HOWTO: Stunts on WinXP, Win2000, Linux

[zaqrack]

As you know Stunts is a DOS game, and its natural environment is a native dos system, like DOS,Win95, Win98,winMe

On any other system than these you might meet some difficulties running Stunts.

In the case of WinXP you can try playing from the internal DOS emulation shipped with XP -many do succeed to run the game on a reasonable speed, many don't.
If you choose using this method, you need to set your sound to PC Speaker in the Stunts setup.
If you want higher quality sounds, you need a program called VDMSound, grab it at http://vdmsound.sourceforge.net
Since I have no experience setting up VDMSound (I'm a Linux user) I'll leave this up to you.

The other alternative is DosBox. You can find it at http://www.dosbox.sourceforge.net

DosBox emulates a Dos window rich in features, and I was able to run stunts on my 850Mhz Celeron under gentoo linux (probably for windows you need somewhat stronger)  just as it runs on my 486PC, so it's perfect for racing.

The key for DosBox is its config file, called dosbox.conf (or in windows probably dosbox.cfg, i dunno. There are many programs to edit the settings of the config file,but we'll use a simple text editor, which is the easiest wax imho.

If you cant find the config file, start dosbox and write:

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config -writeconf [pathtoconfigfile
it'll create a default config file for you.

Ok, now open up that nice config file and change the following settings after me:

1. Core Emulation[/u]

You might want to set

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[cpu]
core=dynamic

but for me it brings the same speed as core=simple, so I didnt do this.

2. Scaling[/u]

Scaling is a way to resize the graphic output the game uses. It can eat much from your HW.
I supoose you wnat to play Stunts on fullscreen.

in this case search for these options and set them to the following:

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[sdl]
fulldouble=false
fullfixed=false
fullresolution=0x0
output=surface

[render]
aspect=false
scaler=none


this will turn of scaling, and so if you are playing in a window it'll be very slow, but in fullscreen it's the fastest choice. You have to press ALT+ENTER to switch to fullscreen while DosBox runs, or set

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[sdl]
fullscreen=true

If you prefer to play in a window change:

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output=overlay

this will give ugly fonts, but great gamespeed.

3. Frameskip and CPU Cycles[/u]

this is also essential, and perfect settings mighr vary a lot depending on your system.

you wont even notice a frameskip of 1, but try to avoid higher numbers, since this is a simulation game. However for best racing performance you should set frameskip to 0. If the game runs to slow, change it to 1, or in the worst case 2. You can also change frameskip within dosbox CTRL+F8 raises one, and CTRL+F7 reduces one.

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[render]
frameskip=0


CPU cycles is, basically said the speed of your emulated CPU. You'll need at least 3500 for enjoyable gameplay, I recommend 5000. Whil running DosBox you can raise it with CTRL+F12 (note this will make CPU usage higher, while framsekip on the contrary!), and reduce it with CTRL+F11

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[cpu]
cycles=5000


Ok now you should try running stunts. Open up DosBox, and write the following things:

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mount c /path/to/your/stunts
c:
stunts_k



this will start up stunts.
of course you might want to setup first - you can either choose sound blaster/roland/speaker - each of them is emulated perfectly.

Try to play a game, and watch your CPU usage if it reaches 100% or not (it's easy under linux, under windows you can notice it easily by the sound - if it chops/stops for a while then it's at 100%)

Ok, we have two possibilities now:

A.  The CPU usage is nowhere near 100%, the game runs perfectly.
Congratulations! Happy racing! You might want to set a better quality scaler, increase CPU Cycles, or something like this to make gameplay more enjoyable. I'll leave finding out these up to you.

B. The CPU usage reaches 100%, the game movement is jerky, control is bad.
Ok, let's see what we can do in this case:

1. Set your screen spolor depth to 256 colors

2. In the dosbox config file set

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[mixer]
rate=11025

this makes sound quality worse. You could also try setting your sound in setup to Roland/P Speaker - it's faster.

3. raise frameskip value, 2 maximally

4. reduce cpu cycles, 3500 minimally.

5. reduce graphic quality within Stunts

If you did all of this and still the game is too slow, then probabyl your CPU has not enough processing power to run a correct emulation for Stunts. Buy a faster one, or a used 486/Pentium to play. But hopefully you'll find yourself playing Stunts, and enjoying it

If you have any questions write it here.

This FAQ was based on Joekaos's DosBox FAQ found at http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php?page=RunningResourceDemandingGames and my own experiences.

last mofiied: 20050128

[Damn]

I dont get it!! To hard for an average gamer!. Iv downloaded Dosbox, and thats it, i get stuck there. Thx

[bhtooefr]

On my system, I lowered the cycles all the way to 1000, and that was still playable. Above that, sound sucked.

Things WERE quite playable running in NTVDM on Windows 2000, but the sound was PC Speaker, of course.

Pentium III 700, 384MB RAM, Win2K SP4.

[al il professore]

where is your config file zak?

[Krys TOFF]

Oh, how nice.

Another spam robot, please delete this "Guest" post Zak.

[juventus]

Hi, I'm looking for a copy of the manual to get by the password protect!

[BonzaiJoe]

Please read the "HOWTO: Disable security system" thread.

[Ville]

Hi all, I'm new to the forum.

My problem: I cannot hear the engine or "slipping" sound. Music is fine, as is everything else. Driving is pretty much impossible without the sound.  

I'm using WinXP. The problem is the same using command prompt, DOSbox, or directly clicking on st.com. All Stunts versions give the same result. My sound setting is "Roland", others give no sound. My computer doesn't seem to have a PC speaker. My sound card is probably some cheap thing integrated to the motherboard.

Any help on the matter? I'm dying to play Stunts again!

[Krys TOFF]

Hi Ville.
I can't help much as I don't have Win XP, but there may be 2 solutions :
1/ use DOSBox, configure SoundBlaster sound in Stunts settings. It should work as DOSBox emulates SB in your own sound system.
2/ Use Zapper's pack of sound, available at ZakStunts website (http://stunts.mine.nu/zakstunts/ into "Downloads" section, "Add-ons and mods" category. Maybe this sound pack may work properly with your sound card...

[Ville]

Thanks Krys, I tried it again with DOSbox and finally managed to get it work perfectly! Yeeeeeha!

[zaqrack]

some great news:

As posted on Abandoneer, I got great news for the community. The DOSBox crew is planning on releasing long-awaited version 0.66 of their popular MS-DOS emulator by the end of this week!

I had the opportunity of playtesting one of the release candidates and, being a config rat as I am, the first and most important changes I've noticed is that it now supposedly detects and dynamically applies the best possible cycles and core definitions on the fly. Manual settings are still available, so it's just win-win!

[DieselJoe]

Good news! Last week when I was playing Stunts at a friend's computer (current state of the art), I was not able to get it run properly, even playing with the Frameskip and CPU Cycles settings... 
Maybe I am just too stupid

[Paleke]

There is at least two us, then. 

Excellent news. I hope it works on my computer (PIII), so I can finally play Stunts with sound on Windows XP.

[Duplode]

Felt like providing a couple coments DOS-on-XP emulation...  First of all, I'd advise people to avoid VDMSound altoegether. I used it to play under XP since I can remember, and only tried DOSBox around yesterday (for attempting NoRH-SDR). I never considered any performance issues for never having tried anything else. My initial runs unde DOSBox, however, induced me to some testing - I compared Stunts replay clock to my pulse watch results. Thing is, on my Athlon XP 2000+ with 256MB RAM, DOSBox runs on realtime and with reasonable CPU usage (setup at 12000 cycles), whereas VDM was about 9% slower! I feel cheated now... at least now its possible to race ZakStunts (non-Indy) properly! And BTW, if any newbie chooses to try DOSBox, get (from the official site) the D.O.G forntend (or anything similar). It makes the configuration process trivial...

[Krys TOFF]

I use DOSBox only for noRH racing at SDR competition. Else, pure DOS or Win 9x operating systems remain the best for full Stunts enjoyement.

I tryed with XP-SP2 without DOSBox : games runs much less smoothly, keypress have a delay to impact in the game (and even more delay for gear changes than for driving keys). Horrible.