DOSBox integraded into a source port?

[banjiepixel]

Would it be possible and practically viable to integrate DOSBox into a Doom source port and basically have the source port user interface work as a DOSBox frontend to run the original DOS version within the source port program? Has there been any previous attempts at doing something similar in the past, with Doom or some other game?

[PKr]

4 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

Would it be possible and practically viable to integrate DOSBox into a Doom source port and basically have the source port user interface work as a DOSBox frontend to run the original DOS version within the source port program? Has there been any previous attempts at doing something similar in the past, with Doom or some other game?

What would be the difference between running the game in dosbox and "dosbox source port"?

[Edward850]

While hypothetically not impossible, there's no logical advantage to doing this and would be a needless exercise in bored techie tendencies. All you would have created is a harder drive- uhh harder doom, when Chocolate Doom is already a native port of the exacting vanilla DOS logic and specs.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Edward850

[Shepardus]

Where does the "source port" come into play, and how is this not just any other DOSBox frontend?

[Kinsie]

Is this about the GZDoom-can't-run-vanilla-demos thing?

[banjiepixel]

1 hour ago, PKr said:

What would be the difference between running the game in dosbox and "dosbox source port"?

 

Just mainly the user experience, being able to use extra features of a source port but also easily play the original DOS version of the game using the same program and interface. And both things being so close together could give some extra benefits.

 

1 hour ago, Edward850 said:

While hypothetically not impossible, there's no logical advantage to doing this and would be a needless exercise in bored techie tendencies. All you would have created is a harder drive- uhh harder doom, when Chocolate Doom is already a native port of the exacting vanilla logic.

 

Mostly thinking about this for my personal experimentation, potentially something that could help me to learn some coding. Making two separate programs closer to being one atleast sounds somewhat good place to start because i would have to dive into the code of both existing programs and learn how they function. And as a purist, something like Crispy Doom that would work also as user interface to play the DOS version could have value to me. And I really don't mind wasting my time and sanity to create something that has value to me.

 

But not knowing the scale for actual work needed, it is hard to know how much it would be actually worth to me personally.

 

17 minutes ago, Shepardus said:

Where does the "source port" come into play, and how is this not just any other DOSBox frontend?

 

I mean it would a nice little extra have with a source port and there is nothing wrong with there being another DOSBox frontend.

 

13 minutes ago, Kinsie said:

Is this about the GZDoom-can't-run-vanilla-demos thing?

 

There is some inspiration taken from that thing, but this is a separate idea with much smaller and hopefully more realistic scale. Just something that I personally would like to try making to have nice DOSBox user interface for myself. And maybe learn some programming along the way.

[dasho]

You could just edit the autoexec section of your dosbox.conf to run Doom automatically. There is a unified interface from which you could launch either a source port or DOSBox, usually called an "operating system"

[banjiepixel]

14 minutes ago, dasho said:

You could just edit the autoexec section of your dosbox.conf to run Doom automatically. There is a unified interface from which you could launch either a source port or DOSBox, usually called an "operating system"

 

Who has said anything about only being able to run Doom being the goal?

[dasho]

44 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

 

Who has said anything about only being able to run Doom being the goal?

 

it is about a solution in search of a problem.

[MFG38]

Why would you want that, though?

[Gez]

1 hour ago, banjiepixel said:

Who has said anything about only being able to run Doom being the goal?

You said you'd want to see DOSBox integrated into a Doom source port. The implication is that it is to play Doom. After all, why run a Doom source port if not to play Doom?

 

 

Running DOSBox inside Doom is beyond pointless. DOSBox is perfectly functional as it is, and putting it inside a Doom source port serves no benefit to either DOSBox or the source port.

[fabian]

3 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

And as a purist, something like Crispy Doom that would work also as user interface to play the DOS version could have value to me.

 

He? Do you suggest that "running dosbox from Crispy Doom" (whatever that means) will enable any of the Crispy Doom features for the original DOS executable of Doom?

 

Sorry I don't get it. 

Edited October 22, 2023 by fabian

[D4NUK1]

So, a Doom Source-Port than launch a Dosbox that is in a program that emulate Dosbox application, and launch doom.exe like a Vanilla Doom, but with features of the Source Port?

 

That's something than Crispy Doom or Woof Doom does without the necessary step of calling a Dosbox front end.

[LuciferSam86]

If you need a GUI for DosBox there is the excellent D-Fend reloaded too: https://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.io/

[banjiepixel]

1 hour ago, Gez said:

You said you'd want to see DOSBox integrated into a Doom source port. The implication is that it is to play Doom. After all, why run a Doom source port if not to play Doom?

 

A part of the source port would be a modified menu system to make playing DOS version of Doom easy with things like level selection menu and idea would be to eventually have also other Id games supported by the new menus designed to make their use with DOSBox easy and hopefully seamless as possible. DOSBox related Doom features generally would just be the logical starting point.

 

1 hour ago, fabian said:

He? Do you suggest that "running dosbox from Crispy Doom" (whatever that means) will enable any of the Crispy Doom features for the original DOS executable of Doom?

 

No, separate feature, actual Crispy Doom gameplay related things wouldn't be touched, just native version and emulated DOSBox version being playable from same unified user interface. It is the new menus I want to design for playing both and not needing switch program change version that main things for me, with emulated side making more sense once I start to include new menus specific to other games too.

 

I am talking about potentially being able to make my own Crispy fork with a seamless DOSBox support. Including my own custon menu design based on Doom menus to create a pleasant user experience, atleast for myself.

 

2 minutes ago, LuciferSam86 said:

If you need a GUI for DosBox there is the excellent D-Fend reloaded too: https://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.io/

 

Actually the most important thing would be that I want to create a specialized DOSBox frontend using Doom source port as the base. But I am hoping to make it as seamless as possible so the source port and dosbox would need to be made function very closely together. And not much point in trying remove the native Doom gameplay functionality as it is already there by using a source port directly as the base for the frontend.

[PsychEyeball]

I'm not tech savy in the slightest so I'm likely not getting the full picture but this all seems like a monumental waste of time. Wasn't the point of source ports the ability to move away from DOS prompts and make Doom easier to run on other operating systems? It just feels like you're trying to give a crutch to someone who can walk perfectly.

[banjiepixel]

2 minutes ago, PsychEyeball said:

I'm not tech savy in the slightest so I'm likely not getting the full picture but this all seems like a monumental waste of time. Wasn't the point of source ports the ability to move away from DOS prompts and make Doom easier to run on other operating systems? It just feels like you're trying to give a crutch to someone who can walk perfectly.

 

DOSBox features would come with new menus that allow starting Doom on DOSBox directly with no DOS prompts. My plan is actually that many traditional command line parameters would be simple menu options when using DOSBox, things that often need to be entered manually to Doom launchers. For example, instead of needing to use -warp parameter, you would have level selection menu for playing Doom using DOSBox.

[PKr]

Just now, banjiepixel said:

 

DOSBox features would come with new menus that allow starting Doom on DOSBox directly with no DOS prompts. My plan is actually that many traditional command line parameters would be simple menu options when using DOSBox, things that often need to be entered manually to Doom launchers. For example, instead of needing to use -warp parameter, you would have level selection menu for playing Doom using DOSBox.

For that you'd want to write either a Dos program that would run before Doom, or make another Doom source port for Dos with those features implemented, and not "integrate dosbox into source port".

[D4NUK1]

That's sound more like a Dosbox front end, that will need to make line commands into menus and bottons, and need to know what game it's runnings to make the changes directly on the line code, and be like a front end to be togleable between the Dosbox program, and the Dosbox Source-Port menu.

[banjiepixel]

2 minutes ago, PKr said:

For that you'd want to write either a Dos program that would run before Doom, or make another Doom source port for Dos with those features implemented, and not "integrate dosbox into source port".

 

It is true that my wording does not seem exactly accurate. But "Dos program that would run before Doom" or "make another Doom source port for Dos with those features implemented" seem match to my goals even less.

 

I like the idea of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and even Quake being playable from same interface based on Doom and combinng Doom source port with DOSBox seems slightly easier than trying to somehow mix Wolfenstein and Quake sources together with Doom code.

[Kinsie]

So... you want a frontend for DOSbox, but you don't want a frontend.

 

I'll be honest. You're not being very clear about what you actually want, or at least you're not explaining it in a way that we can understand.

[SilentD00mer]

Maybe you want a launcher that can launch Doxbox? Ig Rocket Launcher 2  can do that but it doesn't put dos commands on menus like your description.

[banjiepixel]

22 minutes ago, Kinsie said:

So... you want a frontend for DOSbox, but you don't want a frontend.

 

I'll be honest. You're not being very clear about what you actually want, or at least you're not explaining it in a way that we can understand.

 

I don't want some basic frontend for DOSBox with mouse based controls, boring Windows-style looks and not being made to launching specifically Doom and maybe some other related games. I want make DOSBox launcher that would actually make me use DOSBox. And that would be a Doom source port, most likely crispy doom based, with an ability to seamlessly launch DOSBox game sessions within it. And have my own custom expanded Doom menus.

 

I am not sure how much clearer I could be with what I would like to make for my own use.

[fabian]

It still doesn't seem to make any sense, though, because none of the improvements that Crispy added to the Doom engine translate into a launcher that starts Doom in dosbox. 

[LuciferSam86]

So a port for DOS , if you look here there is FastDOOM which is exactly what you're looking for

 

[dasho]

36 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

I don't want some basic frontend for DOSBox with mouse based controls, boring Windows-style looks and not being made to launching specifically Doom and maybe some other related games. I want make DOSBox launcher that would actually make me use DOSBox.

 

Ok, so one of your goals is picking up programming. Start with this, then. Forget a source port; make a DOSBox frontend that mimics the Doom interface that you would prefer or whatnot. Once you do that successfully you might better understand what it would actually take to then fold your interface into a source port.

[banjiepixel]

14 minutes ago, fabian said:

It still doesn't seem to make any sense, though, because none of the improvements that Crispy added to the Doom engine translate into a launcher that starts Doom in dosbox. 

 

But it would be nice that my Doom source code based DOSBox frontend would also work as native Doom source port with all the neat Crispy Doom features that I like to have. Crispy Doom and DOSBox combined to be single program that can do both, play native version of Doom with crispy features and play the original dos version with only vanilla features in emulated form along with other emulated DOS games.

 

3 minutes ago, dasho said:

 

Ok, so one of your goals is picking up programming. Start with this, then. Forget a source port; make a DOSBox frontend that mimics the Doom interface that you would prefer or whatnot. Once you do that successfully you might better understand what it would actually take to then fold your interface into a source port.

 

The interface should be the easy part, especially if I first focus on being just a simple frontend that launches a separate totally external DOSBox executable, Logically I would only need to find a way to make the source port be able to give a external program like DOSBox simple commands to execute. And I do learn and stay motivated better by teaching myself to read existing code and experimenting with it. Even if I just wanted frontend without a sourceport, I would base it to Doom code, just stripping it from anything that isn't menu and interface related.

 

And Doom source code already uses the Doom assets and has all the needed core menu functionality, so why try to recreate something that already exists?

 

What actually seems to be complicated is to make source port and dosbox work together like they would be a single executable. Even if it would be between some other program and DOSBox.

[LuciferSam86]

My dude let me tell ya, you have a lot of confusion in your head.

[PKr]

14 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

Logically I would only need to find a way to make the source port be able to give a external program like DOSBox simple commands to execute.

This is some kind of a recursion paradox right there.

[Jayextee]

17 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

What actually seems to be complicated is to make source port and dosbox work together like they would be a single executable.

To what end, and what would this offer that a sourceport cannot?