@Dimon12321
I tried the March 29, 2026 build with the same .hdd I've been using. The issue is still present in all the listed games.
EDIT : I found that the graphical rendering issues that I described in my previous post are fixed by using screen setting VGA instead of S3 Trio64, when playing on Windows 3.1 at least.
Possible audio crash fix
After trying a lot of things, I stumbled upon a possible solution to the audio crash problem.
Start menu → Run... → dxdiag → tab "Sound" → turn off hardware acceleration completely
This makes sound stuttery, although that may be FPS-based.
But it seems to fix some games that were previously unplayable, including Tony & Friends New Adventures, 3D Ultra RC Racers and Snake Arena.
After turning off hardware acceleration, I haven't had a crash in those games yet.
For some reason, Hot Wheels: Crash! became completely unplayable though, like, even if I reset everything I've done, set back hardware acceleration to full and re-install it...
It always gets stuck on that first screen now.
EDIT: It looks like core=normal caused this, a setting I forgot to reset back. After commenting it out Crash! began working again.
For some reason, when I removed my .hdd and copied in a backup .hdd, the stutters disappeared even with hardware acceleration turned off.
Use sb16 rather than sb16vibra
I learned that you can apparently use sbtype=sb16 after all.
Control Panel → Add New Hardware... → (confirm everything and reboot twice)
Note: For everything above, I played on Windows 95.
The MIDI problems make me sad...
I spent like 3 hours trying to create a verification file for Warhead (the 1995 rerelease shareware 2.02).
In standalone DOSBox-x with Win3.1, I managed to make Tyler sound correct simply by changing MIDI Mapper from "Adlib" to "General MIDI". I think I installed those sound blaster drivers but I also did a bunch of other things so I'm not sure what the actual fix was.
Anyway, installing the drivers in Bizhawk and changing to "General MIDI" didn't work in the end.
Now, about Warhead... I need to install the drivers for that game, too, since I need to get its MIDI background music to play.
Got it to work in standalone DOSBox-x, but in Bizhawk? No luck.
When I use the 1994 preset, the drivers can be installed just fine, but the game complains that it can't find WAR-BIG.DLL.
The file gets displayed as WAR_BIG.DLL so maybe the OS confuses - with _.
In the 1997 preset this problem doesn't occur and the game starts, but the drivers can't be installed since for some reason it wants me to install some configuration tool instead.
I don't know why the driver installation is different under this preset...
Tl;dr: Much frustration has been had and Warhead is not TASable at the moment.
The MIDI problems make me sad...
I spent like 3 hours trying to create a verification file for Warhead (the 1995 rerelease shareware 2.02).
In standalone DOSBox-x with Win3.1, I managed to make Tyler sound correct simply by changing MIDI Mapper from "Adlib" to "General MIDI". I think I installed those sound blaster drivers but I also did a bunch of other things so I'm not sure what the actual fix was.
Anyway, installing the drivers in Bizhawk and changing to "General MIDI" didn't work in the end.
Take a look at Gravis Ultrasound, particularly gustype=max.
It's intended for MIDI playback.
MUGG wrote:
When I use the 1994 preset, the drivers can be installed just fine, but the game complains that it can't find WAR-BIG.DLL.
The file gets displayed as WAR_BIG.DLL so maybe the OS confuses - with _.
In the 1997 preset this problem doesn't occur and the game starts, but the drivers can't be installed since for some reason it wants me to install some configuration tool instead.
I don't know why the driver installation is different under this preset...
The only difference I see is that 1994 preset uses sbtype=sb16 while 1997 and 1999 presets use sbtype=sb16vibra.
The internet has no idea what is "WAR_BIG.DLL". I assume, this might be a game-specific dll
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the premier.
https://xkcd.com/3246/
Freej2me-plus works? How's the performance? What are the required components? I'm not making a discord account just to get that information.
I personally didn't try it yet, but having the info [1],[2] from TwoSpacesSG desribed in TASVideos Discord channel, let's create an instruction.
Yes, upon installing Windows 98, you can run Freej2me-plus. Fortunately, there is a gap of early Java 6 distributions supported in this OS.
The CPU speed can be set high enough to run the emulator smoothly.
To run a game in FreeJ2ME-plus, you need to have 5 components:
1. The game jar you want to run.
2. freej2me.jar from the latest release of freej2me-plus.
3. Windows Installer installer (required to install Java 6u7). See "InstMsiA" on page 1.
4. Java 6u7 installer from Oracle's Java Archive. I think, that's "jre-6u7-windows-i586-p.exe" under Java SE Runtime Environment 6u7.
In the JRE installer it might be best to go to "additional options" or whatever it's called again, and enable "additional fonts and midi support", it adds the custom soundbank which is more fancy than the Microsoft GS Synth it would probably use otherwise (idk i have not tried otherwise, i just went there and enabled all installation components)
5. [Optional, but recommended] freej2me.bat which launches the game from a command line. Here is an example for Doom RPG:
Here is a reference of what these numbers mean.
Note: most J2ME games are frame-uncapped, so if you set a high FPS, your game might run faster than it does on a real phone.
Here is a sample .conf to be included into BizHawk's XML bundle:
[cpu]
cputype=auto
# recommended speed, but it can be higher; fixed to keep MIDI rhythm in tact
cycles=fixed 600000
core=dynamic_x86
[sblaster]
sbtype=sb16vibra
[dosbox]
machine=svga_s3
# 256 to avoid OutOfMemory exceptions
memsize=256
[video]
vmemsize=16
vesa modelist width limit=0
vesa modelist height limit=0
[dos]
ver=7.1
hard drive data rate limit=0
floppy drive data rate limit=0
[fdc, primary]
int13fakev86io=true
[ide, primary]
int13fakeio=true
int13fakev86io=true
[ide, secondary]
int13fakeio=true
int13fakev86io=true
cd-rom insertion delay=4000
Like with the game installation, it's preferable to create a separate verification movie to perform copying and installation and save the updated HDD before TASing.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the premier.
https://xkcd.com/3246/
The internet has no idea what is "WAR_BIG.DLL". I assume, this might be a game-specific dll
It's a .dll file specific to the game.
I wrote:
When I use the 1994 preset, the drivers can be installed just fine, but the game complains that it can't find WAR-BIG.DLL.
The file gets displayed as WAR_BIG.DLL so maybe the OS confuses - with _.
It seems, depending on the cputype, files get interpreted as one or the other:
Since the game looks for "WAR-BIG.DLL" specifically, it fails on any cputype that interprets it as "WAR_BIG.DLL".
Take a look at Gravis Ultrasound, particularly gustype=max.
It's intended for MIDI playback.
I tried adding a .conf file with
[gus]
gus = true
gustype = max
But I can't find a difference. How am I supposed to use this?
I also tried installing Gravis Ultrasound drivers but didn't succeed because it didn't recognize one of the installation disks. The other driver I tried made Windows unbootable...
The only difference I see is that 1994 preset uses sbtype=sb16 while 1997 and 1999 presets use sbtype=sb16vibra.
I found that if I use sb16, I can install the drivers just fine, but when I use sb16vibra, it asks me to install the configuration software.
With that knowledge, I used a cputype that interprets the filename as "WAR-BIG.DLL" (don't remember which one that was), and made sure to use sb16.
The MIDI file doesn't get played.
I managed to get it to work eventually:
1) Installed the sound blaster drivers, before doing anything else. IRQ setting to 7.
2) I then copied the game files over to C:, started the game, confirmed to not show midi errors in the future.
3) opened MIDI Mapper.
Trying to set to AdLib would tell me, it is trying to reference to a thing that is not installed.
I could set it to General MIDI though, so I did.
When I try to edit General MIDI, only Creative Labs Sound Blaster 1.5 shows up in the list.
Using this produces no MIDI sound in the game.
4) Rebooted Windows twice.
5) Somehow, this makes AdLib appear on said list and choosing AdLib in the MIDI Mapper is now possible, so I selected it.
This made MIDI play in-game. But it sounds inferiror, nothing close to what it is supposed to sound like.
Take a look at Gravis Ultrasound, particularly gustype=max.
It's intended for MIDI playback.
I tried adding a .conf file with
[gus]
gus = true
gustype = max
But I can't find a difference. How am I supposed to use this?
I also tried installing Gravis Ultrasound drivers but didn't succeed because it didn't recognize one of the installation disks. The other driver I tried made Windows unbootable...
I don't know. GUS is on my TODO list at the very bottom and I haven't come across a single game which would use MIDIs.
As an idea, create an issue in the official DOSBox-X repo and apply "Question" tag to it. Their Discord server isn't quite helpful.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the premier.
https://xkcd.com/3246/
Joined: 9/12/2014
Posts: 576
Location: Waterford, MI
Ok. I got it to work... barely.
Its pretty unstable. Installing instamsi doens't always open. Sometimes it crashes and sometimes it opens. The java installer works. I can open freej2me-plus. First time around, I was able to open 007 game(first one on the compability list). It ran fine. But then I tried a second time, it no longer opens freej2me-plus, and I had to reinstall everything. Even after getting freej2me-plus to open, I couldn't open any games with it. I didn't try the batch file launcher thing, but this setup is a bit uncomfortable. Its whats available for now though.
But then I tried a second time, it no longer opens freej2me-plus, and I had to reinstall everything.
I don't think it's necessary. Java 6 is not flawless about application re-running. When you close it, it might still have daemon threads and runtime hooks running in the background.
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to open the "Close Program" dialog box, select "java" or "freej2me-plus" application, and click "End Task".
You can also run Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Monitor, but as far as I know, it requires the Windows installation disk to be installed, because the installation movie forgoes it.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the premier.
https://xkcd.com/3246/
For the record, about the problem with MIDI not playing correctly in Warhead, it's working perfectly fine in standalone DOSBOX-x (the January version).
I tried copying some midi, mixer and sblaster related settings from dosbox-x.conf for testing in Bizhawk, but...
I noticed adlib is listed in MIDI Mapper (if you try to Edit and try to change Port Name) during the w311 verification movie but it's no longer listed after a reboot.
So I was under the impression it might work before that reboot happens and so I tried playing the game before the reboot, but...
Did another 2 hours trying both sb16 and sb16vibra, uninstalling and re-installing Creative Labs Sound Blaster 1.5, but...
Still no MIDI sound in Bizhawk.
Could it still be some .conf setting difference between the standalone version and the Bizhawk version? Or it's a bug with Bizhawk?
I have not asked in their github yet. Since it works in standalone DOSBOX-x, there is not really a point.
In standalone DOSBOX-x, I can uninstall and reinstall Creative Labs Sound Blaster 1.5 (selecting the current driver) and MIDI still works fine with Warhead.
EDIT:
I copied the entire dosbox-x.conf to load in Bizhawk and it's not working. At this point, I'm thinking it's a bug on Bizhawk's end.
5. [Optional, but recommended] freej2me.bat which launches the game from a command line. Here is an example for Doom RPG:
Not sure how optional it is considering that in a movie the game would have to be launched quickly as I would imagine.
I also found out that relative paths work as well like this:
Note: most J2ME games are frame-uncapped, so if you set a high FPS, your game might run faster than it does on a real phone.
Not really, this mainly applies to older games and versions for low-end models. Most of the later and frankly more interesting games have an inbuilt cap.
Regarding the config file, as far as I'm concerned, I just reduced it to these 3 overrides (the standard 200000 cycles sadly are too little, though I have yet to test out 500000 as well):
Its pretty unstable. Installing instamsi doens't always open. Sometimes it crashes and sometimes it opens. The java installer works. I can open freej2me-plus. First time around, I was able to open 007 game(first one on the compability list). It ran fine. But then I tried a second time, it no longer opens freej2me-plus, and I had to reinstall everything. Even after getting freej2me-plus to open, I couldn't open any games with it. I didn't try the batch file launcher thing, but this setup is a bit uncomfortable. Its whats available for now though.
I have not had these stability issues from my limited testing. Windows Installer installer works for me, it's the Java runtime installer that can sometimes fail for some inexplicable reason (and afaik it's a documented issue). It seems to help to copy it to the C drive instead of installing it from the disc. I haven't had any random (not explained by the log console) issues opening games with freej2me-plus or opening it. In a game TAS you would only open it once anyway.
Note: most J2ME games are frame-uncapped, so if you set a high FPS, your game might run faster than it does on a real phone.
Not really, this mainly applies to older games and versions for low-end models. Most of the later and frankly more interesting games have an inbuilt cap.
Video framerate in them may indeed be internally capped, but somehow not enforcing some kind of limit makes some games physics behave weirdly. Example is this Bounce Tales rule:
Any settings on J2ME Loader/Mega J2ME that would make the game not behave correctly is forbidden, this include but is not limited to:
Hardware Graphics Mode
Parallel Screen Redrawing
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
I notice that when TASing Abe there is distortion in most sound effects and the Secret Area chime in Exoddus gets affected towards the end. I came across this thread that demonstrations differences with SB16 cards and some distortion on DosboxX Maybe there's a way to eliminate it, I did several tests on PCEm and using a PCI sound card reduced the distortion
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=49896&hilit=skyroads+distortion&start=40
Enjoys speedrunning, playing and TASing Oddworld games!
Has TASed:
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee in 12.06.13 (with Dooty)
Oddworld: Adventures II in 20.03.78 (with Dooty)
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus 100% in 2:08:28.4 (with Dooty)
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee 100% in 1:05:01.65
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus in 37:18
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus in 37:15
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus 100% in 2:!5.44.12
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee any% in 13:01.3
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee any% in 12:59.95
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee 100% in 1:04:16.27
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee 100% in 1:04:01.07
Currently working on:
Waiting for Windows TAS Tools to work so I can TAS PC version of Exoddus.
Here’s a test TAS of Oddysee any% on PC. The game runs almost perfectly with a random pause at the main menu. This one uses SoundBlaster 16 Vibra and an VGA S3 Trio card and a Pentium III. I wonder what causes Oddysee to randomly slow down? There is a native DOS version that might be better.
https://youtu.be/PNOV3RpzDDg?si=5oI-BiIvCCeCIDzR
Enjoys speedrunning, playing and TASing Oddworld games!
Has TASed:
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee in 12.06.13 (with Dooty)
Oddworld: Adventures II in 20.03.78 (with Dooty)
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus 100% in 2:08:28.4 (with Dooty)
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee 100% in 1:05:01.65
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus in 37:18
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus in 37:15
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus 100% in 2:!5.44.12
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee any% in 13:01.3
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee any% in 12:59.95
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee 100% in 1:04:16.27
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee 100% in 1:04:01.07
Currently working on:
Waiting for Windows TAS Tools to work so I can TAS PC version of Exoddus.
Have you tried a custom .conf with a _prefetch CPU as Dimon's OP describes? Its it's one of the settings he found that may help avoid unexplained glitches. You could also increase CPU cycles until all lag frames disappear.
Dimon12321 wrote:
Why to use _prefetch with CPU types other than auto?
...
However, in my practice, having _prefetch makes some games work stably. For example, other properties being equal, Feeding Frenzy causes graphical and audial glitches with cputype=pentium_iii, audial glitches with cputype=pentium_iii_slow, and no glitches with cputype=pentium_iii_prefetch. It somehow compensates for audio emulation issues mentioned above.
Have you tried a custom .conf with a _prefetch CPU as Dimon's OP describes? Its it's one of the settings he found that may help avoid unexplained glitches. You could also increase CPU cycles until all lag frames disappear.
Dimon12321 wrote:
Why to use _prefetch with CPU types other than auto?
...
However, in my practice, having _prefetch makes some games work stably. For example, other properties being equal, Feeding Frenzy causes graphical and audial glitches with cputype=pentium_iii, audial glitches with cputype=pentium_iii_slow, and no glitches with cputype=pentium_iii_prefetch. It somehow compensates for audio emulation issues mentioned above.
Samtastic found the reason afterwards. Some files were being loaded from the installation CD and that caused delays
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the premier.
https://xkcd.com/3246/
I get 0 lag frames here. I managed to finish the run and get 11:35 TAS time. I need to figure out how to get the ingame time. There’s a specific memory address that calculates the IGT, there might be a way to show it as a lua script…
https://youtu.be/mXc5blY-oWo?si=SESdykkHJs8cPOyw
Enjoys speedrunning, playing and TASing Oddworld games!
Has TASed:
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee in 12.06.13 (with Dooty)
Oddworld: Adventures II in 20.03.78 (with Dooty)
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus 100% in 2:08:28.4 (with Dooty)
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee 100% in 1:05:01.65
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus in 37:18
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus in 37:15
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus 100% in 2:!5.44.12
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee any% in 13:01.3
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee any% in 12:59.95
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee 100% in 1:04:16.27
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee 100% in 1:04:01.07
Currently working on:
Waiting for Windows TAS Tools to work so I can TAS PC version of Exoddus.
Joined: 9/12/2014
Posts: 576
Location: Waterford, MI
Has anyone tested gyromancer yet? Its final fantasy meets bejeweled twist.
Bejeweled is too simple so add ff to the mix.
The system requirement only require direct x 9 with shader model 2.0.
I bought the game on steam recently.
The system requirement only require direct x 9 with shader model 2.0.
I bought the game on steam recently.
The first SM2.0-capable cards were releasedin 2002–2003. The feature requires a GPU with Direct3D 9 hardware, not the DirectX 9 software. That's what the game's Steam page means by DX9. S3 Vision 968, the DOSBox-x core's best GPU, doesn't support Direct3D at all. If you open dxdiag's Display tab in Win98, you'll notice there's no D3D acceleration, and the DDI version is N/A. (If you open it on your host PC, you should get a DDI of at least 9. My 2013 integrated graphics give 12.)
The Steam page also mentions 512MB RAM and XP at minimum, which BizHawk do not currently support.
The system requirement only require direct x 9 with shader model 2.0.
I bought the game on steam recently.
The first SM2.0-capable cards were releasedin 2002–2003. The feature requires a GPU with Direct3D 9 hardware, not the DirectX 9 software. That's what the game's Steam page means by DX9. S3 Vision 968, the DOSBox-x core's best GPU, doesn't support Direct3D at all. If you open dxdiag's Display tab in Win98, you'll notice there's no D3D acceleration, and the DDI version is N/A. (If you open it on your host PC, you should get a DDI of at least 9. My 2013 integrated graphics give 12.)
The Steam page also mentions 512MB RAM and XP at minimum, which BizHawk do not currently support.
The OP lays out what games can potentially work. It's like I've repeatedly stated: you cannot get modern games working by shoving them into PC emulators. You are limited to very old games, games which were designed for the PCs in the early 2000s AT THE LATEST. More ideally, the games are designed to be able to run on PCs running Win98 or earlier in the first place (i.e. games in the 90s).
Gyromancer was released in 2009. It is simply an era that is too late to handle in PC emulators like DOSBox-X. In general, if a game is made in the 2000s (or god forbid later) assume you are going to run into issues (if not practical impossibilities)
Now, if you are really desperate, you could potentially make it work, with giant caveats:
1. You are going to need to crank up the cycles to absurd levels. The system requirements list a 2.4GHz CPU being needed, which is insanely high for a PC emulator like DOSBox-X. This will result in horrid BizHawk performance.
2. Since DOSBox-X's GPU is not good enough for this game, you have to resort to a software renderer. If the game is simple (which mind you, can't be judged on looks alone, given simple looking games could end up being particularly demanding), this might not be so bad... but this also means cranking up the cycles even more, compounding against 1.
3. Since DOSBox-X doesn't support XP, you probably have to resort to KernelEx to get it to run.
4. Also this all might not work due to the RAM requirement. Maybe if you're lucky the "real" RAM requirement is lower (but 2 means a lot of RAM ends up getting used by the software renderer anyways, so this probably wouldn't work out).
All of these caveats are also going to apply generally to any remotely "modern" game, even the "simple" ones.
Joined: 9/12/2014
Posts: 576
Location: Waterford, MI
I see. I must have overlooked the "workabality" tab in the spreadsheet. I just thought if the notes didn't say anything about it not working or errors that prevented it, then it works.
I saw bejeweled 3 and no notes saying it didnt work. But the workabality was at 1 instead of 5.
