I wouldn't say awfully slow. It varies from game to game. My CPU is a 3.2GHz P4 with Hyperthreading enabled via SMP support under Slackware. I have no problems playing Dune II, Relentless, Warcraft 2, Constructor, Freddy Pharkas and Hardball 4 under DOSBox on my machine. From what I can tell, they all use DOS4GW. They all scroll well and there are no problems or jerkiness caused by many objects moving around on the screen at the same time.

Of course, there are games which are unsupported, or for which support is not yet complete. For example, I can get Transport Tycoon running, but it doesn't scroll 100% smoothly, especially when there are several vehicles moving around in the current screen. But that doesn't make the game less playable.

For the older DOS games which don't use DOS4GW, DOSBox is fantastic.

Anyhow, all loyalties aside, the beauty of all this open source software is that you can download it all and use whatever best fits your needs.

As I mentioned before, I have Blood with the Plasma Pack running nicely in DOSBox 0.70. My machine is an Athlon 1.2GHz with 1GB SDRAM. In my dosbox.conf I have memory set to 64MB, dynamic cpu set to 30000 cycles with normal2x scaler and 0 frameskip, and xms,ems and umb all true. Adding these lines helps, I think

[vga]
svgachipset=et4k
videoram=2048

I'm currently using AMD Sempron 2800+. I've tried to run Elder Scrolls: Arena with DosBOX, and it isn't playable. It gives about 5..10 fps. Increasing CPU cycles doesn't help.
I've tried to run qemu, but kqemu for some reason doesn't compile on my system (I've read somewhere that kqemu is useless with 2.6.17.13 kernel, since it gives no speedup), and bootable dos CD's behave differently with qemu (they don't work,
like they work without emulation). Also, I don't have MSDos distrib right now, I've tried to run games with freedos, but no luck. They didn't even make to a menu screen.
And BTW, The applications you are talking about are mostly 2D and sprite-based, right?
DosBOX works fine with real-mode games, that's right. But it's difficult to play protected-mode games on my machine using DosBOX.

PS. By the way, I've already asked those questions here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=545995

It works alright for me. I don't play FPS type games, because they give me headaches and nausea, so I only tried it for a few minutes. Anyhow, it seems playable to me.
My settings were:

CPU cycles = 9500
Frameskip = 0

I tried the version of the game which was downloadable from their website.

Well, I've found a MS-Dos 6.22 installer, made a virtual dos machine for qemu, now everything works relatively good. I don't yet have working sound, but I think it will be solved...

where does everyone get the 6.22 DOS installer? I can't find one anywhere..

I still have my original floppies for DOS 5.0, 6.0 upgrade, 6.2 step-up, 6.22 step-up and windows 3.11.

Well, I thought MS-DOS 6.22 is available somewhere on Microsoft site as an sfx archive. (I'm NOT sure if this true at all, and I didn't check this info).

Personally, I've found all 3 installation diskettes on one of my CDs. Unfortunately, they were stored as folders, not as floppy images, so I had to make images manually (that was tricky - I had some trouble with making first disk bootable and guessing correct labels for disks).

As for playing MS-DOS games. I was able to launch arena, but not Daggerfall. (i works, but only without acceleration.) it crashes with acceleration enabled, and is awfully slow without acceleration.

BTW, is there anyone who was able to launch Daggerfall on modern hardware with normal speed and sound? It looks like this game has troubles with every platform. My friend and I were trying to launch this game on several emulators/platforms:
1) choppy sound on WinXP (or some other problems. Unplayable - reported by other person).
2) no sound on VMWare, crashes.
3) good sound on qemu, but is awfully slow, crashes if acceleration enabled.
4) bad sound on VirtualPC (didn't check it personally, my friend said so).
5) very slow on DosBOX (and unplayable). Sound is good.
6) doesn't work with FreeDos/emulator.
7) Won't get any music on MS-DOS 6.22 (modern soundcards don't have MIDI support, and MS-Dos has no MIDI software synthizer).

Too bad Daggerfall wasn't ported to Windows platform, at least...

you mean like winXP installation cd?
would you mind PM'ing or posting brief instructions? or howto?

ok.. now I'm done hijacking this thread

No. I had CD with a backup of MS-DOS instalation diskettes. (and a lot of other stuff).

Ok, here you go.

An image of diskette is a file with size of 1474560 bytes. You can make it with command:
this will make file filled with zeros.

After that you can make diskette image from it using mkdosfs command:
or you can use it as floppy image, boot a rescue cd using qemu and format it from within qemu.

after that you can mount image anywhere and cop files to it using something like this:
Now comes he tricky part.
Ms dos disks are called "DISK 1" "DISK 2" and "DISK 3". (six spaces between "DISK" and number). I had some kind of trouble guessing labels until I've found them on first installation disk in setup.ini. You can either try to format disk wih correct label from beginning or you can try to assign any other label, and modify it using hex editor later (just find the text and replace it).

First disk must be bootable. You can make it bootable using... another bootable disk ad "sys" command. You should insert _empty_ diskette for "DISK 1", boot (from qemu) other bootable disketter/cdrom and make "DISK 1" disk bootable using sys command with diskette letter ("sys a:"). This will copy system files to diskette (command.com and some others). After that you can mount an image somewhere in the system and copy other "DISK 1" files to it (do not owerwrite files copied by "sys" command). Other two disketes won't need those tricks.

After that you _should_ be able to install MS-DOS on qemu.

BTW you'll still need to install drivers for CD-ROM and mouse after instalation. VMWare and qemu will need different drivers, and some games won't run due to a lack of base memory if you don't install Driver as "DEVICEH", for example

You'll need all of this only if you want to create _complete_ MS-DOS installation. If you don't need it, you can make an almost empty MS-DOS installation using same sys command. ("sys c:", for example) his will make a "system" - almost empty, without help files, without drivers and utilities.

And I don't know where you can find MS-DOS setup disks now. Someone still sell them, thoughs, and boot disks seems to be available for free (although I'm no suer abou it). Sometime you can just use one of those boot disks, run sys c: command, and copy other files to destination drive. After hat you'll need to correct paths in autoexec.bat and config.sys, and you'll probably need some drivers, but this will be working ms-dos system. (enough just for gaming, nothing more).
-------------------
Now, back to the subject - was anyone able to launch Daggerfall on modern hardware?

Haven't used it myself but have heard my coworker yammer about it a few times. There is a site that provides boot disks you may want to check out.

http://www.bootdisk.com/

I've been to bootdisk.com before, when I needed Win2K boot floppies. The only thing there is boot disks. You won't find any DOS installation disks there.

If you have an MS-DOS boot disk you can install it's system to your harddrive. It will be incomplete, but it will work. Jus run "sys c:" from boot disk, and this will make drive c: bootable and will install some system files to it. after that copy all other files from boot floppy to drive c:, edit autoexec.bat and config.sys (you'll need to correct drive letters in various paths). Reboot, and you'll have a MS-DOS system. It's easy.