GOG games with dosbox integrated dont want to launch

I have a few games that come from GOG : Doom(the ultimate), Heretic(Shadow of the Serpent Riders) and Blood( (One Unit Whole) and others

They are launched via a shortcut(.lnk), for example for doom :
with F:\Games\DOOM\DOSBOX\DOSBox.exe -conf "..\dosbox_doom.conf" -conf "..\dosbox_doom_single.conf" -noconsole -c "exit" as a target.
when i launch them via the link directly in windows 11 the games launch fine. I get :

*what is supposed to happen.

but when i launch them via retrobat after copying the shortcut from gog as i do for my other windows games in the retrobat\windows folder the games don't launch, just have the dosbox windows:



I had the same problem with old games(like Z) that where packed with dosbox and a config and bat, to be run on win11
I could launch them with the bat on windows 11,
but i couldn't make them work, as hard as i tried, as a dos game in retrobat. Tried changing bats cfg, could not make them all run reliably even if fine launching through windows 11.

What surprise me, here, is that i though that retrobat would read the link like windows do and let whatever the shortcut's parameters are and link to the target, with the added launch lines, and just run what is linked to.
Then i had hope to be able to run  all my prepacked dos games for win11 as windows games in retrobat.

Why do the retrobat windows launcher do me the same trouble than the dos launcher, i wasn't expected them to do so.
in retrobat dos launcher, i tought i just couldn' find the right path and/or cfg/dat/retrobat configuration. I am pretty bad at that.
I tried to follow tutos but lots of them seem out of date. Or I could't replicate with my prepacked games.

So all theses games prepacked with dosbox from gog or other just don't run in the retrobat DOS nor Windows launcher, just opening dosbox and dont lauching the game.

1 what am i doing wrong?
2 What should, I do.
3 Isn't there a way just to use .lnk files. that would be so much easier like all my other windows games.

Thanks in advance. Thx for retrobat. It is awesome.

Hi,

You are try with a batch ?

I tried it and it seems to work  ' Launch The Ultimate DOOM.bat ' :

start /wait "Launch The Ultimate DOOM" "N:\GameZ\GoG\DOOM\Launch The Ultimate DOOM.lnk"

Or

Use steam by adding in non-steam game and add the command in the game properties in steam, then create the .url with steam.
But you have to wait for the next update so that retrobat can detect the .exe executed by the steam .url.

Thank you very much,  i just tried the bat thing. it's perfect. 
I tried to use a bat in a different way before but didn't think of that. this is so simple, great. i finally can put all my prepacked dosbox games, alleluia. lol

benjdidj wrote:Thank you very much,  i just tried the bat thing. it's perfect. 
I tried to use a bat in a different way before but didn't think of that. this is so simple, great. i finally can put all my prepacked dosbox games, alleluia. lol

And if you use .url when adding games to steam in the next version of retrobat, you could play with a controller by configuring the steam input (configurable per game in steam).

Wow that's so cool.   

1 
I 'am just testing my prepacked dos games for windows, 
Theses already have a bat inside i just put the folders in retrobat\win\ 
Add .win. and most of them work. 

2
a few months ago, I did the same in dos folder with .dos, they weren't working, I could not relink them as retrobat\dos expected. Trying to rename thing in bat and config(sometimes they have many but retrobat ask me for 1. i dont know how to do that) and redirect directories,
but my knowledge with scripts is bad...
I could not make them work consistently and make the process easily repeatable. 

(I thought i tried making them work with .win already... maybe not)

3 I have a trouble with C&C there is 2 bat(one for gdi, one for nod). 


The game doesn't launch on retrobat, if i create a .win folder. 
it works fine without the .win i can choose between the 2 in retrobat but in folders(i use them sometimes so i dont want to deactivate them). 
i tried to make a .lnk or a a .bat to link to the !startgdi.bat ou !startNod.bat to put it outside the folder but not sure how to do last one,
i tried to modify the bat directly and putting outside of the folder:

the original bat :

how do i tell in the bat the where is the conf filewhen i move it out ?


edit 

4 
actually if somebody knows and can tell me how to adapt theses prepacked dosbox game to retroarch dos instead of retroarch win ! that ll be better.
I tried many times i could't figure out, as said earlier.

her is what the conf look like :


Thanks !

Hello

Have you try to activate this option, while putting them in DOS ?




https://wiki.retrobat.org/systems-and-emulators/supported-game-systems/others/ms-dos#specific-system-information

i tried many combinations.

I could make working  a few of them (one the sound was missing), 
but i was mostly unsuccessful for the bigger game structures and
- more than one conf like for c&c but in this case only one conf is loaded at a time, i had games with many conf
-C and cd drives/folders, C is if i understand the préinstalled game(wher should i put it?)

My trouble certainly are from my poor scripting ability(retrobat made me learning.., but i couldn't figure out.
my knowledge of coding is what i learned coding in basic(simplified) on a TI 92( the manual was a beast like the calculator,    but very complete)

and also i learned how to navigate dos when i wanted to play my pinball game and Blood when i was 15 because my pentium 90 didn't have enough ram to run them on win 95. but just some very basic thing to launch a game like CD.. dir and exit  

Yes, one is for libreto the other for Dosbox pure if i remember. i tried(maybe wrong)

but a lot of renaming pathfinding mixed with many conf , an C and CD,mixed with my poor scripting is not a good mix  
So after few days i gave up. i understood that was a conf pb but couln't do it(exept a few), and also because i cannot scale it and is really time consuming, alot due to my lack of experience.

There was also a lack of parameters for the Dosbox Pure in retrobat. and i couldnt make it work either in libreto, their conditions were different (renaming and position of conf), so it was confusing mixed with the rest.

and felt it was not scalable with my skills, i have a lot of games to go through.

looking at the games now, most of them should work fine, with one dosbox.conf for most of the games ;  inside the folder
maybe the games it tried to play first duke nukem, Z, gave me trouble those that dont how more configs and bats)...

Edit
i just checked a few games, the ones with  a dosbox.conf inside, and checked dosbox.conf in retrobat work when the folder have .dos for Dosbox  so thats good. 

but not for libreto dosbox pure. that is where all parameters are.

i tried pasting and renaming the conf outside the folder, what is the name of the game, like the folder i guess:
ex : creature shock







i dont know what to do now.
same thing with the dosbox.conf inside the folder. and selected in retrobat.

dosbox will have to do,  if i can run setup.exe i might be able to change parameters for the games.

and what can i do with multiple conf ?

Thanks retrobat team and @getupor and @aynshe !

I found a solution to my pb with C&C that had 2 .bat and 2 .conf thanks to gog and their duke nukem 3d dosbox.conf . 

just had to copy paste the 'launcher'  and a few edit and mix the 2 conf that had only 1 line difference

Code:

IMGMOUNT D "CD\CCD1.iso" -t iso
//IMGMOUNT D "CD\CCD2.iso" -t iso

Code:

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
@echo off

mount C C
c:\
cd C&C
cls

goto launcher
:launcher
cls
ECHO ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ»
ECHO º ------------------------------------------ º
ECHO º  C&C Launcher                              º
ECHO º ------------------------------------------ º
ECHO º  1) C&C   gdi                              º
ECHO º  2) C&C   nod                              º
ECHO º  3) Game DOS Settings                      º
ECHO º ------------------------------------------ º
ECHO º  4) exit program                           º
ECHO º ------------------------------------------ º
ECHO ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ

choice /c1234 /s Which program do you want to run? [1-4]: /n
if errorlevel 4 goto exit
if errorlevel 3 goto setup
if errorlevel 2 goto gamenod
if errorlevel 1 goto gamegdi

:gamegdi
IMGMOUNT D "CD\CCD1.iso" -t iso
cls
C&C.EXE
goto exit

:gamenod
IMGMOUNT D "CD\CCD2.iso" -t iso
cls
C&C.EXE
goto exit

:setup
cls
Setup.exe
goto launcher

:exit

pause
exit

now i can choose the cd and the setup. that has setup for sound...

Ok So finally i could get everything running with libreto pure....

But i am not sure to understand what happened. 

Someting in my es_setting.cfg was broken linked maybe with the preload ui elements option i am not sure, and/or an update ??

I went to bat GUI deselected full screen(because i dont want that i cant alt tab on windows).
i  reboot  retrobat and it kinda crash or really slow to load, stuck on preload ui element(activated few months ago).

finally i had to delete es_setting.cfg.

And...... it worked. 

libreto pure seemed to let me mount cd1(gdi cd)
or cd2( nod cd). 
and choose my files in C..

with only one cfg.

Perfect. hope this could help anybody. 
Thanks to the team and the community

Hi,

I've never experimented with DoSBox, but did you check the wiki to verify that you're using the right method for non-gog games?

https://wiki.retrobat.org/systems-and-emulators/supported-game-systems/others/ms-dos

I just tested with a .iso of C&C in a .zip, after the 1st execution I installed the game in dosbox, then on the second execution I can run c&c.exe from dosbox

i tried with with a simply .conf, the autoboot it's ok

Code:


[autoexec]
@echo off
IMGMOUNT D ".\DOSCNC_GDI.iso" -t iso
C&C\C&C.EXE
exit


or Carmageddon

Code:


[autoexec]
@echo off
IMGMOUNT D ".\CarmaFrench.bin" -t iso
cd C:\CARMA
CARMA.EXE