This page (and sub-pages soon to follow) will highlight and offer “Tips & Tricks” regarding Old, New, and Custom Video Games throughout the ages.
The following are “Tips & Tricks” regarding “DosBox” (one of the somewhat more popular DOS Emulators that are free, as most emulators are. The games themselves, well, that’s entirely different most of the time.)
Notes on D-F end Reloaded (DosBox Frontend/ DOS Emulator)
Notes on D-F end Reloaded (DosBox Frontend/ DOS Emulator)
For those people that are having difficulty running games on D-F end Reloaded (a DosBox Emulator "Front-end" for Windows XP/ Vista/ 7/ 8/ etc) such as SimCity 2000, Star Wars X Wing (or Tie Fighter), or other Simulation/ Strategy games that need more than "1 MB worth of even emulated RAM", the following is how to configure D-F end Reloaded itself to use as much memory as those games from the 1980s/ 1990s/ etc are EVER going to need (please don't try and run more than one game at a time though, you might wind up extremely crashing your HOST Operating System).
(All of the below steps are required, or at least as many as can be followed. Windows 7 on up is apparently temperamental regarding D Fend Reloaded).
First run D-F end Reloaded under Windows as "Run as Administrator" (if this is your default setting for this program", then there is no need to do it twice-over.
Go to the "Profile Menu" and select "Download Packages". Download every "package example your Hard Drive (or a USB Drive) can support/ fit onto said drive. Don't worry about the "This is Freeware, this is Shareware, these are Demos", just download the packages, follow the installation instructions (one package at a time) and when that is done, go back to the D Fend Reloaded Top Menu, select "Extras", check for Updates. (If the Multiple Games Packages won't download or install (Windows might get picky), then use the "download sample games" on the "upper left" of this "tab set", and download and install these games one-by-one. D Fend Reloaded won't let the user "edit multiple games profiles" unless there are "multiple games profiles available to edit"). -----------
In D-Fend Reloaded, go to the Main/ Top Menu and to "Extras". Then select and run "Edit Multiple Profiles" (It is probably a good idea for D Fend Reloaded to have "multiple profiles installed first". Make sure ALL "profiles/ games" of "Step 1 Tab" are checked". Then go to "Step 2: Changes to apply Tab". Scroll through the selections, making sure to change nothing else but the "Memory Section" and you will see a "1" selected in "memory to use". This setting is what SimCity 2000, Star Wars/ Rome: Pathway to Power, and a whole lot of other "Simulation/ Strategy games" are complaining about. Set this setting to "6 (or 8), or whatever you like". Hopefully, your Host OS (Windows XP/ Vista/ 7/ 8/ etc has more than "32 Megabits of memory to "lend" to "D-F end Reloaded" while it is running the game in question. It is NOT LIKELY that the game in question will use all "32 MB" (or whatever), it will use what memory it wants, and at least cease "complaining about this issue of only having 1024 Kbytes" (1 , 024 Kbytes = 1 MB) of memory available to said Game/ whatever. Do make sure that "Use Extended Memory is checked here" and hit the "Apply Visual Basic Button".
Now, just before playing a game, make sure that the "D Fend Reloaded Memory settings are set as high as D Fend Reloaded will allow (63 MB) and make sure that "Use Extended Memory" is checked while "Use Upper Memory Blocks" remains UNCHECKED. This will enable "sound to be utilized by the memory that you have just now given it" to "walk alongside the main program itself" with all the memory said program will ever need/ want again.
There may be more settings in the above 2 paragraphs that will need "playing around with" (or known as "tweaking"), but within D Fend Reloaded the "Edit Multiple Profiles" is the FIRST PLACE to "Trial and error said settings", while D Fend Reloaded Main Settings will be the SECOND to "play around with said settings.
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Last, but certainly not least, now enjoy those games like you wanted to do so in the first place, but since Windows Vista on forward is "fussy" by itself running DOS Games, hopefully these instructions will be of "some use" for you to do so, instead of wildly surfing the World Wide Web for "yet another program" to let you do this to DosBox, D Fend Reloaded can/ will do it using (at least) the above method. There may be other methods. The above is just ONE method that "so far" has (finally) worked.
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Tips and Tricks regarding more soon to follow!
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