0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

[Idelacio]

On that note decided to try it myself-

in dosbox-x-
imgmake hdd.vhd -t hd -size 16

Loaded as is into MiSter

The DOS boot disk attempted a format, then-
"Setup cannot install MS-DOS 6.22 on your computer.

An error was detected while formatting your primary hard disk partition"

Now, THAT SAID, I then fdisked and deleted the parition. Rebooted the system and THEN it was able to format and install.
It then booted into DOS

So the VHD file is not inherently screwed, just something that DOSbox is doing to it.

BECAUSE I CAN'T LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE
I tested tinstalling on DOSBox-X and had the same issue, managed to get it installing before DOSBox crashed, that's probably my stupid brain not understanding how to swap disks in DOSBox though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Testing your boot disk it looks like it dunks the contents onto the VHD as is? Yeah I think you need to fdisk and format it via DOS first.

[ItalianGrandma]

60MB, I'm getting the error in MiSTer.

No spaces in the file path-
Q:\Junk\DOS\GAMES\templates\OUTPUTS\Create_VHDs
Using Windows 10.

I tested in DOSBox X and it does boot when mounted as an image.

Do check the file I uploaded though as a sanity check when you can, in case it's a me issue. Always best to assume User Error first. :p

If it's not me you could test by getting Doxbox x to dump out a blank VHD and seeing if MiSTer can load and format it with a dos boot disk.

Ok, I have a feeling it’s a me issue then. It could be I just have to use Diskpart to make the drive and only use dosbox-x to install dos. Easy fix at least! I guess that’s what I get for trying to simplify the process a bit.

[ItalianGrandma]

On that note decided to try it myself-

in dosbox-x-
imgmake hdd.vhd -t hd -size 16

Loaded as is into MiSter

The DOS boot disk attempted a format, then-
"Setup cannot install MS-DOS 6.22 on your computer.

An error was detected while formatting your primary hard disk partition"

Now, THAT SAID, I then fdisked and deleted the parition. Rebooted the system and THEN it was able to format and install.
It then booted into DOS

So the VHD file is not inherently screwed, just something that DOSbox is doing to it.

There is also a -fat parameter at the end where you specify 12 or 16. what happens if you add that?

I’m just gonna adjust the script to use windows diskpart to create the drive since I know that works. I’ll be able to fix that either tomorrow night or early Sunday.

[Idelacio]

There is also a -fat parameter at the end where you specify 12 or 16. what happens if you add that?

OIC, yeah okay that installs.

Okay so I tried your boot disk in DOSBox on the drive and it installs but fails in MiSTer (Fat 12 and 16 drives)

I installed from the boot disk IN mister to the rawish drives as output from DOSBox
Both boot.

So it's something to do with how the boot disk installs from DOSBox?

[ItalianGrandma]

OIC, yeah okay that installs.

Okay so I tried your boot disk in DOSBox on the drive and it installs but fails in MiSTer (Fat 12 and 16 drives)

I installed from the boot disk IN mister to the rawish drives as output from DOSBox
Both boot.

So it's something to do with how the boot disk installs from DOSBox?

Were you using my boot disk on MiSTer, or your own? If it’s a different boot disk, maybe try replacing my bootdisk with yours in the utils folder? I wonder if it’s my bootdisk or if it’s just the way dosbox-x is initializing the drive. It’s supposed to already be formatted and partitioned, though.

edit: if it is a different bootdisk, you’ll have to make sure you at least add "sys c:" to your autoexec

[Idelacio]

Were you using my boot disk on MiSTer, or your own? If it’s a different boot disk, maybe try replacing my bootdisk with yours in the utils folder? I wonder if it’s my bootdisk or if it’s just the way dosbox-x is initializing the drive. It’s supposed to already be formatted and partitioned, though.

edit: if it is a different bootdisk, you’ll have to make sure you at least add "sys c:" to your autoexec

Yours.

[ItalianGrandma]

Alrighty, thanks for testing! I’ll fix it sometime over the next couple days for sure. Sorry it didn’t work!

[Idelacio]

Alrighty, thanks for testing! I’ll fix it sometime over the next couple days for sure. Sorry it didn’t work!

No worries, it's almost there.

Again do sanity check in case I'm doing soemthing really dumb...

[Op8glum]

I am new to Mister and have been really enjoying this great collection of DOS games. Thanks for all the efforts for those involved in developing this! Just an FYI it seems that the MT-32 version of Monkey Island is not working with the MT-32 pi. Sound works fine but it is not using the MT-32 pi.

[Idelacio]

I am new to Mister and have been really enjoying this great collection of DOS games. Thanks for all the efforts for those involved in developing this! Just an FYI it seems that the MT-32 version of Monkey Island is not working with the MT-32 pi. Sound works fine but it is not using the MT-32 pi.

Let the team know on the issue tracker. :3
https://github.com/0mhz-net/0mhz-collection/issues

Er, unless it's one of my uploads, in which case just message me here I guess... or leave a message on the games archive page! :p

Tbh I want to take a look as there's the talkie version, I don't know if they have that one in the main pack. (Oh, they do... XD)

(Just tested it and I can confirm this isn't playing MT32.)

[ItalianGrandma]

Alrighty, thanks for testing! I’ll fix it sometime over the next couple days for sure. Sorry it didn’t work!

No worries, it's almost there.

Again do sanity check in case I'm doing soemthing really dumb...

So, interestingly, I sent it to a friend on Discord and it worked fine for them? I wonder if it could be an issue with the particular size VHD you made? If you get a chance, maybe try some other sizes/games and see if you get the same error. Maybe try making the same size vhd as before and see if it works with a different game?

[Idelacio]

So, interestingly, I sent it to a friend on Discord and it worked fine for them? I wonder if it could be an issue with the particular size VHD you made? If you get a chance, maybe try some other sizes/games and see if you get the same error. Maybe try making the same size vhd as before and see if it works with a different game?

Just a me issue then?

I tried with a few sizes without putting a game on there. _CREATE_VHD straight to MiSTer/DOSBox. They all load in DOSBox and all fail to read in MiSTer.

Eh, well ignore me until other reports come in for now. Could just be a quirk of my Windows build.

[Op8glum]

I am new to Mister and have been really enjoying this great collection of DOS games. Thanks for all the efforts for those involved in developing this! Just an FYI it seems that the MT-32 version of Monkey Island is not working with the MT-32 pi. Sound works fine but it is not using the MT-32 pi.

Let the team know on the issue tracker. :3
https://github.com/0mhz-net/0mhz-collection/issues

Er, unless it's one of my uploads, in which case just message me here I guess... or leave a message on the games archive page! :p

Tbh I want to take a look as there's the talkie version, I don't know if they have that one in the main pack. (Oh, they do... XD)

(Just tested it and I can confirm this isn't playing MT32.)

Cheers. I posted the issue on GitHub.

[mrchrister]

Trying to use the download script for this for the first time since installing the initial collection. However, the big issue here is that when I downloaded the collection on my PC I can use a download manager with multiple connections to archive.org and the download maxes out my internet connection. Using the script on the Mister it is using the standard download and comes down at most at 4kb/s and takes forever. In fact so long I turned the Mister off before it had finished downloading a single zip file.

Is there any alternative method to download all new updates that I can do from my PC and max out my internet connection?

Can you try if this is faster?
Download all files from https://github.com/mrchrisster/0mhz-col ... ain/aria2c and extract aria2c to /media/fat/linux on Mister.
Then try the command

Code: Select all

/media/fat/linux/aria2c -x 16 --ca-certificate=/etc/ssl/certs/cacert.pem https://archive.org/download/0mhz-dos/Warcraft%20II.zip

[ItalianGrandma]

So, interestingly, I sent it to a friend on Discord and it worked fine for them? I wonder if it could be an issue with the particular size VHD you made? If you get a chance, maybe try some other sizes/games and see if you get the same error. Maybe try making the same size vhd as before and see if it works with a different game?

Just a me issue then?

I tried with a few sizes without putting a game on there. _CREATE_VHD straight to MiSTer/DOSBox. They all load in DOSBox and all fail to read in MiSTer.

Eh, well ignore me until other reports come in for now. Could just be a quirk of my Windows build.

Ok, finally home and I can confirm the same issue! Invalid system disk…

Going to try switching back to using diskpart.

[Idelacio]

Ok, finally home and I can confirm the same issue! Invalid system disk…

Going to try switching back to using diskpart.

u_u

How does DOSBox do it? Does it do it's own formatting or does it piggy back on Windows?

Currently dumping my backlog up on Archive. >.<
Some games that are giving me issues that I'll come back to later if no one else does-
11th Hour - VESA issues
Phantasmagoria - No speech or sound effects
Jet Strike - bad sound

[ItalianGrandma]

Ok, finally home and I can confirm the same issue! Invalid system disk…

Going to try switching back to using diskpart.

u_u

How does DOSBox do it? Does it do it's own formatting or does it piggy back on Windows?

Currently dumping my backlog up on Archive. >.<
Some games that are giving me issues that I'll come back to later if no one else does-
11th Hour - VESA issues
Phantasmagoria - No speech or sound effects
Jet Strike - bad sound

Did a little more testing to try to get it to work with dosbox-x and failed…

That said, I just realized that i’m not formatting it with the bootdisk. I think accidentally took that line out and that might actually fix it. The disks are supposed to come preformatted from dosbox-x, but perhaps they don’t work out of the box. I’ll try it in a bit when I’m back at the PC.

Edit: Nope, still didn’t work.. I did figure out my issue with filepaths that have spaces in them at least, but I still really want to try and get this process working in dosbox-x alone if I can.

[Fuzzball]

Trying to use the download script for this for the first time since installing the initial collection. However, the big issue here is that when I downloaded the collection on my PC I can use a download manager with multiple connections to archive.org and the download maxes out my internet connection. Using the script on the Mister it is using the standard download and comes down at most at 4kb/s and takes forever. In fact so long I turned the Mister off before it had finished downloading a single zip file.

Is there any alternative method to download all new updates that I can do from my PC and max out my internet connection?

Can you try if this is faster?
Download all files from https://github.com/mrchrisster/0mhz-col ... ain/aria2c and extract aria2c to /media/fat/linux on Mister.
Then try the command

Code: Select all

/media/fat/linux/aria2c -x 16 --ca-certificate=/etc/ssl/certs/cacert.pem https://archive.org/download/0mhz-dos/Warcraft%20II.zip

Using this method downloads at 1.7Mb/s which although a lot faster than 4kb/s still takes a long time for each zip file and then slows right down once it gets to around 90% complete. It's a shame because I can get 12Mb/s from archive.org on my PC.

I suppose I could try running it overnight. How would I go about implementing that command into the update script?

[mrchrister]

What are you using on your PC to achieve those speeds?
I'll implement aria into the script, it'll take me a few days though..

[Fuzzball]

What are you using on your PC to achieve those speeds?
I'll implement aria into the script, it'll take me a few days though..

uGet on Zorin OS

Edit:
I've been looking at some of the additions to the 0mhz collection on archive.org and have just realised that for quite a few of them there are comments saying that these are probably beyond the capabilities of the ao486 core. I had assumed that everything in that list has been tested and approved for use on it.

In that case, please don't add that to the script unless it is something you were going to add anyway as I don't think I will be doing a download all now. I had got the wrong impression. I am not going to bother downloading games that are mentioned as beyond the ao486 core capabilities.

[rhester72]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think one of the reasons some of the games are underperforming is because sysctl can't yet set the core to very high speeds.

[ItalianGrandma]

OK, I figured it out!!

Now the program works fine with spaces in filepaths, and all VHDs I've tested have boooted on MiSTer

The secret sauce ended up being that you have to create the VHD in DOSBox-X, but then you have to format it in Windows. Then you take the VHD back to DOSBox-X and transfer the filesystem.

If anyone tests, please let me know! This is a very simple first version that simply makes a VHD of the specified size in MB and does require you to add your game files and change any necessary configs. Right now it uses DOS 7.1 with default settings of HIMEM ON, CD-ROM OFF, EMM386 OFF. If you have to adjust these settings, you need to modify CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. You also need to supply your own MGL file.

I plan to improve this later so it will spit out a working 0MHz pack in the full format. Possibly later I will add support for other versions of DOS, but by then Bas’s DOSContainer will hopefully be out. I just wanted to get something simple out there for Windows users in the interim.

Nevermind, I guess I still didn't figure it out...I got the drive to boot, but as soon as you add a game, you get "Invalid Disk" and I'm not sure why

Latest version is here ---> viewtopic.php?p=85737#p85737

[Idelacio]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think one of the reasons some of the games are underperforming is because sysctl can't yet set the core to very high speeds.

AFAIK sysctl can only set the cpu speed and cache specifically per the cores hardware settings, so 15, 30, 53 and 90MHz with L1/2 cache on/off. The MAX setting of 100MHz can only be set via the presets.

It's moot anyway, some of the games I uploaded really are punching above what AO486 can achieve and either have some performance issues or have to be brought down to less demanding settings. That 10% boost won't cut it.

Now that said nothing I've uploaded is actually unplayable, how many of us played these games on min spec PCs at the time and suffered through! But I can understand that's not what people are looking for.

Edit:
I've been looking at some of the additions to the 0mhz collection on archive.org and have just realised that for quite a few of them there are comments saying that these are probably beyond the capabilities of the ao486 core. I had assumed that everything in that list has been tested and approved for use on it.

Pretty sure the scope of the download all script is just that original core collection? If there's a plan to optionally expand it then we probabaly want to add in some option/exclusion tags for games that are freaking massive and games that are pushing the limits of the core. More than happy to add those in if requested.

[Idelacio]

If anyone tests, please let me know! This is a very simple first version that simply makes a VHD of the specified size in MB and does require you to add your game files and change any necessary configs. Right now it uses DOS 7.1 with default settings of HIMEM ON, CD-ROM OFF, EMM386 OFF. If you have to adjust these settings, you need to modify CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. You also need to supply your own MGL file.

Testing now, the VHD outputs are nicely efficient... I may have to go back and redo some of my builds. XD

Doing Keen 7-9 to see how it goes. Honestly they all fit onto 4MB drives, so pushed down to 3MB as well.

Sadly I still get invalid disk. Fresh install of the tool, nothing resused.
I'm using Windows 10 Pro.
Again could just be me that as my system is kinda quirky.

[ItalianGrandma]

If anyone tests, please let me know! This is a very simple first version that simply makes a VHD of the specified size in MB and does require you to add your game files and change any necessary configs. Right now it uses DOS 7.1 with default settings of HIMEM ON, CD-ROM OFF, EMM386 OFF. If you have to adjust these settings, you need to modify CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. You also need to supply your own MGL file.

Testing now, the VHD outputs are nicely efficient... I may have to go back and redo some of my builds. XD

Doing Keen 7-9 to see how it goes. Honestly they all fit onto 4MB drives, so pushed down to 3MB as well.

Sadly I still get invalid disk. Fresh install of the tool, nothing resused.
I'm using Windows 10 Pro.
Again could just be me that as my system is kinda quirky.

Hmmm, dang this is an odd one! Is it prompting you to run the app as admin?

[mrchrister]

https://github.com/mrchrisster/0mhz-col ... nloader.sh

Changes to 0mhz downloader:

• It now uses aria2c download manager which should speed up archive.org downloads

[Idelacio]

Hmmm, dang this is an odd one! Is it prompting you to run the app as admin?

No, but it wouldn't anyway as I have UAC disabled on purpose.

Running as admin and it does do things differently. THAT works. So yes, system quirk.

Something for the readme then.

[Idelacio]

Found an issue-

sysctrl line is incorrect, should be-
sysctl.exe SYS 90Mhz L1+ L2+ > NUL

It's currently outputting-
sysctl.exe MENU 90Mhz L1+ L2+

Got a couple of working games set up based on the rest of it though.
Quarantine 2 and Dr Quandry
The other few load but may be too much for AO486, and Quarantine 1 for some reason.

[ItalianGrandma]

Found an issue-

sysctrl line is incorrect, should be-
sysctl.exe SYS 90Mhz L1+ L2+ > NUL

It's currently outputting-
sysctl.exe MENU 90Mhz L1+ L2+

That works for you? Every time I try to keep that line, I swear it wouldn't work for me anymore...I'll add it back.

I'm buttoning up another releases in just a minute.

[ItalianGrandma]

OK! This one should definitely work! I actually tested booting a game this time and it worked I had an errant line in the install batch file on my bootdisk that was formatting the drive again, so I think that was the problem before.

Again, if you try it let me know if you run into issues!

Latest version here: viewtopic.php?p=85737#p85737

Also, the script automatically tries to prompt you to run as admin, but if you have UAC disabled like @Idelacio, you’ll have to force it manually.

Found an issue-

sysctrl line is incorrect, should be-
sysctl.exe SYS 90Mhz L1+ L2+ > NUL

It's currently outputting-
sysctl.exe MENU 90Mhz L1+ L2+

I didn't know that > NUL mattered as I'm pretty sure it works without it, but I added it back.