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Alright, just got word from Tony (the mastermind behind Magic Dosbox). He’s not available atm, but he can send you an older version for testing. Can you tell which was the last working one for you? Or around which time it was last working well?
There’s also the possiblity to implement fixed cpu affinity in a test build, but that’s experimental, and you’d be better off with a fix that can be applied to the official branch (for future updates).Not sure, but maybe if you enable debugging in Global settings, something useful will pop up in the logs?
I agree that a problem such as this is really annoying. I still do believe though that it’s related to some sort of cpu power management. Here’s why: I’ve got six Android devices to test on (S9+, S7 edge, Note 4, Note 2, A5 2017, Tab E T560), and this issue is completely nonexistent on 5 of them. Only on my S9+ do I experience slowdowns every now and then, when I don’t take additional steps to prevent this.
Now, the S9+, at least my Exynos variant, is notorious for having really messed up cpu management, up to a point where people suspect it’s being crippled on purpose. So, what hits hard here IMHO is, that Magic Dosbox, or Dosbox in general, is pretty well optimized, and light on the cpu. That’s why our phones don’t run hot. On the other hand, it seems to me that for this reason the process is offloaded onto the low power cores.
In short: running Dosbox at max cycles is calculated relatively to the cpu core it’s running on So when Android pushes the process to a low power core, Dosbox is still running at max cycles, but only relative to the .LITTLE core.
That’s how I understand it. This would also explain why fixed cycles are working as intendend.Also, things become even more complicated with the way the .BIG cores are designed. On my S9+, the first core is clocked at 2.7 GHz. As soon as the 2nd core is utilized (for whatever reason at all), both are clocked down to 2.3 GHz. As soon as core 3 and 4 chime in, it goes down even further, to 1.8 GHz for all 4 cores. So, even when the process stays on the .BIG cores, occasional slowdowns (2.7 -> 1.8 ~ 33%) are almost inevitable. Also, prior to the tweaks I’ve applied, I would get crazy slowdowns, and scores of 900 and above sometimes, whereas now, I’m getting stable 600 realtics (don’t want to overoptimize and kill my cpu).
So, all that is just what I make of it personally, I’m not a coder myself. But I was able to squeeze a lot of performance out of my phone with cpu related tweaks, without any changes made to Magic Dosbox itself. That’s why I’m pretty sure the problem can be pinpointed here.
Maybe there’s a way to increase some values at least a bit. Pushing the limits too far would result in pronounced cpu heating and battery usage, but some adjustments to the code (if possible) might help with the issue of Dosbox running on the wrong set of cores.
Strange thing is that some files, like executables, can be read, but certain other files can’t.
@pdedinski how many games have you tried so far? And what happens if you remove one of the working games from your phone (preferably one you aren’t intending to play anyway)? Can you reinstall it, or does it fail, too?Ah yes, I was a bit quick with my suggestion there. How about internal storage? Does that work?
Seems like a really weird issue to me. And these non-working games are working on your PC?Sadly, GLTools has been pulled from Google Play, no idea why. And Sixaxis Controller doesn’t work with Oreo/Pie anymore, at least on my devices. 🙁
I’m using a GameSir G4s controller (Xbox controller clone) with my phone. It’s good build quality, has a phone clip, and is working out of the box.I used GLTools, and a custom kernel with performance governor enabled. That was incredibly buggy and crash-prone though, so I reverted to a rooted stock kernel.
I’m getting about 550-600 realtics now.Samsung’s kernel management is ridiculous, it keeps force downclocking the main core to 1.8 GHz instead of 2.7 GHz. No idea why they’re doing this, my cpu doesn’t heat up at all. ?♂️
Just for clarification: *IF* this function will be implemented, it will be in the regular paid version, no need to buy anything experimental in addition then. The question will simply be if this can be done and maintained in a way that’s reasonable enough.
Hi!
Great to hear you’re working on a Magic Dosbox guide. Running Win95 in DOSBox is a pain in the butt, even on PC, so every bit of good documentation is highly welcome! ?
The short answer to your question: no, it’s not allowed. But that’s tbe internet for you, and Google isn’t doing much to protect apps either. So app developers would have to stamp on every single website that’s distributing their work. Which is next to impossible, unless you’re a multi-million dollar company with an army of lawyers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So, it’s more or less a token of gratitude to pay three bucks to a small dev (which equals a beer or two, depending on where you’re living). People who’re pirating will do so anyway (and hopefully get their phones and pcs infected by all sorts of nasty trojans and viruses ?).
#rant off ?#It does make perfect sense to keep the default version clean. Most users will get mad when something gets broken, and you can’t risk stability or compatibility for experimental Windows support (it’s called DOSBox, after all).
That being said, personally I would love to see an additional setting, maybe called “experimental”, that’d be loaded with all available patches. I’m running DOSBox ECE on my PC for example, and prior to that ykhwong’s builds (until they got too broken).
Of course, a big problem might be to maintain all the code involved.
