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  Re: Axe and Fang?
  By: Martin Kazmaier to All on Sun Nov 05 2023 06:24 pm

 MK> Is it possible to run this door stably?

It runs without locking up on actual 486 hardware under DOS 5.0 as long as
SHARE.EXE is not loaded, no expanded memory manager is installed, and no
multi-tasker or task switcher is involved.  Any later version of DOS (at least
the 6.22 I tested with) or anything that causes the CPU to be in enhanced mode
or virtual 8086 mode crashes the game or locks up the system eventually. 
So... maybe?

 MK> I'm wondering how well it would
 MK> run under DOSBox. Has anyone tried it?

I was able to get it running under DOSBox SVN as long as the CPU was forced
into real mode.  You can do that with these settings under the [cpu] section
in a DOSBox.conf file:

core=normal
cputype=386_prefetch
cycles=3000

Set cycles to whatever value you would like but don't leave it in auto mode. 
I was unable to get a FOSSIL driver to work properly with the game and needed
to let the game use its own I/O routines.  With a locked rate at over 38400
the game tends to 'forget' to send data after a while, so leave it at that
value maximum.  Using DOSBox means it's going to need to be a single-node only
game and you'll need to take measures to prevent two users from entering at
the same time.

I also couldn't get DOSBox-X to run this reliably even with the above
settings. That may be a DOSBox-X problem as I've had some other stability
issues with the last two releases.
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