Running Q Emulator, FreeDOS, on Mac OS X

[derrickec]

I have been using DOSBox .65 to run X-Com, but my Mac Powerbook (1.0Ghz, 768 Ram, OS 10.3.9) handles it sluggishly at times. I max out at 4500 CPU cycles and use a frameskip of 3.

 

On the Geoscape, any zooming is painfully slow, and when I intercept airborne UFO's I have to wait a good 10 seconds before the intercept box is brought up. The Battlescape works well enough, until lots of smoke appears OR (and this is odd) I reach the 2nd or 3rd floor of a UFO. On the same map, I can have tons of soldiers on the base floor with few slowdown problems, but as soon as I click up to the third level everything grinds to a halt. Takes forever to finish missions.

 

So, I downloaded the Q emulator and attempted to install FreeDOS. I have to admit that my DOS skillz are sorely lacking these days (took me forever to figure out it was TYPE and not EDIT that allowed me to look at a doc), but I finally got it booted up in safemode. And now, for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to get X-Com installed on it. Even if I do get it installed I'm not sure it will run any smoother than DOSBox.

 

Anyone else out there had any luck with this? Thanks.

[Bomb Bloke]

Can't say I've heard of FreeDOS. I'd assume installing a program is much the same as DosBox, but if you're having trouble I'm obviously wrong.

 

I can tell you why you're having problems with DosBox, though. When you move up a level, the game has to draw that view as well as the view below it. When you reach level three, that's four layers being rendered per frame. If those layers are empty, you won't notice much difference, but when you're checking out a Battleship that's a lot of extra sprites to process.

 

With a x86 PC that isn't much of a problem. 66mhz is more then enough to run the game on. But that's because the game is designed for that sort of computer; but emulation requires a lot of extra power to make up for the code translation. See if you can pump up that CPU cycle count, if I'm not mistaken, 4500 of the things is only equal to 4.5mhz... Which is like running the game on an old Nintendo Gameboy.

[derrickec]

Makes sense. I put DOSBox on my smoking G5 at work, jacked it up to 10000 cycles, and it works like a charm. My little Powerbook just can't push it past 4500... any higher than that and the sound starts to stutter and it becomes really unplayable.

 

And yes, installing FreeDOS is significantly more difficult. Rather than just being a program, its the actual DOS OS you're installing, and while I might have been able to handle it back in the good ole days of '94, I'm spoiled on programs and OS's that install with one click and a minimum of options. Do you remember how to configure autoexec.bat files, allocate memory, and how to navigate effictively around your OS by typing? Neither do I.

[Jman4117]

I believe there is an image with FreeDOS preinstalled on QEMU's site. I've never gotten FreeDOS to run any other way with it. I have however gotten DOS 6.22 and Win98 to install fine on it.