Troubleshooting & FAQ

The machine is slow / a game feels sluggish

IzarraVM is early, and CPU performance is the weakest part of it today. The 486 mode at 66 MHz is borderline for demanding software, and the full GSW-586 speed mode is not yet usable for real-time games. If a game feels wrong, try:

  • A slower CPU mode. Counterintuitively, GSWMODE 486 or even GSWMODE 386 from the DOS prompt (see the command reference) can produce steadier timing than 586 for software that was tuned against a real 486-class machine and gets confused by an unexpectedly fast one. You can also set the boot-time default from the Tab boot menu or the Del setup panel.
  • Check whether the game is CPU-bound versus waiting on the emulated hardware. See the VGA core and VEGA technical reference, section 9 for where the video timing model is and isn't cycle-exact.

A game doesn't detect my sound card

Check what the game is actually probing for against the ReSonique 2 manual:

  • Digital audio / Sound Blaster: should auto-detect via the BLASTER environment variable Toka-DOS sets in AUTOEXEC.BAT. If a game insists on manual configuration, use base 220, IRQ 5, 8-bit DMA 1, 16-bit DMA 5.
  • FM music: use the AdLib or OPL2/OPL3 option at port 388 if the game offers a choice. This is fully modeled.
  • MIDI / General MIDI / wavetable: not emulated as a port-level device today. A game's MPU-401 or wavetable option will not find hardware to talk to. Pick FM/AdLib music instead, or route MIDI through the host as described in the ReSonique 2 manual.

A 3D-accelerated game doesn't detect Distira

This is expected for now. The Distira 3D chip itself is emulated to a real Voodoo Graphics-class register and memory contract (see VEGA technical reference, section 10), but no guest-side Glide driver exists yet for a game to load. Fall back to software rendering or a VESA/VGA mode if the game offers one.

Where do my files actually live?

By default, everything IzarraVM writes (the C: drive contents, cmos.bin, and izarravm.conf) lives under ~/.izarravm, not next to the executable or in your current directory. Pass --portable at launch to keep them beside the executable instead. See the IzarraVM GUI guide for the full breakdown.

My settings (keyboard layout, CPU mode) didn't stick

Only Save and Exit from the Del setup panel commits keyboard layout and CPU mode to CMOS. Discard and Exit, and pressing Esc from the main setup menu, both throw changes away on purpose. The Tab boot menu's Accept also saves the CPU mode and boot device order independently. If you only used Tab, your keyboard layout choice (which only the Del panel edits) wasn't touched either way.

Toka-DOS won't boot / COMMAND.COM is missing

Use Repair Toka-DOS from the Del setup panel. It reinstalls the Toka-DOS system files from the copy built into ROM, backing up your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT to .OLD files first rather than silently overwriting them. Anything else on your C: drive is left alone.

Where's the Distira / 3D programmer's guide?

Not written yet. The VEGA programmer's guide currently covers Margo (2D) only, and says so up front. The technical reference's Distira section is the current source of truth for what the 3D hardware answers.

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