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dosbox-staging / dosbox-staging

DOSBox Staging is a modern continuation of DOSBox with advanced features and current development practices.
https://www.dosbox-staging.org/
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Investigate playability issues with Psycho Killer (1993) #2925

Closed kcgen closed 11 months ago

kcgen commented 11 months ago

Context

Currently the eXoDOS project runs this game using the DOSBox Daum fork, which is understood to have specific emulation fixes not currently in upstream DOSBox (0.74.x and SVN) or active forks such as X, Pure, and Staging.

DOSBox Daum had 51 releases that included DOSBox SVN's commits ~r3600 through ~r3900, spanning 2010 through 2015.

The goal of this ticket is to answer the following

Is Daum still needed for this game?

If Daum plays it better:

How you can help

  1. Download the above lastest DOSBox SVN, X, and Staging builds.
  2. Ensure you have eXoDOS v5 (or eventually v6)
  3. Find this game inside the eXoDOS installed folders (look for: psychokl/)
  4. Run the game using the DOSBox SVN, X, and Staging builds. If it plays fine (everything looks, sounds, and handles OK) then simply indicate as such. Your task is done!

If SVN, X, and Staging all have problems, then try it with Daum:

  1. Download the first and last Daum releases. Note: Daum had the most releases for Microsoft Windows, so having a Windows system (or VM) will help the most to answer the last question above.
  2. Does the latest Daum release play it correctly? If so: summarize/describe how it's better than DOSBox SVN, X, and Staging (screenshots, video, audio records all help too).
  3. Find the earliest (or oldest) Daum release that fixed it.
    1. Run the Daum release half way between the known good release (where the game playing correctly) and bad release (where the game doesn't playing correctly) until you've narrowed it down to adjacent releases.
    2. It will take at-most seven runs of different Daum versions to narrow this down (using this middle-selecting technique); so it's not as daunting as it seems! :-)

Follow up by code contributors

If Daum plays it better, your answers (especially the last one that narrows down the fix to a specific release) are critical to helping isolate the chunk of code fixed the given bug.

Pull requests should credit:

The PR should include the imported-from: URL pointing to DOSBox Daum. For an example, see commit a35c7c889.

rderooy commented 11 months ago

"Port" of a Commodore CDTV game with some FMV segments

DOSBox 0.74-3

Immediately exits when starting DTVPLAY

DOSBox Daum

Game starts, but I cannot seem to interact at the right time to prevent a car crash and game-over

DOSBox ECE

Same as Daum

DOSBox Staging 0.80.1

Same as Daum

DOSBox-X 2023.09.01

Same as Daum

eXoDOS dosbox.conf

# Config file for Dosbox-SVN Daum Jan 25, 2015
[sdl]
fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=0x0
windowresolution=1280x960
output=direct3d
mapperfile=mapper.map
usescancodes=true
[dosbox]
machine=svga_s3
memsize=64
[render]
aspect=true
scaler=normal2x
[cpu]
core=auto
cycles=auto
cycleup=500
[mixer]
blocksize=2048
prebuffer=10
[midi]
[sblaster]
[gus]
gus=true
[speaker]
disney=true
[joystick]
buttonwrap=true
[serial]
[dos]
keyboardlayout=none
[ipx]
[autoexec]
@mount c .\eXoDOS\psychokl
imgmount d .\eXoDOS\psychokl\cd\PsychoK.cue -t cdrom
@c:
cls
@call psycho
@exit
kcgen commented 11 months ago

The game seems to play OK. Click the pedals to brake, then exit out of the right side of the car. The Tutorial also works OK (can navigate, open the door, take the cup, etc). Thanks for the testing, @rderooy! Closing.