yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
The android Back Button and the Xperia Play "O" button both send the same KeyCode "4", which Android OS interprets as a back button press. The way one differentiates between a Back Button press and an "O" button press is to check if the ALT key is simultaneously pressed, in which case, it will get interpreted as an "O" button press.

My thoughts are that the "O" button ought to be mapped per the official Sony guideline (BACK ALT), as that is what game developers are going to be using when designing their games.

If "O" button presses on some custom roms are being interpreted as Back button presses, I'd say that the keymapping on those ROMS are wrong and leaving out the simultaneous "ALT" press required for the proper recognition of the "O" button press.

Wow, that was a mouthful! =) Having said that, DosBox turbo can map both a back button press and an "O" button press. So if your custom Rom is sending a back button press instead of the correct "o" button press, you could also remap the back button functionality in DosBox Turbo to get the desired action.

UPDATE2: Yet more offline discussion with Mysticales and some interesting revelations on another thread are beginning to point to some differences between the stock roms and custom roms that could account for the difference in behaviors seen in the "O" button.

---------- Post added at 07:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:06 PM ----------

True. If the back button is not remapped in DosBox Turbo, it will fallback to the standard Android OS behavior, which is to close the app.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
Gene just gave me this, Transparent keyboard ability + real function keys etc. Everything we would need for Dos (Or terminal)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.pocketworkstation.pckeyboard&hl=en
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] tenshin_76:
Hi guys, just found this briljant post regarding Dosbox Turbo which I recently acquired. However, I don´t know I´m just too thick to see it or it isn´t possible. I remember using DosBox and PocketDos on WinMobile (HTC Touch, Sony Xperia X1) and I could use the physical 8-directional D-pad they had with fire button. That D-pad on most retro DOS games that required the arrows (Prince of Persia, Another World, Flashback, etc.) was automatically mapped to the arrow keys. Now, on this brilliant Android version, what I´d like to know is how do you map arrow keys to a physical keyboard as I have an HTC Desire Z (aka G2 and Vision). Every emulator I have can map any keys from the physical keyboard so you can have 8-direction and fire buttons (Commodore emulator, MAME, PSX, Amiga, etc.) So if this could be possible on Dosbox Turbo, I reckon I´ll burst into tears out of the excitement, LOL. Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this.

Cheers
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
Already in the works. Right now, you CAN have the XP be a joystick, in options for key mapping, set use dpad as input, then change the input type to touchscreen or physical joystick. Button X is Fire 1.

Next update, I think he mentioned he will get Fire 2 and right click mouse mapped to Button O. So this should cover us fully.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] silmes:
Amazing stories and good news to hear!

Haven´t had time to try this out myself, but as I used to play DOS-games back in the day, this is great progress, and I would like to try it out as soon as I have time to sit down with it.

I am also interested in knowing how Darklands and Sensible World of Soccer works on this emulator...
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
As for how games worked questions. I would say this safely. If it ran on a 486 SX and DX CPU.. it seems to be running fine on the xperia play. =)
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
You can use this free app to get a 8-way virtual dpad on your Desire Z.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] metcard:
turbo button on or off?
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] tenshin_76:
Hi gene_wildhart,

Thanks a lot for that, however the app crashes on my Desire Z, you install it and then there´s no way to start it, it crashes. Anyhow, it´s not exactly what I was looking for, no virtual stuff, I´d like to use the physical keyboard. I got a GameGripper from a dutch website which is a rubber gamepad that goes on top of the keyboard and gives you an Xbox/PS2 game controller for multiple emulators. It works a charm on PSX, Tiger MAME, Commodore 64, Amiga, Gensoid, etc., and that´s what I hoped Dosbox could do, allow me to map arrow keys to the physical keyboard to be able to play Dos games like I did on my old Pocket PCs (Prince of Persia, Another World, etc). If you could map any button on the physical keyboard, i think this app would be achieved 100%.

Cheers!
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
*Twack!* That was more 286 era! =p By the time 486 was around, IF you didnt have jumpers already, a turbo button was used more to down throttle a pc to make games work that relied on the cpu speed.

But yea, games so far work. Only thing thats iffy is the sound on alot of the games. Minor to me tho. Not always needed for these old games heh.

Btw.. if someone gets Duck Tales Quest for Gold going.. let me know. I get to the main screen where Scrooge is at his desk, but does nothing else. I rem used to be a copy protection thing somewhere but really, been awhile. That or the game isnt working right.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
Just ordered this, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005JR1LXE/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details its on sale for 25$ and can work on consoles, tablets and android. Plus has all the keys we would need for dosbox. Just a heads up.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
Sure thing! I'll add it to the next release.

---------- Post added at 04:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:29 AM ----------

Could be because upon installation, the default setting for sound emulation is SoundBlaster 2, which is not as compatible with as many games as Soundblaster 16. Try switching the sound emulation to use SoundBlaster 16, It seems to have much better compatibility. In fact, I'll probably start defaulting to SB16 in new releases, as it works so much better than the older SB2 emulation.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] tenshin_76:
Many thanks gene, much appreciated, will be really looking forward to next release, I think that will make the app 100% perfect.

Cheers
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] LessCoffee:
Gene, you are the best for developing such a fantastic version of dosbox! Thanks alot man!

I managed to get the following games to work on XP with Dosbox Turbo:

The following games run smooth with no noticeable lags or problems:

1. Heroes of Might and Magic II (great!! I love Heroes!! Too bad, part 3 is Windows only)

2. Ultima 8 (Ultima rocks! The avatar and Pagan rocks! Especially this part rocks alot!)

3. Fantasy General (another super fine piece of turn based stratgey games. got propably the best soundtrack ever)

4. One Must Fall (best robot fighting game ever! Fantastic soundtrack. A must play!)

The following is playable but could need some optimization:

1. Cybermage (Whoo!! Cyberpunk RPG Shooter. A real masterpiece... reminds me to test System Shock lol).

Install full with VGA low res. Hi res is unplayable slow. Cycles are at 20K, all three experimental turbo options are set, normal scaling without ratio for fitting the whole screen, frameskip 2, core = auto, force auto cpu is set.

Runs ok: sound's fine, but movement and rotation a bit slow. Nvtl it works!

Alas, its not playable or I am too dumb to set it up right:

1. Privateer 2 (Clive Owen in his early creative period. Wing Commander action at its best in a free universe: fight, trade, upgrade and get back your memories)

Videos and cut scenes run smooth. So does planet menu. space action is okay, but lagging, especially when enemies jump in. Moving and rotation too slow. Cant get the ingame joystick calibrated. Mouse playing sucks here.

Too bad, this is one of my all time favorites! So great gameplay, story and atmossphere!! Will soon try to get Privateer 1 to work instead...
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] rugalb:
Anyone tried Ascendancy?. It is one of my favorite games and was only ported to IOS. If it works, I am definitely buying this app.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] maddog00:
Is it possible to map the num pad keys? I'd like to play Dungeon Hack and it'd be great to use the gamepad. Using the mouse is still a little awkward on the touch screen.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
You did know about this, yes?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforge.fheroes2

Lets you play Heroes 2 more natively on android. =D Just put all the files from the pc version into its dir.

Heroes 3 is fun, yes, but somehow, 2 has the better stuff sometimes. =D
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
Many new features and improvements are coming in the next version. Num pad keys are one of them. I'm finishing up the final changes and then will be testing. Should be up on the market this week sometime! If I have time, I'll make a video of the improvements and post it to YouTube.

---------- Post added at 06:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:35 PM ----------

Hi res might be pushing it on a single core. I'll fire it up on my dual core tonight and let you know how it runs in hi-res. Tip: Cpu Type should always be set to the default "dynamic" unless you have a reason to change it. Also, in order to get the maximum possible speed, you should disable the option "force auto cpu". While the option generally works well to auto scale the cpu and keep audio in sync, it is quite conservative, and will always result in a slight performance penalty. A better option would be to disable that option, set the cycle rate to 15000, map the volume up/down keys to cycle up/down and then start the game. While you are in-game, you can manually adjust the cycle rate using the volume keys to find the optimum rate where the game plays fast and there is no audio distortion. Once you find that rate, then save it and use that rate from now on. The "force auto cpu" does basically the same thing, except its quite conservative in selecting the best rate, performing this manually, you can probably get at least a few thousand cycles higher than what the auto option would choose.

Hmmm.. Never tried Privateer 2 on DosBox Turbo, but I remember playing it as a kid, so I'll try it out and get back to you on this one. =)
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
Sooooo anyone played Wing Commander 3 yet on it? =p

Also would love to start swapping out tips, if you played alot so far, did you adjust settings on your Xperia play? Got any youd like to share so we all can tweak ours for general use?
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
Ok just a heads up.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005JR1LXE/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details

This BT keyboard/Touchpad WORKS with my R800x (On FXP rom, might work with others, too tho)

I have a lil mouse icon on my android screen to do stuff, keyboard works. Works in Dosbox turbo!
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
Preview of whats coming very soon..

Profiles!
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
Very nice! However my 1st thought was.. "Unless its simulating me having to 1st wait for the beep.. then put in the dos boot disk, wait, THEN put in the real game disk and load..." (Those who had an orig tandy.. knows this one)
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] rubbergnome:
if on that update there also is touchpad support, i think im gonna.. well, ya know.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
POP QUIZ! The picture above, make me remember something fun. The lil "cut" on the side of the disk. What happens when you covered it? Also Why would you make your own cut in the disk?

(God Im old if I rem this all.. and also rem the special thing you needed to buy)
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] FTAiii:
I vaguely remember that you could cover the slot with special sticky tabs to make the disk read-only. Some came as dual sided disks and you could hole-punch the other side to write on the back of the disk ... good times with 512k of storage
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
Close, you used the sticky tabs to make it writable.

---------- Post added at 07:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:01 PM ----------

Hrm, I wonder how to get the BT mouse working in dosbox. I see my android my cursor. However seems to be separate from the mouse cursor in dosbox. Also dosbox crashed if a BT device is turned off while mid game.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
I just pushed the new release out to the Google Play Market. The biggest change is the DosBox Manager (ie. Profile Manager). You'll now be able to configure Xperia Play controls independently for each game/profile.

To use the DosBox Manager, just update your DosBox Turbo from the Play Market, then in the Settings Menu, select "Install Profile Manager".

Other Xperia Play changes include now being able to use both joystick (or mouse) buttons when you have the DPAD remapped as an Input Device (thanks Mysticales for the bug report!). The touchpad support didn't make it into this release, but I promise, now that the Profile Manager is complete, I'll be looking at this next!
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] tenshin_76:
Great gene, does this mean you´ve added the option for remaping cursor keys to be able to play?
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
Of course! I didn't forget about you. I included Game-Gripper support in this version (can be accessed through config -> button & key mappings -> physical keyboard). Hope it works well for you!
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] psxpetey:
Might have to check this out
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] NWM020:
Games like colonization and/or civilization can be played with this emulator?

If so are they playable with the controls we can use?
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
Yes Civ 1 and Colonization will be fine. Rem They were standard keyboard mapped for direction keys. Or simple mouse clicks.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] maddog00:
I don't mean to take this off track, but there's already an android freeciv option. Just sayin'.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.org.zielinscy.freeciv

And I just want to say thanks. Bought it and am happy playing my old dos games. Just patiently awaiting num keys option to bind. :)
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
One thing. Freeciv.. isnt the same. While it plays the same. Im much more used to the real look and feel. Grew up with it afterall lol.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
Numpad binding is done and will be in the next release. :)

I'm having to delay the analog Touchpad support for a bit because as it stands now, it looks like I may have to make a separate release to support the Touchpad, because it relies on 2.3+ API's that are not compatible with anything Froyo or less. I'd like to avoid a separate executable at all costs, so I'm currently looking into workarounds.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Doomlord follower:
Don't blame me for playing Wolfenstein 3D
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] netizenmt:
Nope. I can absolutely assure you, the notch let you write to the disk, which is why you would hole punch the other side to make a single sided disk into a double-sided one. Covering the hole with a tape tab made it write-protected.

I did boxes and boxes of those, back in the day. Fujifilm and Memorex were my favorite brands.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
Oh yea, was thinking the damn small disks.. sigh, been ages. Granted I used alot of those tapes lol. Main lesson: NEVER EVER PLAY YOUR ORIG DISK! Back in the good days when an expansion had to be installed on the main disk etc.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
I just released an update to DB Turbo (v1.3.4) with the following features:

NUMPAD now mappable to Xperia Play buttons

Improvements to Absolute Mouse tracking

Can now hold right click (ie. double-tap and hold + drag)

Editing of dosbox.conf in manual mode via system-wide editor.

Some optimizations resulting in small speed increase (hey every bit helps!! ;) )

The optional DosBox Manager got an update as well, so you can now add your own custom Dos covers. Here's a screenshot:
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] maddog00:
Woo hoo! NUMPAD controls!

Just to let you know, when selecting custom icons for the manager, I picked Quickpic to find the picture I wanted. Then Dos Manager force closed after I picked the picture I wanted. The Dos manager's file picker worked fine. Just letting you know.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
Thanks for the feedback! Will be fixed in the next update. Have fun!
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] NeWCuLTKiNG:
Picked this up last night. Is there a way to get to your games quickly? I've never gotten into dose till now
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] FTAiii:
Gene, if its not too much trouble, any chance to allow mapping of some of the minor keys like : ; , or the keyboard period (.) ?

AIMING: (NOTE: L=FIRE)

\ ! / = I O P

- L - =K L ;

/ ! \ = , . /

trying to map the above to xplay buttons for some oldschool Beyond Castle Wolfenstein action

Thanks for all your hard work in making the app so xperia play friendly, I hope it has improved sales and been financially rewarding for you.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
Man so much to map now lol. I feel bad, Gene doesnt even have a Xperia and yet his whole app is going into it lol. Hey Gene, side thought.. maybe you should make the XP stuff be in the seperate DL package heh.

And Hitman... welcome to DOS.. We all go old school ways. HOWEVER I did have a convo with Gene. Sometime once things are stable, A open source dosshell may be added, Which would help people out to easily load dos games since its basically a UI for accessing things and loading the files from the folder.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] NeWCuLTKiNG:
I was looking and they have a dosshell for iPhone dos app ill have to have a look see if it can be used with this
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
Sure thing! I'll add those mappings to the next release.

---------- Post added at 08:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:28 AM ----------

Lol. You are right, there is a lot to map now! :eek: I'm working on some improvements to the DosBox Manager for the next release, that will allow one to make a copy of an existing profile. That way, you won't have to re-do all your mappings for similar games (ie. Heretic, Doom, Hexen, etc.).. and I may very well have to roll the Xperia Touchpad support into a separate package... though I'm trying very hard to keep it all in one package.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] harlzden:
Hey guys almost sold , on purchasing dosbox for my xplay

quick question does it have save/load state like all the other console/arcade emulators?

how do u guys resume on games?

cheers

harlzden
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
No save/resume feature is baked into the emulator, because this is a function not supported by DosBox proper. Saving game state will be up to the individual DOS game; however, many (most?) PC DOS games have the save support you are asking about.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] TheVicious:
I know it's a silly question - but how can I make a d-pad and X as a joystick with fire ? I don't see any option i key assigment.

Setters 2 Gold, SWOS 97, Elite 2 Frontier, Colonization works good - playable, sometimes feels low fps but playable.

I still cannot open elite 3 Frontier: First Encounters - after game start some strange writings appers and emulator is dead (exit option doesnt work). I tried three diffrent version. Anybody tried open this game ? Anyone have solution for this problem ? Thanks in advance.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
Dpad and joystick x would be the option "Use dpad for input" option. Then when you change input mode from touchscreen mouse to touch screen joystick, that should do it.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] NeWCuLTKiNG:
I'm getting nowhere with this I'm so confused how I find the games. I have elder scrolls in same folder as dosbox but its loading up c: :banghead:
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
Generally, I recommend creating a directory called "DOS" on the root of your SD Card. You can do this by plugging your phone into your PC and mounting it.

After that, copy your DOS games into the folder you just created. For example, if you have the following games (Doom, heretic, frontier and elderscrolls arena), you might create a structure like the following at the c:> Prompt:

/dos/doom
/dos/frontier/
/dos/heretic/
/dos/arena/

And any other games you want to copy. Remember, DOS is limited to 8 character file and directory names.

Now once you have your games on your SD card folder, its just a matter of starting DB Turbo and accessing your games. By default, the c: drive will be mounted to your root sd card folder. So if you followed my instructions above, to access DOOM, you would type the following:

cd /dos/doom <press enter key>

Then you would either run the game by typing doom.exe or you could setup the sound/controls by typing setup.exe.

More information can be found on the DosBox Wiki and on my FAQ page. Once you've mastered starting games via commandline, all that typing can get tedious very quickly, at which point you'll want to try the free (optional) DosBox Manager add-on.

Hope this very brief tutorial helps!

---------- Post added at 05:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:48 PM ----------

Windows 95

For those of you who were trying to run Windows in DB Turbo, apparently, someone over at this RootWikiz thread managed to get Win95 up and running on his CM9 Beta powered HP Touchpad with full DX6.1. He also posted some pics of him running C&C and Office 95 in Windows!

I have no idea how he did it or what image/config he used, but he mentioned later on in the same thread about how he might post a video with instructions.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
With dosbox, not usually needed to do a setup heh. Just load the games exe or bat file by typing its name, once you are in its directory.

Gene, As for Win95. I did manage only to get that working in safe mode atm. Tho I ran Windows 98 heh.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] NeWCuLTKiNG:
Saw new update ill give this another try today thanks for the help
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] harlzden:
hey gene_wildhart

i know it's a bit cheeky but i thought i'd ask, is there any way of implementing a macro in the dos manager profiles. to allow saving of the command to run games

without having to type

e.g.

cd dosprogs

dukenukem.exe

as an example

saves us typing it in, with the akward touchscreen keyboard every time we want to run a game?
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] FTAiii:
you can do that already by going into Edit Config / DosBox Settings / Autoexec <-- edit the auto exec.bat to be :

mount c: /sdcard/dos

c:

cd duke [or whatever folder]

duke [or whatever exe filename

Thanks for the latest update Gene, app works wonderfully and your support has been awsome
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] Mysticales:
Yea autoexec would work, and Gene DID make profiles for us now, which is very helpful. Soon once a dosshell is installed, that would help people out somewhat. Rem those new to dos.. brush up on some dos commands. =)

Here are some important ones you will use:

dir /w (This will list the files/folders in your current directory, VERY helpful to find the .exe or .bat file to run)

cd \ (Takes you back to the C:\ root directory which should be your root of SD card)
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] SHadowral:
Is there any way to get the locked "Hard Keyboard Mappings" or "DPad & Xperia Play" options enabled?

I´m asking because I have a bluetooth keyboard and a ps3 controller for playing with my SGS2. The analog stick works but I´d like to use the arrow keys on the controller but can´t figure out how to use them -.-

And I use as I said a keyboard for input which makes it a lot easier.
[Xperia Play Themes and Apps] gene_wildhart:
On startup, DB Turbo detects if you have a keyboard/dpad present, if there is none, those options are ghosted out. Have you tried starting DB Turbo with your BT Keyboard already connected? If so, then there might be something wrong with the detection routines, and I'll have to fix it in the next release.