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Okay, so I downloaded this DOSbox thing which:

a) won't go full-screen

and

B) runs Constructor (the only game I want to play in the WHOLE WORLD) unplayably slowly

So then I downloaded this other thing to boot up from a floppy, but when I tried booting up from the floppy it said "invalid directory" and went to A:\

Any ideas? All I want to do is play Constructor!

[wendymaree]

Could you please give us more info about your system? What OS do you use...what processor do you have? Dosbox doesn't work properly with Win98 and you need a very powerful processor to run it...around a 2 ghz.

[Kizzikat]

I use Win98 and Dosbox works fine for me.

[wendymaree]

If you're using win98, why would you need dosbox? I have win98, too, and every game works fine there. Anyway, I'm no dosbox expert. I was just going by what other members have said about dosbox not working well with 98.

I've just installed dosbox in a xp system, and I'm not loving it there, either. Like you, Callum, I'm looking at a postage-stamp sized screen, whereas if I was using Win98, I'd have a full-sized screen. I can't understand why anyone would use dosbox if they didn't have to.

[wendymaree]

Wa hoo! I've just read Anubis' FAQ on dosbox and the way to get the game full screen is simply by pressing ALT + ENTER concurrently. To exit, change the screen mode back and press the x in the top corner. Hope that solves your problem.

EDIT:
Eagle of Fire beat me to the punch with some helpful advice. However, here is a link to the specific page for optimising performance.
Optimising

DOUBLE EDIT:
The good news is that Alt + Enter resulted in a frozen screen on my system...which is probably what happened to you, Callum.

[Eagle of Fire]

Originally posted by From README.TXT of the DOSBox folder
================
5. Special Keys:
================

ALT-ENTER* * Go full screen and back.
CTRL-F1* * * Start the keymapper.
CTRL-F4* * * Swap mounted disk-image. Update directory cache for all drives!
CTRL-F5* * * Save a screenshot.(png)
CTRL-F6* * * Start/Stop recording sound output to a wave file.
CTRL-ALT-F7* Start/Stop recording of OPL commands.
CTRL-ALT-F8* Start/Stop the recording of raw MIDI commands.
CTRL-F7* * * Decrease frameskip.
CTRL-F8* * * Increase frameskip.
CTRL-F9* * * Kill dosbox.
CTRL-F10* * * Capture/Release the mouse.
CTRL-F11* * * Slow down emulation (Decrease DOSBox Cycles).
CTRL-F12* * * Speed up emulation (Increase DOSBox Cycles).

These are the default keybindings. They can be changed in the keymapper.

Saved/recorded files can be found in current_directory/capture
(can be changed in the configfile).
The directory has to exist prior to starting DOSBox else nothing
gets saved/recorded !


NOTE: Once you increase your DOSBox cycles beyond your computer's maximum
capacity, it will produce the same effect as slowing down the emulation.
This maximum will vary from computer to computer, there is no standard.

Newbie Guide to DOSBox

Why we use DOSBox in XP is simple: we don't have a choice. However there is no need to use DOSBox in Win98. Look here at the quoted guide at the end of the second post for tricks and tips on how to make Win98 work with DOS games.

A lot of users said they could not manage to use DOSBox with Win98.

[wendymaree]

I realise that XP'ers don't have any choice about using Doxbox. Why, in the name of everything logical, would I ask that about XP? I was referring to using it in Win98, of course, as it seems like overkill.

[BUFFY]

I knew what you were saying WendyMaree k:

I’ve mentioned this a couple of times... if you are using DosBox but it freezes whenever you try to switch it to full screen then try opening DosBox already maximised. To do this you need to edit the dosbox.conf file (open it with notepad etc) with the following:

Find fullscreen=false change it to fullscreen=true

I do think new people should be directed to the Easy Way to run DosBox, the other text guide is quite thorough, more then you’d need in the beginning. But that’s just my opinion :bye:

[Sebatianos]

This might sound crazy, but doesn't Win98 have the option of starting in real DOS (like 95 had)?
You just had to press F8 at the startup and you got a choice to start normaly, safe mode, or command promp (that's DOS). You just had to configure the mouse and sound drivers (wasn't hard). I only had Win98 for 3 weeks, so I don't remember it much, but I know Win 95 had this options.

[Eagle of Fire]

No, it's not a "real" DOS. Real DOS would be DOS 7.1 or something like that.

The "DOS" of Windows is called the "command prompt"...