Release_1.0.0-beta.5

Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog,
and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

[1.0.0-beta.5] - 2024-08-18

✨ New Features

• 81f43e0 - Add ESS Maestro 3i (ES1983) support (tested) (commit by @AranVink)
• fc97e5e - Add support for Maestro 2, Maestro 2E, and Canyon 3d 2 (untested) (commit by @AranVink)

🐛 Bug Fixes

• b22db15 - Try to configure requarks/changelog-action to include all commits in changelog, even those that don't have a "type" defined according the Conventional Commits format (feat, feature, fix, bugfix, perf, refactor, test, tests, chore`) (commit by @volkertb)
• fb8d190 - Tweak AC97 default volume settings, to mute inputs like microphone and line in by default (commit by @AranVink)

👷 Build System

• 6e065a1 - bundle release notes with release artifacts (commit by @volkertb)
• e38773c - Make required Git tag pattern for triggering builds and releases less strict: allow any tag that starts with v followed by a number, even if it's not SemVer compliant, such as 1.0beta5 (commit by @volkertb)
• d0a73c1 - Fix tag_name is not well-formed error in Release tag name, by replacing a space with an underscore (commit by @volkertb)

📝 Documentation Changes

• ca571ba - Combine changelog and user instructions into release notes and show those on each release (commit by @volkertb)
• da22aa7 - Fix spelling errors README.txt (commit by @AranVink)
• f42a548 - Fix spelling in README.md (commit by @AranVink)

🛸 Other Changes

• 746380f - Update actions/checkout to v4 (commit by @volkertb)
• 47b5c9d - Add current branch to allowlist to test build-and-release workflow (commit by @volkertb)
• d60b110 - Add step that generates changelog as part of release (commit by @volkertb)
• bfbe717 - Show auto-generated release notes instead, move user instructions (shown on each release until now) to separate Markdown file (we may use it later somehow) (commit by @volkertb)
• 9981d96 - Use CHANGELOG generated by heinrichreimer/action-github-changelog-generator instead of relying on GitHub's release notes generation functionality, which apparently doesn't render the release notes in a Markdown file (commit by @volkertb)
• 5835b30 - Try using different GitHub Action for generating Changelog from Git commits (commit by @volkertb)
• 59d0f61 - Try to fix configuration of changelog configuration action, so that it also works when build is triggered by a non-tag commit, for instance while testing the workflow in a branch, as is the case while writing this commit (commit by @volkertb)
• f3fddb8 - Fix git commands that assumed the project to be checked out in the current directory, while the code was actually checked out under the subdirectory ./src (commit by @volkertb)
• d71dbae - Check out tags, so Git log can be used to generate the changelog, with thanks to actions/checkout#206 (comment) (commit by @volkertb)
• 5e137d6 - Configure actions/checkout to fetch full Git history, since it's needed to generate changelog from commits between latest and previous tags (commit by @volkertb)
• 833b0c9 - Undo previous configuration change for requarks/changelog-action, since the actual cause was found: actions/checkout checks out the repo with a depth of 1 (only the most recent commit) by default, so history including previous tags isn't available by default (we fixed that configuration in the previous commit) (commit by @volkertb)
• b954563 - Configure requarks/changelog-action not to demand the "Conventional Commits" format (see https://medium.com/@sagormahtab/mastering-commit-messages-the-ultimate-guide-to-conventional-commits-96f038da6bdf) (commit by @volkertb)
• e58a347 - Build and release only when a tag with a proper pattern (v followed by a SemVer-compliant version number, for instance v1.0.0) is pushed to the Git repo (commit by @volkertb)
• 39ec56b - Merge branch 'main' into generate-changelog-with-each-release (commit by @crazii)
• e7ceae4 - Merge pull request #82 from volkertb/generate-changelog-with-each-release

Generate changelog with each release (commit by @crazii)

• 0bad11e - Fix spelling errors README.txt (commit by @AranVink)
• b7c8b87 - Fix spelling in README.md (commit by @AranVink)
• 773250e - Merge branch 'patch-1' of https://github.com/AranVink/SBEMU into patch-1 (commit by @AranVink)
• 2355249 - Merge branch 'patch-2' of https://github.com/AranVink/SBEMU into patch-2 (commit by @AranVink)
• a31ad51 - Merge pull request #118 from AranVink/patch-1

docs: Fix spelling errors README.txt (commit by @volkertb)

• 23b3227 - Merge pull request #119 from AranVink/patch-2

docs: Fix spelling in README.md (commit by @volkertb)

• d719b9c - Add maestro3 pci id and correct ac97 volume initialization (commit by @AranVink)
• 1f51c9e - Make pci id's match linux driver support (commit by @AranVink)
• b61d8ba - Merge pull request #123 from AranVink/feature/add_ess_maestro

Feature/add ess maestro (commit by @volkertb)

• 2bd6cf7 - Merge pull request #131 from volkertb/make-release-tag-pattern-less-strict

ci: Make required Git tag pattern for triggering builds and releases less strict (commit by @volkertb)

• 7afac06 - Trigger a build and release on any pushed tag for now, and use the triggering tag name in the corresponding release tag/title *(commit by [@volkertb](https://github.com/volke...

1.0-beta4

IMPORTANT: Please make sure all files in the zip are used.

CHANGES:
Build: add CI/CD pipeline, build FreedDOS image and zip file, by volkertb (Volkert de Buisonjé).
Build: Add Makefile (RHIDE project files deprecated), by thp (Thomas Perl).
Drivers: AC97: Add support for SIS7012, by thp (Thomas Perl).
Drivers: Add support for ICH5/AD1980 sound output, by thp (Thomas Perl).
CD-Audio mixer support, by thp (Thomas Perl).
Runtime debugging over serial port, by thp (Thomas Perl).
Text-mode UI: Nice display of sound card name, and highlight important messsge with color, by thp (Thomas Perl).
move "fix time constant for exact 11/22/44 kHz" to the option, by wbcbz7
improve SB direct mode audio quality, by wbcbz7
Drivers: Add PIO support to Intel HDA, by jiyunomegami.
Drivers: Ensoniq ES1371 supported.
MPU-401 UART emulation with serial MIDI output, by jiyunomegami.
Drivers: C-Media CMI 8338/8738 supported, by crazii & jiyunomegami.
Expermimental: IRQ assignment if PCI sound card IRQ is invalid or above 15.
Drivers: YAMAHA YMF supported, by jiyunomegami.
PCM resampling improvements and fix low-frequency interpolation (Skyroads SFX).
HDPMI: PCI IRQ client bypass, send to SBEMU/BIOS directly and hide from games - fix freeze for DOOM. Thanks to veelstekel for testing.
Build: enable -O2 and -flto optimizations.
Command line: /I9 supported for IRQ9 if IRQ5/7 not working due to IRQ conflicts, by jiyunomegami.
Command line: options support decimals, i.e. /K22050 and other arbitrary values, by jiyunomegami.
Add /SCFM and /SCMPU for cards that have builtin FM and MPU (not enabled by default, need specify in command line), by jiyunomegami.
Drivers: /SCFM /SCMPU for CMI cards, by jiyunomegami.
Drivers: MMIO fix for ICH4 boards, by jiyunomegami.
Drivers: new set of Linux sound card drivers ported, by jiyunomegami. New dirvers:

• ALS4000
• EMU10K1X (Dell SB0200)
• X-Fi (both EMU20K1 and EMU20K2)
• OXYGEN(CMI8788) (Only tested with Asus Xonar DG)
• ESS Allegro-1 (ES1988S/ES1989S)
• Trident 4D Wave

IRQ guard to prevent the virtual SB IRQ sending to BIOS.
Bugfix: crash on calling HDPMI functions, and crash on error exiting.
Bugfix: DMA address mapping using DPMI_MapMemory/DPMI_UnmapMemory that doesn't work properly and cause leaks.
Bugfix: SB16: IRQ/DMA mixer registers not initialized properly, seen in TOMBRAIDER's SETUP.
Add high DMA check, force /Hx=/Dx when /Hx uses low DMA for 16 bit PCM.
Bugfix: prevent compiler optimization on MMIO reads/writes.
Bugfix: fix for some Intel HDA chips that mutes the sound for unkown reason.
Add README.txt & CHANGLOG.txt, shipped with binaries in zip file.
Compatibility: make /H option working if /T6 not set.
Some trivial bugfixes and improvements.

Available files

If you wish to use SBEMU and its dependencies in an existing DOS installation, you'll find the necessary
files in SBEMU.zip.

Alternatively, SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz provides SBEMU and is dependencies preconfigured inside a compressed
bootable FreeDOS image that you can write to a USB flash drive or an SD card.

Preparing a bootable USB drive

Preparing a bootable USB drive

The USB image can be written to a USB drive or SD card using a tool like balenaEtcher.

The advantage of using Etcher is that you don't have to decompress the .xz archive first.
It will decompress such files automatically, before writing the image to the target drive.

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

You can run the image in a VM with QEMU as follows:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-system-i386 -drive file=SBEMU-FD13-USB.img,format=raw -device AC97

If you wish to test Intel HDA compatibility instead of ICHx AC'97 compatibility, replace AC97 with intel-hda in the last command above.
On Linux, you can include the parameter --enable-kvm to run the VM with hardware-assisted virtualization.

If you prefer to use another hypervisor, such as VirtualBox or VMware, you may have to convert the raw image to a supported VM image format first:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-img convert -f raw -O vmdk SBEMU-FD13-USB.img SBEMU-FD13-USB.vmdk

NOTE: Although VMs can sometimes be useful during development, testing and debugging, you should not rely on those for actual hardware compatibility testing, since the sound cards that the hypervisors emulate are themselves merely approximations of actual hardware, and will not behave like the real thing in every single corner case.
Basically, you shouldn't test emulators on other emulators.

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

There are multiple convenient distributions out there that contain DOS games that can be distributed freely and legally.
Specifically freeware, shareware, open source and free demo versions.

Here are a few links to such distributions:

• The PC/DOS Mini, a compilation of 100+ DOS games ready to play for free
• GAFFA DOS Shareware/Freeware Pack (please donate to the Internet Archive, by the way!️ ❤️)

UserBuild_2024.04.29_09-29

Available files

If you wish to use SBEMU and its dependencies in an existing DOS installation, you'll find the necessary
files in SBEMU.zip.

Alternatively, SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz provides SBEMU and is dependencies preconfigured inside a compressed
bootable FreeDOS image that you can write to a USB flash drive or an SD card.

Preparing a bootable USB drive

Preparing a bootable USB drive

The USB image can be written to a USB drive or SD card using a tool like balenaEtcher.

The advantage of using Etcher is that you don't have to decompress the .xz archive first.
It will decompress such files automatically, before writing the image to the target drive.

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

You can run the image in a VM with QEMU as follows:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-system-i386 -drive file=SBEMU-FD13-USB.img,format=raw -device AC97

If you wish to test Intel HDA compatibility instead of ICHx AC'97 compatibility, replace AC97 with intel-hda in the last command above.
On Linux, you can include the parameter --enable-kvm to run the VM with hardware-assisted virtualization.

If you prefer to use another hypervisor, such as VirtualBox or VMware, you may have to convert the raw image to a supported VM image format first:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-img convert -f raw -O vmdk SBEMU-FD13-USB.img SBEMU-FD13-USB.vmdk

NOTE: Although VMs can sometimes be useful during development, testing and debugging, you should not rely on those for actual hardware compatibility testing, since the sound cards that the hypervisors emulate are themselves merely approximations of actual hardware, and will not behave like the real thing in every single corner case.
Basically, you shouldn't test emulators on other emulators.

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

There are multiple convenient distributions out there that contain DOS games that can be distributed freely and legally.
Specifically freeware, shareware, open source and free demo versions.

Here are a few links to such distributions:

• The PC/DOS Mini, a compilation of 100+ DOS games ready to play for free
• GAFFA DOS Shareware/Freeware Pack (please donate to the Internet Archive, by the way!️ ❤️)

UserBuild_2024.04.28_03-45

Available files

If you wish to use SBEMU and its dependencies in an existing DOS installation, you'll find the necessary
files in SBEMU.zip.

Alternatively, SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz provides SBEMU and is dependencies preconfigured inside a compressed
bootable FreeDOS image that you can write to a USB flash drive or an SD card.

Preparing a bootable USB drive

Preparing a bootable USB drive

The USB image can be written to a USB drive or SD card using a tool like balenaEtcher.

The advantage of using Etcher is that you don't have to decompress the .xz archive first.
It will decompress such files automatically, before writing the image to the target drive.

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

You can run the image in a VM with QEMU as follows:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-system-i386 -drive file=SBEMU-FD13-USB.img,format=raw -device AC97

If you wish to test Intel HDA compatibility instead of ICHx AC'97 compatibility, replace AC97 with intel-hda in the last command above.
On Linux, you can include the parameter --enable-kvm to run the VM with hardware-assisted virtualization.

If you prefer to use another hypervisor, such as VirtualBox or VMware, you may have to convert the raw image to a supported VM image format first:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-img convert -f raw -O vmdk SBEMU-FD13-USB.img SBEMU-FD13-USB.vmdk

NOTE: Although VMs can sometimes be useful during development, testing and debugging, you should not rely on those for actual hardware compatibility testing, since the sound cards that the hypervisors emulate are themselves merely approximations of actual hardware, and will not behave like the real thing in every single corner case.
Basically, you shouldn't test emulators on other emulators.

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

There are multiple convenient distributions out there that contain DOS games that can be distributed freely and legally.
Specifically freeware, shareware, open source and free demo versions.

Here are a few links to such distributions:

• The PC/DOS Mini, a compilation of 100+ DOS games ready to play for free
• GAFFA DOS Shareware/Freeware Pack (please donate to the Internet Archive, by the way!️ ❤️)

UserBuild_2024.04.28_03-37

Available files

If you wish to use SBEMU and its dependencies in an existing DOS installation, you'll find the necessary
files in SBEMU.zip.

Alternatively, SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz provides SBEMU and is dependencies preconfigured inside a compressed
bootable FreeDOS image that you can write to a USB flash drive or an SD card.

Preparing a bootable USB drive

Preparing a bootable USB drive

The USB image can be written to a USB drive or SD card using a tool like balenaEtcher.

The advantage of using Etcher is that you don't have to decompress the .xz archive first.
It will decompress such files automatically, before writing the image to the target drive.

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

You can run the image in a VM with QEMU as follows:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-system-i386 -drive file=SBEMU-FD13-USB.img,format=raw -device AC97

If you wish to test Intel HDA compatibility instead of ICHx AC'97 compatibility, replace AC97 with intel-hda in the last command above.
On Linux, you can include the parameter --enable-kvm to run the VM with hardware-assisted virtualization.

If you prefer to use another hypervisor, such as VirtualBox or VMware, you may have to convert the raw image to a supported VM image format first:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-img convert -f raw -O vmdk SBEMU-FD13-USB.img SBEMU-FD13-USB.vmdk

NOTE: Although VMs can sometimes be useful during development, testing and debugging, you should not rely on those for actual hardware compatibility testing, since the sound cards that the hypervisors emulate are themselves merely approximations of actual hardware, and will not behave like the real thing in every single corner case.
Basically, you shouldn't test emulators on other emulators.

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

There are multiple convenient distributions out there that contain DOS games that can be distributed freely and legally.
Specifically freeware, shareware, open source and free demo versions.

Here are a few links to such distributions:

• The PC/DOS Mini, a compilation of 100+ DOS games ready to play for free
• GAFFA DOS Shareware/Freeware Pack (please donate to the Internet Archive, by the way!️ ❤️)

UserBuild_2024.04.28_03-21

Available files

If you wish to use SBEMU and its dependencies in an existing DOS installation, you'll find the necessary
files in SBEMU.zip.

Alternatively, SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz provides SBEMU and is dependencies preconfigured inside a compressed
bootable FreeDOS image that you can write to a USB flash drive or an SD card.

Preparing a bootable USB drive

Preparing a bootable USB drive

The USB image can be written to a USB drive or SD card using a tool like balenaEtcher.

The advantage of using Etcher is that you don't have to decompress the .xz archive first.
It will decompress such files automatically, before writing the image to the target drive.

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

You can run the image in a VM with QEMU as follows:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-system-i386 -drive file=SBEMU-FD13-USB.img,format=raw -device AC97

If you wish to test Intel HDA compatibility instead of ICHx AC'97 compatibility, replace AC97 with intel-hda in the last command above.
On Linux, you can include the parameter --enable-kvm to run the VM with hardware-assisted virtualization.

If you prefer to use another hypervisor, such as VirtualBox or VMware, you may have to convert the raw image to a supported VM image format first:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-img convert -f raw -O vmdk SBEMU-FD13-USB.img SBEMU-FD13-USB.vmdk

NOTE: Although VMs can sometimes be useful during development, testing and debugging, you should not rely on those for actual hardware compatibility testing, since the sound cards that the hypervisors emulate are themselves merely approximations of actual hardware, and will not behave like the real thing in every single corner case.
Basically, you shouldn't test emulators on other emulators.

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

There are multiple convenient distributions out there that contain DOS games that can be distributed freely and legally.
Specifically freeware, shareware, open source and free demo versions.

Here are a few links to such distributions:

• The PC/DOS Mini, a compilation of 100+ DOS games ready to play for free
• GAFFA DOS Shareware/Freeware Pack (please donate to the Internet Archive, by the way!️ ❤️)

UserBuild_2024.04.27_14-05

Available files

If you wish to use SBEMU and its dependencies in an existing DOS installation, you'll find the necessary
files in SBEMU.zip.

Alternatively, SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz provides SBEMU and is dependencies preconfigured inside a compressed
bootable FreeDOS image that you can write to a USB flash drive or an SD card.

Preparing a bootable USB drive

Preparing a bootable USB drive

The USB image can be written to a USB drive or SD card using a tool like balenaEtcher.

The advantage of using Etcher is that you don't have to decompress the .xz archive first.
It will decompress such files automatically, before writing the image to the target drive.

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

You can run the image in a VM with QEMU as follows:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-system-i386 -drive file=SBEMU-FD13-USB.img,format=raw -device AC97

If you wish to test Intel HDA compatibility instead of ICHx AC'97 compatibility, replace AC97 with intel-hda in the last command above.
On Linux, you can include the parameter --enable-kvm to run the VM with hardware-assisted virtualization.

If you prefer to use another hypervisor, such as VirtualBox or VMware, you may have to convert the raw image to a supported VM image format first:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-img convert -f raw -O vmdk SBEMU-FD13-USB.img SBEMU-FD13-USB.vmdk

NOTE: Although VMs can sometimes be useful during development, testing and debugging, you should not rely on those for actual hardware compatibility testing, since the sound cards that the hypervisors emulate are themselves merely approximations of actual hardware, and will not behave like the real thing in every single corner case.
Basically, you shouldn't test emulators on other emulators.

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

There are multiple convenient distributions out there that contain DOS games that can be distributed freely and legally.
Specifically freeware, shareware, open source and free demo versions.

Here are a few links to such distributions:

• The PC/DOS Mini, a compilation of 100+ DOS games ready to play for free
• GAFFA DOS Shareware/Freeware Pack (please donate to the Internet Archive, by the way!️ ❤️)

UserBuild_2024.04.27_03-42

Available files

If you wish to use SBEMU and its dependencies in an existing DOS installation, you'll find the necessary
files in SBEMU.zip.

Alternatively, SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz provides SBEMU and is dependencies preconfigured inside a compressed
bootable FreeDOS image that you can write to a USB flash drive or an SD card.

Preparing a bootable USB drive

Preparing a bootable USB drive

The USB image can be written to a USB drive or SD card using a tool like balenaEtcher.

The advantage of using Etcher is that you don't have to decompress the .xz archive first.
It will decompress such files automatically, before writing the image to the target drive.

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

You can run the image in a VM with QEMU as follows:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-system-i386 -drive file=SBEMU-FD13-USB.img,format=raw -device AC97

If you wish to test Intel HDA compatibility instead of ICHx AC'97 compatibility, replace AC97 with intel-hda in the last command above.
On Linux, you can include the parameter --enable-kvm to run the VM with hardware-assisted virtualization.

If you prefer to use another hypervisor, such as VirtualBox or VMware, you may have to convert the raw image to a supported VM image format first:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-img convert -f raw -O vmdk SBEMU-FD13-USB.img SBEMU-FD13-USB.vmdk

NOTE: Although VMs can sometimes be useful during development, testing and debugging, you should not rely on those for actual hardware compatibility testing, since the sound cards that the hypervisors emulate are themselves merely approximations of actual hardware, and will not behave like the real thing in every single corner case.
Basically, you shouldn't test emulators on other emulators.

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

There are multiple convenient distributions out there that contain DOS games that can be distributed freely and legally.
Specifically freeware, shareware, open source and free demo versions.

Here are a few links to such distributions:

• The PC/DOS Mini, a compilation of 100+ DOS games ready to play for free
• GAFFA DOS Shareware/Freeware Pack (please donate to the Internet Archive, by the way!️ ❤️)

UserBuild_2024.04.26_15-44

Available files

If you wish to use SBEMU and its dependencies in an existing DOS installation, you'll find the necessary
files in SBEMU.zip.

Alternatively, SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz provides SBEMU and is dependencies preconfigured inside a compressed
bootable FreeDOS image that you can write to a USB flash drive or an SD card.

Preparing a bootable USB drive

Preparing a bootable USB drive

The USB image can be written to a USB drive or SD card using a tool like balenaEtcher.

The advantage of using Etcher is that you don't have to decompress the .xz archive first.
It will decompress such files automatically, before writing the image to the target drive.

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

You can run the image in a VM with QEMU as follows:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-system-i386 -drive file=SBEMU-FD13-USB.img,format=raw -device AC97

If you wish to test Intel HDA compatibility instead of ICHx AC'97 compatibility, replace AC97 with intel-hda in the last command above.
On Linux, you can include the parameter --enable-kvm to run the VM with hardware-assisted virtualization.

If you prefer to use another hypervisor, such as VirtualBox or VMware, you may have to convert the raw image to a supported VM image format first:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-img convert -f raw -O vmdk SBEMU-FD13-USB.img SBEMU-FD13-USB.vmdk

NOTE: Although VMs can sometimes be useful during development, testing and debugging, you should not rely on those for actual hardware compatibility testing, since the sound cards that the hypervisors emulate are themselves merely approximations of actual hardware, and will not behave like the real thing in every single corner case.
Basically, you shouldn't test emulators on other emulators.

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

There are multiple convenient distributions out there that contain DOS games that can be distributed freely and legally.
Specifically freeware, shareware, open source and free demo versions.

Here are a few links to such distributions:

• The PC/DOS Mini, a compilation of 100+ DOS games ready to play for free
• GAFFA DOS Shareware/Freeware Pack (please donate to the Internet Archive, by the way!️ ❤️)

UserBuild_2024.04.11_09-01

Available files

If you wish to use SBEMU and its dependencies in an existing DOS installation, you'll find the necessary
files in SBEMU.zip.

Alternatively, SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz provides SBEMU and is dependencies preconfigured inside a compressed
bootable FreeDOS image that you can write to a USB flash drive or an SD card.

Preparing a bootable USB drive

Preparing a bootable USB drive

The USB image can be written to a USB drive or SD card using a tool like balenaEtcher.

The advantage of using Etcher is that you don't have to decompress the .xz archive first.
It will decompress such files automatically, before writing the image to the target drive.

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

Booting the USB image in a virtual machine

You can run the image in a VM with QEMU as follows:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-system-i386 -drive file=SBEMU-FD13-USB.img,format=raw -device AC97

If you wish to test Intel HDA compatibility instead of ICHx AC'97 compatibility, replace AC97 with intel-hda in the last command above.
On Linux, you can include the parameter --enable-kvm to run the VM with hardware-assisted virtualization.

If you prefer to use another hypervisor, such as VirtualBox or VMware, you may have to convert the raw image to a supported VM image format first:

unxz SBEMU-FD13-USB.img.xz
qemu-img convert -f raw -O vmdk SBEMU-FD13-USB.img SBEMU-FD13-USB.vmdk

NOTE: Although VMs can sometimes be useful during development, testing and debugging, you should not rely on those for actual hardware compatibility testing, since the sound cards that the hypervisors emulate are themselves merely approximations of actual hardware, and will not behave like the real thing in every single corner case.
Basically, you shouldn't test emulators on other emulators.

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

Where can I get some DOS games to test with?

There are multiple convenient distributions out there that contain DOS games that can be distributed freely and legally.
Specifically freeware, shareware, open source and free demo versions.

Here are a few links to such distributions:

• The PC/DOS Mini, a compilation of 100+ DOS games ready to play for free
• GAFFA DOS Shareware/Freeware Pack (please donate to the Internet Archive, by the way!️ ❤️)