jeremysart Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 I have been seeking out a rig to play my favorite classic DOS games on, such as Ulitma, Kings Quest, Jazz Jackrabbit, Duke Nukem II, Wolfenstien 3D etc. I was wondering if getting a more recent computer (not old but not new, like an 02 optiplex for example) and installing a fresh copy of Windows 95 would would just fine? Or is there some significant reason I should seek out an older PC with a slower processor, older graphics card etc. ? Thank you for the help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 You might consider using a Pentium I computer, set up to dual-boot Windows 95 and MS-DOS. Windows 95's DOS mode is good enough for some games, but won't work with all of them. Get one with a genuine Sound Blaster sound card (preferably an ISA sound card), which shouldn't be too difficult to find nowadays, as well as a PCI video card (such as an S3 card with at least one megabyte of display memory). This will give you the ability to play games which used the sound card and the joystick port, and you'll be able to use a VESA BIOS extension such as Display Doctor to enable non-standard display modes. That should be enough to play just about any DOS-only game, including those which used FMV (such as Return to Zork), and you can use a slowdown utility for very old games that run too quickly on a Pentium I. The problem with machines much newer than this is that the hardware might not have any available DOS drivers, especially if it uses a PCI sound card or an integrated sound chip. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streck Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 (edited) I have been seeking out a rig to play my favorite classic DOS games on, such as Ulitma, Kings Quest, Jazz Jackrabbit, Duke Nukem II, Wolfenstien 3D etc. I was wondering if getting a more recent computer (not old but not new, like an 02 optiplex for example) and installing a fresh copy of Windows 95 would would just fine? Or is there some significant reason I should seek out an older PC with a slower processor, older graphics card etc. ? Thank you for the help! My DOS machine is an IBM Aptiva with a Pentium 166 MHz and 16 MB of RAM, running MS-DOS 6.22. Sound is a Sound Blaster 16, and video (for now) is just the integrated video on the motherboard. I have found this to be a fantastic setup for everything through about 1995. It's fast enough for all the shooters, Descent, Hexen, Duke Nukem 3D, etc., and perfectly fine for all the old RPGs, Apogee sidescrollers, LucasArts adventure games. And, in my experience, the Sound Blaster 16 is as close to a sweet spot as you'll find for pre-1995 games. There are a few games like Star Control II that are optimized for the Gravis Ultrasound (so sound quality will suffer a bit when run through an SB16), and other, older games that were designed for the original Sound Blaster (but the SB16 can usually handle those fine). For anything later than 1995, when 3D acceleration began to take off, you'd need to look at other sound/video hardware, but it seems like that's your cutoff point anyway. For DOS games, I advise against anything other than pure MS-DOS 6.22. I recall Windows 95 giving me some strange issues with those games back in the day. As for using '00s hardware... I can't imagine why there'd be a problem in combining that with MS-DOS, but then, I've never done it. I'm a stickler for period-specific stuff. Edited January 22, 2011 by Streck 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremysart Posted January 22, 2011 Author Share Posted January 22, 2011 Wow guys! Thanks for the fast and helpful replies! Just the information I was looking for! I think I found the PC I want to get :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremysart Posted January 22, 2011 Author Share Posted January 22, 2011 Descent, Hexen, Duke Nukem 3D, etc., and perfectly fine for all the old RPGs, Apogee sidescrollers, LucasArts adventure games. BTW, those are some of the greatest DOS games. I also enjoyed a lot of Sierras titles, as well as the under-rated EPIC games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wood_jl Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Wow, this thread brings back some memories. I can hardly remember all the SET BLASTER and DOS=HIGH,UMB stuff from the CONFIG.SYS file. Now I'm thinking of the days when the game would start, but fail to find my Soundblaster..... Ahhh, those were the days. At least those days are better than later ones, where you try to run Windows 95-era stuff and it sees your current DirectX as "old" and tries to install some ancient version on top of it.....like Sega Rally tried to. That was the last time I even tried to install an old game on a newer (but not new, mind you) PC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkhan Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 ideal setup: The computer you are on, with DOSBox. The glory days are great and all, but configuring and dickin off with memory settings, yeah thats not so great and all. DOSBox! GO! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Emulation isn't as good as running on the metal. Also, PC DOS 2000 ftw too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkhan Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 yeah that whole "on the metal" thing is kinda misleading considering the metal I am currently typing on is technically supposed to be compatible, but isnt... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Yeah. Modern computers, you'll probably need emulation to run older stuff. I meant more along the lines of a 386 or 486. (Ran PC DOS 2000 on a Sempron briefly, but never really did any gaming in that configuration.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotty Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 ideal setup: The computer you are on, with DOSBox. The glory days are great and all, but configuring and dickin off with memory settings, yeah thats not so great and all. DOSBox! GO! ^--- What he said 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BydoEmpire Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Not the ideal setup, but FWIW I'm running DosBox on my Mac and it's awesome. Granted, I haven't figured out to run a lot of stuff (none of the GOG.com games), but the stuff that does run works perfectly. Seems like DosBox on an actual PC would be pretty solid. Old, 90s-era PCs are dirt cheap, though, so I'd be tempted to just get one if I did want to play a lot of older PC games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremysart Posted January 23, 2011 Author Share Posted January 23, 2011 (edited) Not the ideal setup, but FWIW I'm running DosBox on my Mac and it's awesome. Granted, I haven't figured out to run a lot of stuff (none of the GOG.com games), but the stuff that does run works perfectly. Seems like DosBox on an actual PC would be pretty solid. Old, 90s-era PCs are dirt cheap, though, so I'd be tempted to just get one if I did want to play a lot of older PC games. Yeah, last year I found an HP Pavilion with Windows 95 installed on it for $10 at a thrift store.. but for reasons I don't know, I cant find any at the local thrift shops, none on Craigslist, and folk on eBay want upwards of $180 - $300 for an old PC.. I will absolutely not dick around with DOSBox. I have to have the real thing. Half of my enjoyment is opening up that big ol' box that say says IBM 3.5 on the side, then popping in that old diskette and going through the blips and bleeps in setup, configuring the sound blaster, getting happy when I get the game to work with sound and music.. Looking at that old beige colored metal box, typing on that enormous 10 lb keyboard.. it takes me back. DOSBox does not. Though I use emulators for a lot of consoles, I own physical copies of all of them. Besides, Its not just DOS 6.22 I like, I also like working with Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, and I get nostalgic satisfaction on every start up ^_^ Edited January 23, 2011 by jeremysart 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 They're getting rid of a few Pentium I era PC's at my office this year (P-120's I think) so I'll probably pick one of those up as my DOS gaming rig. I had a nice P-166 that I threw out several years ago and I've regretted it ever since. DOS Box is super nice, but there's just nothing like running on the original hardware. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seob Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 (edited) For some more 3d heavy games i would recommand a 3dfx voodoo2 12Mb. It is a 3d card only, so a normal pci videocard is needed to function as a 2d display card. Also remember altering the config.sys and autoexec.bat, time after time to get more free space in the lower 640K ram limit. Also remember using a cpu-down accelerator. First time i tried playing wolfstein3d on a 386 or 486 and hitting the move forward button, i raced in lightspeed towards a wall. For older games a Adlib card would be needed, since that was the first proper soundcard for the pc, and was the standard before the sb16. Remember having covox converters connect to my parallel port and a amplifier. A few games supported this sound setup. The game would stream the sound to the parallel port, where a covox adapter, with inside it a lot of resistors would convert the input to a analog signal that could be used to connect to a stereo system. If you had 2 parallel ports you could make the sound stereo. One parallel port would be the left channel and the other would be the right channel. I and a friend of mine spend hour after hour making our own songs with modplayer. Going to the amiga guys and ripping mod files from games so we had new samples and songs. Edited January 23, 2011 by Seob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 For older games a Adlib card would be needed, since that was the first proper soundcard for the pc, and was the standard before the sb16. Sound Blaster has a full Ad Lib onboard, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seob Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Not the first ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psquare75 Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 I should resurrect my 386 12/33 TURBO mHz box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seob Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 (edited) Ahhh the Turbo switch. Funny to see that Intel now has it baked inside their new icore cpu´s. They just reused a function that was available when 286 cpu´s came on the market. Edited January 24, 2011 by Seob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psquare75 Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 The desktop has a lock, like a keylock, on it as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I should resurrect my 386 12/33 TURBO mHz box. The desktop has a lock, like a keylock, on it as well. I've still got one of those, too: a 33MHz 386, with a real 387 math coprocessor! It still boots faster than some Vista machines I've used. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maverick Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 My DOS machine is an old IBM desktop with a 486 DX4/100mhz inside of it. It's fast enough to run MOST stuff up to about 1995 at reasonable speeds, has room for a whopping 128mb ram, and has 4 ISA slots. Add in an SB16 (or SB Pro 2.0, as I love that card - used it for years back in the day), add in a Roland Midi card to pair with my MT-32, pop in a CD-ROM, dual-boot Win95 with PC DOS 6.1 (gotta stick with the IBM!) and Windows v3.1, and it runs pretty much anything I want to throw at it. For games requiring a Pentium processor, I recently pulled an old P166 Compaq Deskpro out of the electronics recycling bin at the local dump. It was like-new, surprisingly, and still worked like a charm. I'm debating either using it, or refurbing my old 400mhz Athlon (first system I built from the ground up). I also have an old P120 Compaq laptop I was given which would work for most games as well, but the display on it is crap, and if I have to use an external monitor, I might as well have the big box and clicky keyboard.... oh yeah For me, if you haven't noticed... it's about nostalgia along with the game... not just a bastardized emulated experience. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
82-T/A Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I have been seeking out a rig to play my favorite classic DOS games on, such as Ulitma, Kings Quest, Jazz Jackrabbit, Duke Nukem II, Wolfenstien 3D etc.I was wondering if getting a more recent computer (not old but not new, like an 02 optiplex for example) and installing a fresh copy of Windows 95 would would just fine? Or is there some significant reason I should seek out an older PC with a slower processor, older graphics card etc. ?Thank you for the help! I can't really decide what's best, honestly... I personally have a Pentium 2 machine with 1 gig of ram, and DOS 5.0 on it. I picked DOS 5.0 becuase it was the most advanced, cleanest version of DOS that you could buy. DOS version 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, and 6.22 was no different with the exception that it came with a bunch of "stuff." The only real benefit to the newer versions was MEMMAKER which allowed you to optimize your memory blocks for the base memory (so that you'd have more base). Really though, all you should have installed is: CONFIG.SYS: CD-Rom drivers HIMEM.SYS (for upper memory) DOS=HIGH,UMB BUFFERS=30 FILES=30 AUTOEXEC.BAT MOUSE.COM MSCDEX.EXE (to create the drive letter) SET BLASTER=A220 T3 D1 I5 PROMPT=$p$g PATH=C:\DOS;C:\; (and whatever else) With all of that, you should have at LEAST 605k free base memory, which is absolutely MORE than any early DOS game needs to run. As long as your Sound Blaster / Sound Cards are NOT Plug & Play, then you should NOT have to load any drivers for them. I have an original Sound Blaster 16 ASP which has an on-board amp. You make use of it simply by setting that configuration line. That tells the applications that are seeking to use it, where to find it. With a PNP card (one that is jumperless) it will require you to install a bunch of drivers which will take up a lot of extra memory. I've never used DOS BOX, so it might be completely pointless here. However, I've heard that it doesn't work all that well for a few games... can't remember where I've heard that from, and I don't personally have any experience with that. I do also have a Roland Sound Canvas SCC-1. It's an 8-Bit General MIDI card that simply cannot be beat when it comes to games like Wing Commander II, or Ultima 6, etc... the sound I get from that has no equal when the alternative is simply only the Sound Blaster. I don't believe you can make use of that in DOS-BOX... (even through emulation). And of course, since my Sound Canvas is an 8-bit ISA card, I know it won't fit in anything newer than an early Pentium III. But... hey, DOS BOX is shareware / public domain... so I would start with that, and if you run into issues, THEN spend the money on a used older machine. Not the first ones. The original 8-Bit Sound Blaster (version 1.0) had an OPL-3 chip on it which did Adlib emulation in it's native mode. All future Sound Blasters came out with the OPL-3 chip as well. My first Sound Blaster was the standard one, the 8-bit Sound Blaster 2.0. I then went with a Pro which was 8-bit with 16-bit bus and in stereo, and then a Sound Blaster 16 ASP w/ the ASP chip installed. They all had that. The thing is though, it had to be configured with the SET BLASTER = A220 T3 D1 I5 (A220 referencing the address, T3... no idea, D1 was the DMA, and I5 was the interrupt request). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 There's a board that really goes in depth on this kind of stuff that you should check out. I believe it was called Vogons or something like that, it's been awhile since I've been there. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streck Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 There's a board that really goes in depth on this kind of stuff that you should check out. I believe it was called Vogons or something like that, it's been awhile since I've been there. Tempest Yep: http://vogons.zetafleet.com/index.php They're linked to from the DOSBox main page, so I guess they're the "official" DOSBox forums. They were very helpful when I was trying to work out some performance differences between the SB, SB16, and Gravis Ultrasound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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