Dos Gaming?

[c17]

Any ideas what program can be used to run old DOS based games under Windows XP SP2? i know it's a little backwards :huh: but my son would love to play the games i'm playing on his pc and he's a little young for a GP2x of his own.

Cheers

C.

 

[SatanClaus]

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net is your soultion. And if you want to play the old Lucas Arts adventures, try SCUMMVM.

 

[c17]

Cheers m8y, downloading it now, hope it works, thanx again.

 

[c17]

GREAT it works, thank you soo much, you have no idea the ear ache i shall avaiod from your responce, cheers!

 

[Angel]

there's still a dos prompt in XP, why would you need to download something else?

 

[Jarska333]

Because not everything works trough dos-prompt, far from it...

 

[Angel]

like what? The last dos game i played, X-Wing Alliance collectors CD, i ran it through windows xp, didn't even need DOS, even Duke Nukem ran fine through windows instead of the dos prompt.

Every computer i've owned from my Pentium IV i own now to my first computer packard bell 486 all had the dos prompt and they all look exactly the same, i don't usually play my older games anymore, but i just don't understand why they would be different.

 

[Rayek]

For some reason, a lot of te games do work with the 'fake DOS' that windows XP uses, like KEEN is done very well. But some games like Descent, and the non-Windows versions of Quake and Doom need the DOS emulators to run.

I haven't had much success with DOS emulation, simply because the settings are all screwy, and even if I do happen to get into Descent, the game is still very slow.

 

[Cyclops]

For some reason, a lot of te games do work with the 'fake DOS' that windows XP uses, like KEEN is done very well. But some games like Descent, and the non-Windows versions of Quake and Doom need the DOS emulators to run.

I haven't had much success with DOS emulation, simply because the settings are all screwy, and even if I do happen to get into Descent, the game is still very slow.

​

Descent becuase the sources have been released, should work it runs under linux even. As I know there are at least versions of decent currently under heavy development. Although If I remember correctly they use Decent2 source, and you can use the Descent1 one maps. I think they even swap the textures to the ones in decent2 if available.

I know there is stacks of various flavours of doom, and quake if you look around I'm sure you will find the best versions of these for you. Have a look around you will find the cream will not need emulation.

BTW I was always surprised, that someone hasn't packaged dosbox with a working front-end(I know of a few but they are so messy), console emulation is just so much more tidy.

If you need some links I'll give you some to get you started

 

[Rayek]

Yep, I know, nearly all of the games I listed are from ID's open source library, thus they probably have nice Windows versions with sleek graphics, but... The originals won't work in the bad XP version of DOS. In fact, they were the only games, oddly enough, that I could find that didn't work in XP.

 

[Fishbong]

You might also try booting Freedos

FreeDOS aims to be a complete, free, 100% MS-DOS compatible operating system (mostly achieved.) Today, FreeDOS is ideal for anyone who wants to bundle a version of DOS without having to pay a royalty for use of DOS. FreeDOS will also work on old hardware, in DOS emulators, and in embedded systems. FreeDOS is also an invaluable resource for people who would like to develop their own operating system. While there are many free operating systems out there, no other free DOS-compatible operating system exists

 

[Twimfy]

Toonstruck won't work through XP or Dos Box which makes me very sad as it's one of my favourite games.

Is it possible to dual boot win95 along side XP comfortably? If anyone has any good guides I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[Hanz™]

Toonstruck won't work through XP or Dos Box which makes me very sad as it's one of my favourite games.

Is it possible to dual boot win95 along side XP comfortably? If anyone has any good guides I'd greatly appreciate it.

​

Virtual Machine maybe, I have never done one before, but that should work.

 

[Jarska333]

Never got the sound to work on MOO, even tried that, hum, VMsound I think it's called.

 

[SatanClaus]

If you really want to play lots of old DOS games, just buy an old computer. You can get a Pentium 60 or a good 486DX for 10-20 euros. There are also some "keyboard-monitor-mouse switches" so you can switch to the old PC without changing the cables.

 

[(naw)mcx]

nothing dos works on my xp. *crys*

 

[thingley]

Windows XP mangles the sound on a lot of my old DOS games quite badly.

Things like Tomb raider and Screamer barely run at all. So it's likely that I'm gonna build a retro PC from various junk I have left over when my girlfriend upgrades the PC to write her Thesis.

Windows 98SE SHOULD coexist comfortably with XP by the way - but you must install it on the primary partition of the first hard drive AND limit the amount of RAM available to it to stop it from becoming unstable. Also make sure you get the CPU patch before trying to install win98 on a modern PC or it will crash during install (something about the processor being to fast).

I forget quite how to do this but your best bet is to remove some RAM from your system and install Win 98 then once it is installed go to system properties and restrict how much RAM it can use in it's memory settings (Less than 300Mb should be okay). Then put your RAM back in and install XP to another Partition.