taskmanagers can't be really trusted.

Frameskip?

Qbix wrote:

taskmanagers can't be really trusted.

His laptop is getting warm so I guess it can be trusted.

Ubuntus task manager takes 30% for itself xD

robertmo wrote:

Qbix wrote:

taskmanagers can't be really trusted.

His laptop is getting warm so I guess it can be trusted.

i mean with comparing it with his desktop taskmanager.

You mean his desktop also uses quite a lot of cpu power? I thought a text adventure can hardly be noticable by a CPU.

I thought a text adventure can hardly be noticable by a CPU.

You mean with a cycle count of x2=6000 he could not play the game because
the laptop would get so incredibly hot that he can't touch the keys?

I mean it should stay cool with cycles=3000 (i guess he is using 3000 not some huge amount that would explain warming)

as for 2x cycles he will have to check it -
simply thought 6000 cycles could use 60% and 10000 100%
or
still use 30% cause it was caused not by amount of cycles but by something else.

If before starting dosbox cpu usage is 0% and after you start it with a simple text game you have 30% (and the fact that your computer gets warm confirms high cpu usage) means something is wrong in my opinion. Unless of course mac normally behaves in such a strange way.

i guess he is using 3000

I don't know what he's using.

simply thought 6000 cycles could use 60%

Surely not. It just means that in a timeslice dosbox will run twice as
many instructions.

means something is wrong in my opinion

If 30% app load causes laptop warming, something is wrong in either the
load display or in the system setup in general. Surely not related to dosbox.

I don't know what he's using.

Yes, the default 3000 setting. All the defaults, actually, since I don't yet know much about DOSBox.

Oh well. Thanks anyway, everyone.

Maybe somebody else with similar system specs can check if the build behaves strange in general.

DOSBox heats up my PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz (running Mac OS X 10.5.7) as hell... with the standard settings. If you want I can change the .conf file to use other settings and post a report on that too here. I also think it uses lots of CPU...

CommanderKeen wrote:

DOSBox heats up my PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz (running Mac OS X 10.5.7) as hell... with the standard settings. If you want I can change the .conf file to use other settings and post a report on that too here. I also think it uses lots of CPU...

Thanks for looking into it.

Yeah, I should have experimented more. The CPU usage has nothing to do with the game I was playing. Immediately after launch, when it is sitting at the command prompt, DOSBox uses about 27% of the CPU. I was just wondering if that was normal and I guess it is.

Try different outputs.

Who compiled the build of DOSBox you are using?

Yeah definitely try different rendering outputs, it might be kicking your video chipset into high gear or something.

This heating happens on my Mac with DOSBox 0.72, 0.73 and my own build without changes of 0.72 and 0.73. I always thought it was normal to use so much CPU ? It's an emulator so why wouldn't it ?

With default settings, at the prompt, it eats 32% of one core on a 2Ghz Core Duo MacBook Pro.

MacBooks don't go warm easily, they go freaking hot in a whim. It's the "expected behaviour". In this case, the heat comes mostly from the CPU, not the GPU (they're each at one side of the case so you can tell who's working with your palm).

I'll try with other output methods.

Edit:
Surface, OpenGL, OpenGLnb: ~34%
Overlay:~38%

The output method is unrelated to the speed issue.

I experienced something similiar on Linux awhile back:

Topic 12117

If you can find older builds of DOSBox for OSX and try those to troubleshoot.

On Windows you can switch out sdl.dll not sure if that applies to OSX? (Obviously not the .dll but OSX equivalent)

Nope, it's one big unix binary. 14.3 MB...

0.72 is as gluttonous as 0.73.

Edit: same thing with 0.70.

I only tried all output options with 0.73.