Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Rincewind]

GBC doesn't just use offsets to identifiers to read / change stuff in the game's memory, but also uses pointers and linked lists. I tried some non-standard DOSBox at some point, and could identify the game's location in memory, but those pointers still were not at the expected places. Trying to fix those for all the 12 games is time consuming and so utterly boring that at the time I just gave up. And there are even different versions of the games floating around.

Thanks for your reply, that explains it then. Yeah, I expect the memory layout between DOSBox variants/forks to be wildly different. We're heavily refactoring the whole codebase pretty much, so that will make such a tool that expects certain fixed *emulator* memory layouts a no-go with Staging (unless specifically written for it).

If you only relied on the emulated machine's memory, then your tool would be 100% transferable between various DOSBox forks (or it would even work with PCem/86box). But you must have had your reasons for doing things this particular way and I'm sure you have no appetite for rebuilding it from scratch

 

[Cael]

Tough call as far as mapping programs. I still love to map using graph paper or grids/dots/etc provided by the game (in the case of early Wizardry and might & magic). I will say mapping overland 2D games can be painful in the case of ultima-likes, Questron, AZALTA!!! Lordy AZALTA! In fact I was trying to do Azalta with grid cartographer making tiles from the game (slow process). The cities and dungeon are easy (screenshot/paste/save). Blobbers/1st person perspective dungeon crawlers the paper comes out for me.

The two are probably the best:
Grid Cartographer
Gridmonger


Excel is also an option or maybe mappers one uses to create pnp adventures (there are quite a few)

I can see the worth and sense of satisfaction with creating your own map, it must be an incredible sense of achievement to create an accurate and useful map of a level

Its just not practical for most people so automaps are preferred

I use Excel for basic mapping in my DnD campaigns. For large area maps, I tend to use Civ4 as the mapper. FFH2 even has (extremely) basic dungeon tiles built in for you to use.

 

[Joonas]

GBC doesn't just use offsets to identifiers to read / change stuff in the game's memory, but also uses pointers and linked lists. I tried some non-standard DOSBox at some point, and could identify the game's location in memory, but those pointers still were not at the expected places. Trying to fix those for all the 12 games is time consuming and so utterly boring that at the time I just gave up. And there are even different versions of the games floating around.

Thanks for your reply, that explains it then. Yeah, I expect the memory layout between DOSBox variants/forks to be wildly different. We're heavily refactoring the whole codebase pretty much, so that will make such a tool that expects certain fixed *emulator* memory layouts a no-go with Staging (unless specifically written for it).

If you only relied on the emulated machine's memory, then your tool would be 100% transferable between various DOSBox forks (or it would even work with PCem/86box). But you must have had your reasons for doing things this particular way and I'm sure you have no appetite for rebuilding it from scratch

My reasons for doing it this way probably was just incompetence. GBC was the first thing of this kind that I've ever done. The first versions didn't even use pointers, just offsets to identifiers.

I calculate a base address and base everything around that. With the Steam GBC I found an easier way to jump between memory regions during the scan so that there is no need to brute force scan large regions. But even when getting the base address right, the layout of the memory isn't the same.

How do I get to just the emulated machine's memory?

 

[Rincewind]

GBC doesn't just use offsets to identifiers to read / change stuff in the game's memory, but also uses pointers and linked lists. I tried some non-standard DOSBox at some point, and could identify the game's location in memory, but those pointers still were not at the expected places. Trying to fix those for all the 12 games is time consuming and so utterly boring that at the time I just gave up. And there are even different versions of the games floating around.

Thanks for your reply, that explains it then. Yeah, I expect the memory layout between DOSBox variants/forks to be wildly different. We're heavily refactoring the whole codebase pretty much, so that will make such a tool that expects certain fixed *emulator* memory layouts a no-go with Staging (unless specifically written for it).

If you only relied on the emulated machine's memory, then your tool would be 100% transferable between various DOSBox forks (or it would even work with PCem/86box). But you must have had your reasons for doing things this particular way and I'm sure you have no appetite for rebuilding it from scratch

My reasons for doing it this way probably was just incompetence. GBC was the first thing of this kind that I've ever done. The first versions didn't even use pointers, just offsets to identifiers.

I calculate a base address and base everything around that. With the Steam GBC I found an easier way to jump between memory regions during the scan so that there is no need to brute force scan large regions. But even when getting the base address right, the layout of the memory isn't the same.

How do I get to just the emulated machine's memory?

DOSBox Staging logs the start address of the emulated machine's memory. For example:

2023-11-24 18:18:16.996 | MEMORY: Using 4096 DOS memory pages (16 MB) at address: 0x11c678000

Feel free to download our latest dev build if you want to play around with things, and I'm always here to answer questions if you need something.

 

[octavius]

I think I'll put Pool of Radiance on hold until the GOG version is on sale, and I can just start the game from GBP. I've already bought the game twice, so I'm not gonna buy it at full price again.

 

[Eirinjas]

I think I'll put Pool of Radiance on hold until the GOG version is on sale, and I can just start the game from GBP. I've already bought the game twice, so I'm not gonna buy it at full price again.

I've never seen the Goldbox games go on sale on GOG. They are on sale on Steam right now. Of course, GOG would be preferrable.

 

[octavius]

I think I'll put Pool of Radiance on hold until the GOG version is on sale, and I can just start the game from GBP. I've already bought the game twice, so I'm not gonna buy it at full price again.

I've never seen the Goldbox games go on sale on GOG. They are on sale on Steam right now. Of course, GOG would be preferrable.

Hmm...maybe I'll buy them at full price, then. After all it's not just one game for 10 bucks or so, but the entire Pools and more.

 

[Rincewind]

I think I'll put Pool of Radiance on hold until the GOG version is on sale, and I can just start the game from GBP. I've already bought the game twice, so I'm not gonna buy it at full price again.

I've never seen the Goldbox games go on sale on GOG. They are on sale on Steam right now. Of course, GOG would be preferrable.

Hmm...maybe I'll buy them at full price, then. After all it's not just one game for 10 bucks or so, but the entire Pools and more.

Your life, but what's hard about setting them up yourself, given you already have all the games? You already have the ingredients: DOSBox ECE, the configs, and GBC. You just need to put them together. The weird DLL problems you're getting on Win7 with eXoDOS v6 are just because of the LaunchBox stuff, I'm pretty sure.

 

[octavius]

Your life, but what's hard about setting them up yourself, given you already have all the games? You already have the ingredients: DOSBox ECE, the configs, and GBC. You just need to put them together. The weird DLL problems you're getting on Win7 with eXoDOS v6 are just because of the LaunchBox stuff, I'm pretty sure.

I did that, but decided it was too much work to launch both DOSBox (De-Fend Reloaded, because it's quicker and more reliable than using eXoDOS (I only managed to get GBC to work with eXoDOS once)) and GBC seperately. With the GOG version I can start the game from GBC.
(Am I getting lazy?)

 

[Rincewind]

I did that, but decided it was too much work to launch both DOSBox (De-Fend Reloaded, because it's quicker and more reliable than using eXoDOS (I only managed to get GBC to work with eXoDOS once)) and GBC seperately. With the GOG version I can start the game from GBC.
(Am I getting lazy?)

Well, makes sense if you don't enjoy tinkering with it.

Are you on Win7 32-bit octavius ? Or 64-bit?

 

[Eirinjas]

Your life, but what's hard about setting them up yourself, given you already have all the games? You already have the ingredients: DOSBox ECE, the configs, and GBC. You just need to put them together. The weird DLL problems you're getting on Win7 with eXoDOS v6 are just because of the LaunchBox stuff, I'm pretty sure.

I did that, but decided it was too much work to launch both DOSBox (De-Fend Reloaded, because it's quicker and more reliable than using eXoDOS (I only managed to get GBC to work with eXoDOS once)) and GBC seperately. With the GOG version I can start the game from GBC.
(Am I getting lazy?)

No, it's not laziness. There's just too much shit to do in a day and life is too short. Who wants to spend their free time tinkering with shit endlessly just to get it working?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Some do to write tutorials for others. There is satisfaction getting something working and understanding how it works. It is frustrating not figuring it out or not understanding even if it works. Then again, I used to fall asleep watching defragmentation on my 486 and win98 machines.

 

[octavius]

I did that, but decided it was too much work to launch both DOSBox (De-Fend Reloaded, because it's quicker and more reliable than using eXoDOS (I only managed to get GBC to work with eXoDOS once)) and GBC seperately. With the GOG version I can start the game from GBC.
(Am I getting lazy?)

Well, makes sense if you don't enjoy tinkering with it.

Tinkering and getting something to work is one thing (that can be fun in small doses), but when I just want to play I want the game to start as quickly as possible.

Are you on Win7 32-bit octavius ? Or 64-bit?

64-bit.

 

[Rincewind]

I did that, but decided it was too much work to launch both DOSBox (De-Fend Reloaded, because it's quicker and more reliable than using eXoDOS (I only managed to get GBC to work with eXoDOS once)) and GBC seperately. With the GOG version I can start the game from GBC.
(Am I getting lazy?)

Well, makes sense if you don't enjoy tinkering with it.

Tinkering and getting something to work is one thing (that can be fun in small doses), but when I just want to play I want the game to start as quickly as possible.

Are you on Win7 32-bit octavius ? Or 64-bit?

64-bit.

Sorted out a fix for you a similar folks hellbent on staying on Win7 64-bit forever
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/exodos-v6-—-its-coming.148237/page-8#post-8772856

 

[Ladonna]

I can't stand the dos version of PoR. The sounds drive me nuts. C64 and Amiga spoiled me.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I can't stand the dos version of PoR. The sounds drive me nuts. C64 and Amiga spoiled me.

I play it because I don't have access to C64 stuff anymore, but it makes me sad inside.

 

[Ladonna]

I can't stand the dos version of PoR. The sounds drive me nuts. C64 and Amiga spoiled me.

I play it because I don't have access to C64 stuff anymore, but it makes me sad inside.

Just get a cheap system from nutlandia across the border. If I had access to US prices for hardware, I would drive the family bankrupt lol.

 

[octavius]

I decided to use the eXoDOS version of PoR after all. Turns out it works reliably with GBC when I don't try to use Rincewind's shaders, since it then uses the vanilla version of DOSBox.

It will be interesting to see how the Paladin works out in practice. If Prot vs Evil 10' works it should have a nice effect against the amassed goblinoid hordes of Phlan.
The Ranger will function as a Fighter with extra HP, since the added damage vs Giants was not implemented in PoR.

 

[Rincewind]

I can't stand the dos version of PoR. The sounds drive me nuts. C64 and Amiga spoiled me.

I play it because I don't have access to C64 stuff anymore, but it makes me sad inside.

What's the problem with VICE?

 

[mediocrepoet]

I can't stand the dos version of PoR. The sounds drive me nuts. C64 and Amiga spoiled me.

I play it because I don't have access to C64 stuff anymore, but it makes me sad inside.

What's the problem with VICE?

What the what now?

I assume it's an emulator. I've never really done the emu scene for anything and didn't even know there was a C64 emulator (if that's what you're talking about). I just meant I used to have C64 stuff and that's where I played great games like PoR and Phantasie back in the day and the Dos versions of those are complete ass in comparison. It hurts my soul.

Anyway, I think I'm going to Google VICE now.

 

[Grauken]

and didn't even know there was a C64 emulator

There are emulators for systems you never heard about. For very known systems there is usually more than one emulator. Vice is just one of the better ones, though I prefer CCS64

 

[mediocrepoet]

and didn't even know there was a C64 emulator

There are emulators for systems you never heard about. For very known systems there is usually more than one emulator. Vice is just one of the better ones, though I prefer CCS64

Yeah, like I say, it's not really my scene. I already have more interests than I have time for.

I'm so mainstream in this way, I dabbled with MAME once and DosBox a bit before saying fuck it, whatever Gog does with DosBox is fine.

Anyway, interesting. I might poke around in these a bit more at some point.

 

[Grauken]

Yeah, like I say, it's not really my scene. I already have more interests than I have time for.

That I can understand. Just weird for someone on the internet and into games to never have heard about C64 emulation

 

[mediocrepoet]

Yeah, like I say, it's not really my scene. I already have more interests than I have time for.

That I can understand. Just weird for someone on the internet and into games to never have heard about C64 emulation

Never really looked into it or gave it much thought, tbh. Emulation almost never occurs to me in general, I'm more likely to spend a small fortune buying original hardware and software and then getting yelled at about how I have all this shit laying around collecting dust. And then eventually give it away just to not have to deal with it anymore.

 

[Rincewind]

I can't stand the dos version of PoR. The sounds drive me nuts. C64 and Amiga spoiled me.

I play it because I don't have access to C64 stuff anymore, but it makes me sad inside.

What's the problem with VICE?

What the what now?

I assume it's an emulator. I've never really done the emu scene for anything and didn't even know there was a C64 emulator (if that's what you're talking about). I just meant I used to have C64 stuff and that's where I played great games like PoR and Phantasie back in the day and the Dos versions of those are complete ass in comparison. It hurts my soul.

Anyway, I think I'm going to Google VICE now.

Ok... that surprised me, but whatever

So VICE is basically the best overall C64 emulator with insane levels of emulation accuracy. The TL;DR is there's nothing it cannot run. It's made by prestigious oldtimers and demoscene veterans.

https://vice-emu.sourceforge.io/

The below description is actually quite modest at it can emulate all sorts of custom hardware, hardware that you will probably never need, but it's there. C128 support is pretty handy, then you can emulate a C64 with REU and any number and type of disk drives. You can use JiffyDOS with it, so it fully supports custom disk drive and kernal ROMs. And yeah, all sorts of cartridges too. Most importantly, it can flawlessly use G64 disk dumps, which are raw disk dumps of original floppies, including the copy protection.

VICE is a program that runs on a Unix, MS-DOS, Win32, OS/2, BeOS, QNX 4.x, QNX 6.x, Amiga, Syllable or Mac OS X machine and executes programs intended for the old 8-bit computers. The current version emulates the C64, the C64DTV, the C128, the VIC20, practically all PET models, the PLUS4 and the CBM-II (aka C610/C510). An extra emulator is provided for C64 expanded with the CMD SuperCPU.

The other ultra prestigious emulator is WinUAE if you're into the Amiga. It's simply the best Amiga emulator, and it's pretty much perfect.

https://www.winuae.net/

I hate to say it but I prefer WinUAE to my real Amiga 500s, mostly because I don't have a nice C= 1084S or similar 15kHz monitor. For the C64, I still prefer my hardware plus a small 90s TV, but I use the 1541 Ultimate+ with it, not a real 1541.

Have fun