/V86. (I guess JEMMEX avoids this via the Pentium's VME, if available.)

> > > But I personaly prefer to have EMS installed all the time.
> >
> > I prefer real mode and DPMI
>
> The only issues you may have there are (obviously) lack of emulated EMS
> plus lack of free memory for shelled-out (child) apps. (See
> here.)
> Also, CWSDPMI needs more RAM if the DJGPP .EXE has a bigger than default
> (16k) transfer buffer (see stubedit). Of course, being able to load /
> unload JEMMEX is indeed nice for such a reason (although no UMBs
> available). BTW, I haven't benchmarked it, but XMS/real mode is supposed
> to be faster than EMM386/V86. (I guess JEMMEX avoids this via the
> Pentium's VME, if available.)

Note: EMSMagic is currently using 6k of upper mem for me. Not sure why anyone said 64k.