strange

abyss · Post by **abyss** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:53 pm

I was playing space quest 4 i got from the space quest collection pack with dosbox in full screen and when the game started i saw something flicker so i closed space quest 4 and it said windows explorer needed to close than another program shut down so i pushed alt ctrl delete and restarted the computer from their because i could not use the start menu. I have played the space quest 4 on the collection pack many times but that never happened before. I have no viruses so what happened.

Gamer_V · Post by **Gamer_V** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:01 pm

It crashed. Maybe it doesn't like alt-tab. Shit like that happens. Nothing to worry about.

abyss · Post by **abyss** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:18 pm

It did not cras as i could still push alt,ctrl,delete and click reset. The start menu was not working and windows explorer and another program closed. I was running space quest with dosbox in fullscreen and that is when the problem occured. I have played the space quest 4 on the collection many times before and that has never happened.

Strange that problems always occur when i get virus protection. I have no viruses.

Gamer_V · Post by **Gamer_V** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:29 pm

Something crashed if your system tray didn't respond, right? It doesn't have to have anything to do with your anti-virus. And if it did, it might just be your crappy computer who ran out of memory or had to many processes running or maybe even your antique windows 98. Windows crashes, get used to it.

abyss · Post by **abyss** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:42 pm

I was still able to push ctrl,alt,delete, and click reset. What is a system tray. I did not get a bsod. I have plenty of memory,no viruses,2 applications running. The start menu was not working though. It was on the xp.

It happened when i went into full screen in dosbox and i do that a lot and that never happened.

It was just after i finished a virus scan and found no viruses.

It can either be something inteferring with the virus protector or a problem happened while going into full screen in dosbox.

I did not run dosbox until the virus scan was done.

I always get problems when i get virus protectors.

Gamer_V · Post by **Gamer_V** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:48 pm

The system tray is thing at the bottom at your screen, which might or not might show the time and the start-button.

However, as long as you're not able to reproduce the bug (make it happen again) you've got nothing to worry about. If the virus-scanner was the only recent thing installed, it might have been guilty, by interfering with other applications or the other way around. Hell, it could even be overheating. However, a virus scanner is more important then one random crash if you ask me.

On top of that, 256 mb Ram is not plenty of memory, certainly not for an xp machine.

abyss · Post by **abyss** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:52 pm

I can't reproduce it. My machine is not running too hot

Post by **dosraider** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:22 am

Wait a second or two .....

one...
two...

Weren't you the one with a P3-800MHz / 256 Ram or a 600 MHz and you stated that you run dosbox with CPUcycles +150.000 or so?

Oh, yes, that was you, Abyss ,poor compy.

It's probably completely useless to tell you, but on such computer you would be MUCH better of with W2K, much much better.

In fact it's a ideal W2K pc you have, and a worthless XP pc.

[EDIT]
I wonder what the swapfile read/writing is on your pc, must be stressing your HD to the maximum.

Post by **Larry Laffer** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 1:18 pm

Ok, I'm going to explain this to you in simple terms:

If you use DOSBox at more than 5000 cycles it's the same thing as overclocking your computer. If you set it to 15.000 cycles, no WONDER window crashed/froze/whatever.

So, instead of "don't overclock computer" it should be "don't overclock DOSBox too much"

abyss · Post by **abyss** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:54 pm

I had 7000 cycles going. I can go up to 70000 thousand cycles.

Post by **Larry Laffer** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:40 pm

abyss wrote:I can go up to 70000 thousand cycles.

And do you realize the toll this takes on your system?

abyss · Post by **abyss** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 5:14 pm

I only go up to 30 thousand cycles.

MiniMax · Post by **MiniMax** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 6:03 pm

Larry Laffer wrote:Ok, I'm going to explain this to you in simple terms:

If you use DOSBox at more than 5000 cycles it's the same thing as overclocking your computer. If you set it to 15.000 cycles, no WONDER window crashed/froze/whatever.

So, instead of "don't overclock computer" it should be "don't overclock DOSBox too much"

That is wrong.

The only thing that will happen if DOSBox is allowed to go up to 70,000 cycles, is that the CPU will be working hard.

But that is what CPU's are made for. My PC do very CPU-intensive work as part of the World Community Grid every night while I sleep, and every day while I am at work. While doing this, it is running 100% for 8-10 hours straight - and it has done so for 3 years now.

As long as you have adequate cooling (my AMD 2600+ is usually running at 51'C / 123'F) nothing bad is going to happen.

Post by **Larry Laffer** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:26 am

meh, you don't know abyss as we do, MiniMax

Final Chance · Post by **Final Chance** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:54 am

Take my former Pentium II laptop. It could go about a maximum of 3500 cycles on DOSBox.

I cranked it up as far as 20,000. Nothing bad happened as such, the game simply slowed down and jerked around, but it didn't crash. Windows itself continued to work fine.

All (minor) problems were solved by just putting it back around 3500 cycles.

So if there's any big problems, it might not be the cycles' fault.

I used XP/2000 (switched back and forth occasionally).

abyss · Post by **abyss** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 6:32 am

I have very cheap cooling,

Post by **dosraider** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:18 pm

That's a nonsense statement.

It's not about cheap or not, it's about good.
There are many cheap CPU / case vents who do a proper job, they just make a lot of noise.

If you have 10 costly vents in your system that are working against eachother and a priceless CPU vent who is not mounted properly you will have a worthless cooling.

You CAN monitor your CPU / case / whatever temp , you know that ?

Hmmmmm, think that last was a bad idea to tell you.

Final Chance · Post by **Final Chance** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 1:03 pm

dosraider wrote:You CAN monitor your CPU / case / whatever temp , you know that ?

Hmmmmm, think that last was a bad idea to tell you.

If your BIOS doesn't tell you, maybe <a href="http://www.sisoftware.co.uk">SANDRA</a> can help.

GAMER · Post by **GAMER** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:35 am

Larry Laffer wrote:
abyss wrote:I can go up to 70000 thousand cycles.
And do you realize the toll this takes on your system?

Okay...I think you are all missing the point...

70000 thousand...IS NOT A NUMBER!!

GAMER

abyss · Post by **abyss** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:40 am

70000 cycles is all i can go up to. I did not realize 70000 thousand was not a number.