I wrote:

> The default mandelbrot took 10.4 seconds at 1280x1024. Under Windows 8.1 and DOSBox, the same fractal was 40 seconds.

Yikes! I spoke way too soon. In the dosbox-SVN-Daum.conf file I changed "cycles=auto" to "cycles=max" and now the default Mandelbrot at 1280x1024 executes in 4.4 seconds, faster than under naked MSDOS on the same machine. I'd be curious if others get the same result. Not sure how DOSBox can be faster than DOS, but apparently it is, and by a large margin.

Also, at the bottom of the *.conf file I have the following lines (which assume c:\fractint is where the fractint distribution is, alter to suit):

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
# You can put your MOUNT lines here.
mount c c:\fractint
c:
fractint



On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 2:48 PM, Timothy Wegner <tim@tswegner.net> wrote:
Turns out it is ridiculously easy to run Fractint under pure DOS if your PC hardware lets you. I'm sure  I knew this before but rediscovered it just now. It took me a whole 10 minutes to create an MSDOS-booting USB stick and run Fractint. The idea is to support the benchamarking effort.

1. Get yourself a spare USB stick.
2. Download Rufus (https://rufus.akeo.ie/). Does not need installation, just run, and turn your USB stick into a bootable drive. I installed MSDOS rather than Freedos
3. Copy Fractint distribution to usb stick.
4. Boot the stick. I did this by pressing <del> to get to my bios setup, and found special booting options under the "Save" menu on my AMD Bios. Your mileage will vary depending on your Bios. And how well it works will depend on VESA support of your video board.

Vesainfo said my video had a 1600x1200x8 mode, but it didn't work. The 1280x1024 mode did. The default mandelbrot took 10.4 seconds at 1280x1024. Under Windows 8.1 and DOSBox, the same fractal was 40 seconds. It's been a while since I installed DOSBox, and I'm not sure if it is set to run as fast as possible.

Now to try the same thing on Iterated Dynamics and Manpwin on the same machine. After the holidays.

Much more could be done. I'm sure it is possible to add more VESA video modes via software and to create a fractint.cfg.