Fining Out Old Specs For Pc Games.

[Miknal]

I have no idea about pc specs and games, so when a mate asked what the latest championship manager game the pandora would be able to play was, I had no idea.

I know the Pandora won't be great for pc emulation (333mhz max wasn't it?) but figuring out this question is difficult, mostly because it's hard to find specs on old pc games.

So is there anywhere on the internet that has these specs?

Also, to anyone who says just play it on your computer, lets say I want it to be a handheld. And to anyone who says just buy an eeepc, lets say there isn't the budget to buy both a pandora and an eeepc, and the pandora won. Go pandora.

Also, I apologise for the n00b spelling error in the title. My bad, but I can't change it....

 

[Mithrildor]

Well you are missing one thing:

Specs of PC games only matter if the source of that game is released. Or if it can be emulated (almost all DOS games can, only some who require specific 3D cards can't be played on the Pandora. (if both not: Not playable)

Just google around for:

"gamenamehere" reqs/requirements/specs/specificitations.


I have got one question too, will the first Fallout be playable on the Pandora?

 

[gruso]

I assume Miknal is talking about DOSBox.

Miknal, the magic figure is not 333mhz, it's 386. As in the 80386 processor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80386 . DOSBOx should handle any DOS games released up until this period, and possibly low end 486 stuff too.

According to wikipedia, the 486 was released in 1989. If you want to know if a DOS game is viable, find its wikipedia entry. If it doesn't list system requirements, look at the release date. Anything up to '89 is a pretty solid chance. A year or so later than that, it might be worth a shot. But further into the 90s is probably a waste of time.

 

[Butterman]

Yeah. The first Fallout will easily run on the Pandora, I remember running it via DOSBox on the PSP.

Miknal: Almost every recent PC game wont work on the Pandora. They're compiled to a different architecture, than the Pandora. It would be similar to trying to run a PC game on a MAC. We can run most pre Window 95 games via DOSBox, which emulates the environment of DOS (disk-operating system). This is only possible because DOS is so damn old now.

If we can get hold of the source code (which most developers will be reluctant to release) we can re-compile the program for the Pandora. Even in a hypothetical situation, that we could run every game on the Pandora, regardless of binary architecture, the Pandora wouldn't be able to handle Championship Manager 08.

 

[multiplex]

For DOS games, find out how many cycles you need to run it smoothly in DOSBox.
IIRC, they have it running at a bit over 2000 cycles on the Pandora right now. I expect the number will improve somewhat with various optimizations, but that's what's guaranteed.

Here's an interesting thread regarding DOSBox on Nokia tablets. I'm pretty sure that anything they can run, we can run.

 

[mali]

Just check the WWW which game runs at 2000 cycles. Nothing easier than that. Something to consider: DosBOX is unoptimized right now. More than 2000 cyles might be possible by using NEON, eventually. Or the DSP, perhaps.

 

[Butterman]

Anything up to '89 is a pretty solid chance. A year or so later than that, it might be worth a shot. But further into the 90s is probably a waste of time.

I disagree. Warcraft 2 ran fine on the Pandora and it's a a 1995 (or 96? I don't remediable that far back ) game. The first Fallout was almost playable on the PSP, it's a 1997 game.

 

[gruso]

You may well be right, but it's safe to be conservative at this stage.

2000 seems to be the highest, but nor many tests have been done to really know. The PSP uses a mips dynarec and it may be much more efficient than the ARM dynarec

Then when it exceeds our expectations, it will be all the more joyous.

 

[Miknal]

Thanks for all the replies, seriously fast for the middle of the day!

From the looks of things, a football management sim emulated on the PSX could be the better option.

I was kind of hoping the championship managers, er, different emulation needs would make a difference (frame rate doesn't matter, and there are no graphics to speak of, the entire game is just a big spreadsheet really!), but that's cool, cheers for helping a (relatively) computer illiterate guy out.

 

[White Demon]

I assume Miknal is talking about DOSBox.

Miknal, the magic figure is not 333mhz, it's 386. As in the 80386 processor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80386 . DOSBOx should handle any DOS games released up until this period, and possibly low end 486 stuff too.

According to wikipedia, the 486 was released in 1989. If you want to know if a DOS game is viable, find its wikipedia entry. If it doesn't list system requirements, look at the release date. Anything up to '89 is a pretty solid chance. A year or so later than that, it might be worth a shot. But further into the 90s is probably a waste of time.



The 486 may have been released in 1989, but they didn't become cheap enough to be in popular mainstream use until around 1993-94. So any game up until that time may work OK.

But still that's no hard and fast rule. In the end you'll have to try each game to see if it will run or not, and if so, how well.

 

[Mithrildor]

I assume Miknal is talking about DOSBox.

Miknal, the magic figure is not 333mhz, it's 386. As in the 80386 processor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80386 . DOSBOx should handle any DOS games released up until this period, and possibly low end 486 stuff too.

According to wikipedia, the 486 was released in 1989. If you want to know if a DOS game is viable, find its wikipedia entry. If it doesn't list system requirements, look at the release date. Anything up to '89 is a pretty solid chance. A year or so later than that, it might be worth a shot. But further into the 90s is probably a waste of time.



Fallout is under the 386 Mhz , but it is released in 1997. Will it run or not?

DOS
Pentium 90 MHz, 32 MB RAM, 2x CD-ROM, SVGA, SoundBlaster-compatible sound card.

 

[Butterman]

Fallout will fun fine.

 

[gruso]

The 486 may have been released in 1989, but they didn't become cheap enough to be in popular mainstream use until around 1993-94. So any game up until that time may work OK.

But still that's no hard and fast rule. In the end you'll have to try each game to see if it will run or not, and if so, how well.

Yeah, didn't really take that into account.

 

[Miknal]

So, in summery.

There isn't really a site that lists PC game specs, you just have to look through wiki and google.

Games released in dos and have compatable specs (i.e. 33 mhz and under) should work fine.

Games not released in dos need the source code to be released, before anything can be done.

Is this all correct?

 

[WizardStan]

Fallout is under the 386 Mhz , but it is released in 1997. Will it run or not?

DOS
Pentium 90 MHz, 32 MB RAM, 2x CD-ROM, SVGA, SoundBlaster-compatible sound card.

386 is not a Mhz rating. It's a class of CPU. You know, 286, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III, P4. The 386 topped out at about 33Mhz. 486s had a few speeds between 33 and 100 Mhz (I forget exact numbers).
If you want a Mhz rating*, go with 33. Anything requiring 33 Mhz and below should have no difficulty running. 66 Mhz might be pushing it. There is no way something that requires 90 Mhz will run in 2000 cycles. I'm optimistic that with some good optimization someone will get 6000+ cycles, at which point it should run ok, but until then you're stuck.

*even the Mhz rating isn't accurate. MM4:Clouds of Xeen says it only needs a 486/66, but I can't get good performance with less than 12000 cycles.

 

[Prometheus]

If they have box scans for the games you want to find out about, MobyGames is probably worth checking for the system requirements for older games, too.

 

[Etinin]

When a proper optimized version of DOSBox is made we'll have much better performance (and don't forget WC2 already works).

 

[Miknal]

If they have box scans for the games you want to find out about, MobyGames is probably worth checking for the system requirements for older games, too.



Awesome find, thank you.

I now know the most up to date championship manager game is 01/02. Thanks again.

 

[darkblu]

386 is not a Mhz rating. It's a class of CPU. You know, 286, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III, P4. The 386 topped out at about 33Mhz. 486s had a few speeds between 33 and 100 Mhz (I forget exact numbers).
If you want a Mhz rating*, go with 33. Anything requiring 33 Mhz and below should have no difficulty running. 66 Mhz might be pushing it. There is no way something that requires 90 Mhz will run in 2000 cycles. I'm optimistic that with some good optimization someone will get 6000+ cycles, at which point it should run ok, but until then you're stuck.

i remember amd 386dx40 being a pretty popular cpu back in the day.

 

[Butterman]

If they have box scans for the games you want to find out about, MobyGames is probably worth checking for the system requirements for older games, too.



Awesome find, thank you.

I now know the most up to date championship manager game is 01/02. Thanks again.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Championship_Manager_2008

*Sigh*