RPG Gaming on a Surface Tablet - Dosbox, etc.

So I'm thinking of getting a MS Surface tablet. I have a lot of problems with my wristsdue to excessive games over the years, and I am hopeful that the pen/touchscreen interface could be good for that. i also think it could be fun to bring on trips, etc. I wouldn't be trying to run intense action games, but rather classic or even recent turnbased rpgs, strategy games, etc. Curious if any of my fellow Watchers have tried this. One concern i have heard is that the resolution difference in the tablet vs. the original game can cause problems, both with games running too small and with the touchpen not registering the right location on the screen. Does anyone have experience with this? Thanks!

I play on a Shield tablet. I can stream pretty much any PC game to it and it's a lot of fun to play emulators and stuff with the touchscreen controls. For the stylus to work with the game, though, the game has to be an Android version of the game or you will be using an on-screen controller. There is no magic way to make all PC games work with a touch interface. However, if you take your time and tweak some stuff, you should be able to play pretty much any game on it.

I love mine and would recommend it to anyone. I have an endless amount of great RPGs to play on it with the comforts of mobility.

Dosbox has a lot of customization options. I was running Ultima 7 flawlessly on my Note 2 phone with stylus, after some tweaking. On the Surface with an Intel HD 4000+ ? You could technically play D:0S EE on that. I don't think you'll have a problem playing any classics.

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like you are saying that it can be done with some tweaking (which makes me somewhat nervous). Couple questions:

1. How much more tweaking is necessary with a Win 10 tablet vs. Win 10 laptop? Wondering if I should just get a small laptop. If you would recommend that instead, please let me know. Again, main motivations are a gaming device for occasional travel and possibly the pen interface to decrease wrist strain.

2. Don't understand Fluent's point about the touchscreen. Shouldn't the pen work just like a mouse for anything you can do with a mouse in a game? Why would it need to be an Android version. For example, could I play a more recent game like Antharion on the tablet pretty much plug n play, with the pen and no tweaking?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Originally Posted by Jaguar
Thanks for the replies. Sounds like you are saying that it can be done with some tweaking (which makes me somewhat nervous). Couple questions:

1. How much more tweaking is necessary with a Win 10 tablet vs. Win 10 laptop? Wondering if I should just get a small laptop. If you would recommend that instead, please let me know. Again, main motivations are a gaming device for occasional travel and possibly the pen interface to decrease wrist strain.

2. Don't understand Fluent's point about the touchscreen. Shouldn't the pen work just like a mouse for anything you can do with a mouse in a game? Why would it need to be an Android version. For example, could I play a more recent game like Antharion on the tablet pretty much plug n play, with the pen and no tweaking?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

I'd like point # 2 cleared up for me as well. I was under the impression that unless you are playing a touch-screen port of the game (Android port or what have you), then the game is not going to natively accept touchscreen input.

I'm not actually sure how you would play Antharion on a tablet. I have 2 tablet devices - an Nvidia Shield Tablet and an Nvidia Shield Portable. On the Portable, it is possible to stream a game like Antharion directly to the device (with the PC doing the hard work of running the game), and then mapping the controller to various functions in-game. So, you could essentially map the mouse to the right analog stick and the left mouse button to the right trigger, for example. I have had great success doing this using a 3rd-party mapping software called Pinnacle Game Profiler (you can also use Gamepadder (or is it called XPadder?)).

On the tablet side of things, I'm not quite sure how that would function. I haven't tried streaming a mouse and keyboard game to my tablet yet, but i think i will try it soon and respond back after some testing.

Anyone else have any input on this sort of thing? The Nvidia tablets use Nvidia Gamestream which allows a desktop PC to run the game while streaming it to the tablet, so I'm guessing there is some functionality built-in there.

The great part about Gamestream is you could essentially stream ANY game that your desktop PC is able to play. So, that includes D:OS:EE, Skyrim, Witcher 3 - any of them. OF course, this feature is limited to your home network, I believe. But if you like to casually game in various places in your house (or backyard, for example) that have access to your local network, you can play anything.

I like to stream games to my devices and relax in my microfiber recliner. I hardly ever used it before but now it gets a lot of use for this purpose.

A windows laptop/tablet with a standard Wacom stylus just treats it as a mouse, in general use. It would be a bit weird for some games (where you look around with a mouse, for instance), but for RTS and some RPGs that just require clicking and dragging, it would probably work OK.

I must be missing something. I just loaded Antharion on my tablet via Nvidia Gamestream and it is not very playable. The stylus/touchscreen aspects move the mouse around the screen, but it is a bit slow and awkward. It's certainly not fully touchscreen at all. Perhaps there is some other way to do it but I'm not sure what you're trying to do can actually be done.

Android versions are great because they translate to a touchscreen. There are plenty of interesting titles there as well as emulators you can try that also have on-screen touch controls.

But what if you don't stream, but instead try to run say, Antharion, natively on a tablet? Certainly the surface tablet line would presumably be powerful enough to run it and many other games? But like I said, I get the sense there is some issue with the native resolution on the tablet being different from that in the game, and then where you "click" isn't where the game perceives you to be clicking. I can buy a Surface now and apparently return it (opened, with stuff installed) to Best Buy by Jan 15 for a full refund, but that seems like a lot of hassle. I just hoped someone else, like a frequent traveller, had tried this for games. I wonder what CRPGAddict uses?

I have never been a fan of touchscreen laptops, so I haven't done any gaming on them and always choose non-touch.

Important thing to note is that the Surface isn't *really* a 'tablet', anymore than the iPad with keyboard is a laptop. MS Surface is really a laptop with detachable keyboard option. I have had one for work, and if you treat it that way it is excellent - but still WAY overpriced.

Honestly you're better off with the Dell XPS 13 - thinner, incredible screen, light and more powerful for the same price.

As txa pointed out, it's very important to note the difference between Surface (Pro 3 or 4 I assume) and normal tablets. Surface runs a full version of Windows 10, with a fairly powerful CPU in the mid-to-high end Pro 4 models, capable of running even modern games on medium settings (remember to reduce the resolution, as the native resolution is extremely high).

As such, it doesn't really do a lot of the usual "tablet adjustments" - when you run a game, you run a game, as you would on a laptop, not a tablet. Running tablet stuff on it is often awkward as a result.

That being said, they are powerful enough to run pretty much every title you'll find on GOG except The Witcher 3, and as such can replace laptops for gaming, but I believe it would be quite tedious to do so with only the touch screen. I'd say there's a good chance you'd end up with a mouse + the Surface keyboard in most cases.

All that being said: I have a friend who also has wrist problems due to gaming, and he solved it by getting a Steam controller for his desktop PC. According to him, it works out very well, and he can play pretty much anything, including RPGs and strategy games. It's worth considering.

Thanks, these thoughts are very helpful. Since I already have an older laptop that can probably run a lot of things and don't travel much anyway, I think I'll just try the Steam Controller. Also, Maylander for your friend with hurt wrists, I recently found that it seems to be helping if I sit on an exercise ball instead of a desk chair when pc gaming. I've had my problems for about 12 years - started with Jagged Alliance 2 - so many clicks for inventory management! I wish I had taken a break from gaming then - he should do so if his problems continue, because I am going to have mine for the rest of my life. I can't operate something as simple as a TV remote without pain unless I am wearing splints when I use it. I took a year off from gaming, had surgery etc and they got no better, unfortunately. Anyway, I really appreciate all the responses.

Anytime!

And yes, he's had these problems for several years now, about five I think, so he's got a massive back log of games now that he can finally play them on his PC. At least he won't run out of good entertainment anytime soon!

At any rate, good luck, I hope it works out well for you. It's a shame if such a problem should prevent you from experiencing good games.

Another important thing - NONE of the MS Surface laptops have discrete GPU. None. Not even the $2000+ i7 model. It doesn't even have IRIS Pro - just standard IRIS.

Again, the Surface Pro is quite nice … but for me it meets no real needs. Not as slim as a Dell XPS 13, not remotely as powerful as my Alienware 13, too damn expensive, and pretty much mediocre as a tablet.

Originally Posted by Caddy
Dosbox has a lot of customization options. I was running Ultima 7 flawlessly on my Note 2 phone with stylus, after some tweaking.

Any chance you can provide a little "how-to-for-dummies" on how to configure DOSBOX on tablets? Would LOVE to have mobile Master of Magic with a touchscreen interface.

Originally Posted by Fluent
Any chance you can provide a little "how-to-for-dummies" on how to configure DOSBOX on tablets? Would LOVE to have mobile Master of Magic with a touchscreen interface.

The Note 2 phone was a bit of a unique phone, as the stylus was wacom-like, and had an active stylus with button. So you could configure a left and right click on the same stylus with a bunch of mouse option tweaking in DOSBOX, so I can't say using a standard touch stylus/touch would be nearly as good. However, it's infinitely better to just get a USB-OTG cable for your tablet/phone, and use a mouse. I can't remember Master of Magic much, but from what I can remember, Master of Orion was very left-click oriented, so that was not a huge ordeal to get working on a touch interface. I can post some tweaking stuff if you like when I get a moment. First off I would recommend spending the money and getting Doxbox Turbo, along with the manager addon instead of aDoxBox. Performs better, more tweaks, and the manager is a great front end (relatively for Android at least).

EDIT: To clarify how it works for tablets instead of a mouse, in DosBox you have the options to reconfigure gestures for clicks so you can configure single tap, double tap, two finger, or long press for left or right click. You can also set it up for stylus/mouse or touchscreen optimized. But it doesn't always work that easy because some mechanics require a mouse hold, or a mouse hold while moving the cursor, or a long click to as opposed to a quick click, etc, which becomes the difficult part of tweaking the game.

Originally Posted by txa1265
Another important thing - NONE of the MS Surface laptops have discrete GPU. None. Not even the $2000+ i7 model. It doesn't even have IRIS Pro - just standard IRIS.

Again, the Surface Pro is quite nice … but for me it meets no real needs. Not as slim as a Dell XPS 13, not remotely as powerful as my Alienware 13, too damn expensive, and pretty much mediocre as a tablet.

Are you confusing it with the Surface Book, perhaps? The Pro is obviously slimmer than any laptop, 8mm (Pro 4) vs 15mm (XPS 13) in this case. It's half the size, and 2/3rds of the weight.

And you are underestimating the latest gen i7, as it rivals a 920m and can thus run most games people around here are interested in playing, bar The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4. It has no problem with pretty much the entire GOG catalogue.

That being said, the pricing is hilarious. A higher end Surface Book is a much better deal than higher end Surface Pro 4s right now, as it does in fact have a proper GPU, but the Book version isn't available in Europe until spring/summer, so it's not an option over here. For anyone who wants touch screen and decent performance, the Surface Pro 4 basically has a monopoly over here.

Yeah, I always factor in the height and weight of the keyboard, since it is a joke to not have it together.

Oh - and I totally appreciate what the newer series of Intel HD graphics series coupled with more recent i series processors can do … heck, my 2014 Macbook Air runs an amazing amount of games and looks great doing it. (and for the price of the bottom-end Surface Pro 4 as well!)

But make no mistake, in terms of graphics the Surface series is NOT remotely a gaming machine. You can get a high end Alienware laptop with 16GB of RAM and a 17" screen for less than the i7 variant … and also it is worth noting that in terms of graphics the Nvidia 'custom GPU' underperforms a relatively mid-ground for non-gaming laptops 860M.

Ultimately it is all about the price … and the Surface series is priced high enough to make Apple's stuff look like a complete bargain. Not saying that is a bad thing - it is nice to see someone else actually make profits as well, and hopefully the boutique and design-centric approach will spread and help Sony regain some life.

Originally Posted by txa1265
But make no mistake, in terms of graphics the Surface series is NOT remotely a gaming machine. You can get a high end Alienware laptop with 16GB of RAM and a 17" screen for less than the i7 variant … and also it is worth noting that in terms of graphics the Nvidia 'custom GPU' underperforms a relatively mid-ground for non-gaming laptops 860M.

The higher end Pro 4's also have 16 GB (and a similar i7 and 256GB or 512GB SSD), but in a package that weighs 20% or something of that Alienware. I used to travel with an 18" Asus RoG back in the days, and that's a no go. The sheer weight and size is simply too much, and it's just not something you can whip out aboard a plane, train or bus (not only does it weigh too much; it'll run dry after 90 minutes). Even the Pro 4 won't last more than 5 or so hours of gaming, but at least its consumption is low enough for me to keep it alive with an external battery pack if need be. That won't work at all with gaming laptops; they need to be plugged in or they'll dry up.

My old RoG laptop served me well as a traveling desktop replacement, when I do more long term traveling (staying in one place for months due to work, for example), but it's too much hassle on shorter trips or vacations.

Originally Posted by txa1265
Ultimately it is all about the price … and the Surface series is priced high enough to make Apple's stuff look like a complete bargain. Not saying that is a bad thing - it is nice to see someone else actually make profits as well, and hopefully the boutique and design-centric approach will spread and help Sony regain some life.

I guess it's priced differently in the US then. Over here, the iPad Pro and Surface Pro have similar prices, as do Surface Book (when that eventually arrives) and various Macbooks of similar performance.

Then again, I've always felt the Apple products were hilariously priced too, so that doesn't make the Microsoft prices better. It just means they're just as bad as Apple.