Steam Controller and DOSBOX

[Vepar]

So i bought Little Big Adventure pack on GOG sale few days ago, felt a little nostalgic and it was on sale so yay. :P It of course uses DOSBOX to run.

But no matter what i do i can't get it to run from Steam.

I tried adding the game's .exe. I tried adding DOSBOX, tried both, ran both, pasted the "target" field from the GOG "Lauch LBA 2" shortcut into the launch options of LBA2's executable (like i saw in one guide), and it just won't run.

All i get is either dosbox splash, then nothing, or dosbox opening with the command line and not running the game automatically. I mean, i guess i can mount it manually, and run it from there, but that's too stupid, it has to be a better way.

Am i making this more complicated than it needs to be, or is dosbox just not playing nice with steam in general?

The game runs fine on GOG of course, and i have played it, but i wanna use SC with it.

Do i just modify the desktop bindings and run it from GOG, or is there a way to add the game to my Steam library so i don't need to switch desktop bindings every time i want to play?

There's another dosbox out there that i haven't tried with the game called "DOSBox SVN-Daum" which supposedly uses DirectX and can run with the Steam overlay. But i'm not sure how to run LBA2 through that dosbox instead of the preinstalled one. I guess i'll have to copy it to the game's directory and modify the targets to get it to run, but that still doesn't solve adding it to Steam.

If i figure it out, i'll post here, and yes i know this isn't exactly a Steam controller issue (since i can't get past running the game, let alone using SC with it), but in the meantime...

Anyone has any ideas?

[cammelspit]

YES! Use the latest SVN builds. Each game you play has to have its own configuration for DOSbox. It is essentially an autoexec.bat, sort of. If you are familiar with how an old DOS PC would do it, it is just automatically inputting commands so you don't have to. In steam, the games that use DOSbox work the exact same way. It get's complicated when a game uses a command line argument instead of a *.conf file because you can't be 100% what is being sent to DOSbox. That's having been said, I have managed to get several games on steam updated with the DOSbox SVNs and with auto launching but it is different for each and every game.

Your idea to use the desktop config will work with the least hassle but it won't be the most useful. Without having a better understanding of the normal manual usage of DOSbox and it's configuration you will have a really hard time getting these games to run in the way you want them to.

Do wat you can and maybe later this evening try and hit me up and I will try and help you out as best I can, not sitting next to you in person and all. I don;t own that on GOG so I have a little less of an idea here but surely something can be figured out.

[Vepar]

Cool! So the SVN should work then.

I have used DOS when it was the standard, and i have some basic knowledge on how DOSBox works, so i'll try to replace the preinstalled DOSbox with the SVN one. Hopefully that'll make it run on Steam.

If i have trouble i'll message you.

And if nothing else, yes i can use the desktop config, but as you said, it's not the most useful route, that's why i'm trying to figure out how to set it up properly.

Hopefully all goes well.

[cammelspit]

My guess since you mentioned it goes to the prompt is that the GOG itself, or the games shortcut, is actually using a command line argument to set up DOSbox at runtime instead of the typical *.conf way that I would have used. No worries, though, if you can't get it to run, you will just have to manually start the game, make sure you can get it working 100% and then quickly slap together your own DOSBox or autoexec.conf file. tedious, yes, but VERY doable. That's how I had to get Dark forces to work. :)

[Vepar]

GOG only installs DOSBox in the game folder, and makes a shortcut with which you run the game that has the "target" and "start in" fields corresponding to dosbox, with added command line parameters to start the game automatically and to exit dosbox on game exit.

They also have a dosbox configurator. I've set it to Direct3D, then added the game to steam again. This time i noticed, that the "start in" filed was different too, and i changed that too.

But, if it has the Direct3D option, maybe GOG already installed the SVN version?

Anyway, now it runs from steam!
But the controller doesn't work, nor does the overlay. It still uses desktop bindings.

But at least i got the "adding to steam" part down.

I can't right now, but a bit later (like, half an hour), i'll try to swap the preinstalled dosbox with the SVN i downloaded, and change everything that needs changing accordingly. Hopefully that'll work then.

[cammelspit]

DOSbox, even the latest SVN versions can and are VERY temperamental with the overlay. If you uncheck the allow desktop config, even if the overlay doesn't work or if it crashes the second you open it, it should still use the custom config. Obviously, that means you can't use touch menus and such but it's more convenient. My theory as to why DOSbox likes to crash the overlay is the way it steals all available resources. The emulator usually is above normal priority or normal but it likes to hog whatever it can get. The steam overlay automatically sets itself to a lower priority so it doesn't kill a game while it is running. I had some success with CTRL-ALT-DEL and going to the task manager and setting the steam overlay to a higher priority. This seemed to curtail the majority of the overlay crashes. I also tried converting some of the DOSbox games on steam I have to use Bochs instead but that one is an absolute nightmare to configure and use under the best of circumstances so I pretty much stopped before getting too far on it.

Don't worry, we are gonna figure this out one way or the other. :D

[Vepar]

Ok, so i replaced the old dosbox with the dosbox SVN.

The SVN dosbox is still called dosbox.exe so the path to it, and the target field in GOG's shortcut is correct. It boots up, dosbox runs, and autoruns the game. Then the game crashes. Either i failed to do something, or the game isn't compatible with this version of dosbox.

This is the "target" field of the launch shortcut:

"E:\Igre\GOG\Little Big Adventure 2\DOSBOX\DOSBox.exe" -conf "..\dosboxLBA2.conf" -conf "..\dosboxLBA2_single.conf" -noconsole -c exit

Do i need to edit that or something? It points to the correct dosbox path, except, i don't know if the arguments are still correct if i change dosbox.

I guess i could try to run the game manually through that SVN dosbox, to see if it'll run that way... I'll see what happens then.

Also, another curious thing happened. When i put back the preinstalled dosbox and ran it through Steam, i got this output in stdout.txt that dosbox creates:

DOSBox version 0.74
Copyright 2002-2010 DOSBox Team, published under GNU GPL.
---
CONFIG:Loading primary settings from config file ..\dosboxLBA2.conf
CONFIG:Loading additional settings from config file ..\dosboxLBA2_single.conf
MIDI:Opened device:win32
One joystick reported, initializing with 4axis
Using joystick Microsoft PC-joystick driver with 5 axes, 10 buttons and 1 hat(s)

The game or dosbox recognize the controller appaerntly...
Umm, what?

They're still desktop bindings though in game.


Anyway... I'm kinda out of ideas what to do. The SVN runs, but the game crashes instantly, and the preinstalled dosbox doesn't work with the overlay.

I guess i'll play with the desktop bindings for now.

[cammelspit]

From what I can see there it actually calls 2 different conf files. Without looking at those files, I can't tell you what it is actually doing. If you would like me to, I can look through them if you send them to me in something like a dropbox link. You should be able to make your own command line that opens a third config of your own design when playing the game through steam but will retain functionality when you choose to open it through GOG. If you use DOSbox manually for anything substantial you get a really good idea of what you need to do and how to configure it.

So you know if the game itself, natively, used to support joysticks? If it did, then using gamepad mode on the SC is actually pretty easy. It seems if DOSbox doesn't say so when you launch from steam, that when launched through GOG it turns the joystick detection off. This is a simple switch in the conf BTW. The only reason i could see to turn it off is if the game itself didn't support joysticks and they chose to keep it off in the config. DOSbox can map gamepad inputs to KB/M inputs but at that rate, you would just use the SCs own configs because they are so much more powerful.

Just let me know what you want to do buddy. I have no problem with breaking down what everything does too. I love Emulators and such as a hobby so I thrive on this sort of thing. :)