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And now, to answer some anticipated questions:

>What else is included?
While I did my best to trim down Windows to be lean and performant, I also wanted to maximize what the kids nowadays call "soul". As such, I installed both the Windows 95 and 98 Plus! packs, and added all officially-released wallpapers, themes, screensavers, and sounds included in every version of Windows from 3.0 all the way to 2000 and ME, as well as After Dark for extra screensavers, so you can customize the installation to your heart's content. You'll also notice I included the Deluxe version of Encarta 98, which requires no CD to work, as well as 3D Movie Maker with expansion packs installed.

>There's no system sounds and the UI looks ugly and spartan. How do I enable sounds and make Windows look better?
Again, my focus was on performance, so I disabled sounds and some visual effects to make the OS run a bit better. You can enable some of the effects by going into the Plus! tab in Display settings, as well as in the Explorer settings. And if you want it to look even better and add more Explorer features, simply launch 98lite from the Start menu, and choose one of the options that installs the Windows 98 Explorer shell. It will come with a hit to performance, but everything will look and feel nicer if you have the hardware for it. And if you want system sounds, simply go to the Sound settings and choose a theme. Try the Windows 2000 one!

>Mouse movement feels laggy and choppy. What can I do to improve this?
On PCem, pretty much nothing. It's as good as it can get. On 86Box, however, you have some options. First, go into the Machine settings and change CPU frame size to Smaller frames, which will improve frame pacing, though this will impact performance somewhat. Also, if your monitor is capable of 120Hz, 86Box should recognize it and allow you to choose 120Hz in the Advanced Display settings. Doing this will make the mouse feel almost as responsive as on your host machine.

>>12051419
>>12051421
Thank you for taking the time to do this, I’m gonna tuck away this link and save it for a day I have time to set all of this up.

Much appreciated anon

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>Why such a slow processor speed?
PCem and 86Box are full-blown PC hardware emulators. They don't virtualize ANYTHING, and with the exception of the GPU, they do not multi-thread either. PCem is faster, but that is largely because it is older, less accurate, and emulates less stuff than 86Box does. Past the 100 MHz line, slowdowns are all but guaranteed on slower CPUs. However, should you have a higher-end rig, you should be able to use a higher-clocked CPU without issues. Just go into the machine settings and increase the clock speed or change to a better CPU. This machine config can handle all the way up to a 500 MHz K6-III+, but you WILL need the very best CPUs on the market for that.

>Why a Banshee and not a Voodoo 3?
Ultimately it came down to the fact that, unless you can emulate a 300+ MHz CPU, a Voodoo 3 is overkill and would just put extra burden on the emulation. Also, though I've not tested this much, the Banshee may have slightly better DOS compatibility. Speaking of which...

>Is this pack DOS-compatible?
While the focus of this pack is not on DOS, I still made sure the DOS environment is fully working with Sound Blaster, MIDI, mouse, and CD-ROM support. You can even choose between XMS, EMS, and conventional memory-only configs thanks to based Phil's DOS Startup menu. To use it, just double-click on Restart in MS-DOS mode on the desktop.

>What's this DOS Expansion Pack icon?
While I just said the focus is not on DOS, I still thought, hell, why not provide some cool DOS stuff to go with it later on? So, I'm currently working on a separate pre-configured hard drive image with classic DOS games that you can simply drop into this pack. To use it, you'll simply double-click on DOS Expansion Pack, which will take you to a LaunchBox for DOS menu with a list of games that you can easily launch AND configure. This pack is still under construction, so look forward to it! And while I haven't tested it, it may even work under DOSBox should you prefer to use that.

>>12051419
>If you have a really good PC, definitely try out 86Box first
What is your definition of good pc within the context of this pack?

>>12051419
thanks, im looking forward to getting pegged!

How do you run 1024x768 fullscreen resolution avoiding the blurryness in a full HD monitor?

very nice, downloading now

>>12051419
what a cool collection, Hover and Monster Truck madness are classics. I think full tilt became the pinball game in win XP. I was playing Jazz Jackrabbit 2 the other day and I was shocked how fun it was, its a lot better than the first one, I set the rez to the 384x300 to feel low rez but also work well in widescreen. I've just tried pc em before so 86 box might be better from what I've read. I had to use dosbox to move files into a hdd img file to use on pc em since dosbox can read native folders. If you want a cool game you should try Viper Racing.

I do have a win 98 install on my p4 that I ripped my cd's to, hard sentinel says it has 10% drive health, oof.

>>12051419
Nice work anon, now do a Win XP era pack next.

>>12052182
>I had to use dosbox to move files into a hdd img file to use on pc em since dosbox can read native folders.
86box lets you mount folders on your computer as CD's for the virtual machine, even if they are much larger than a CD. I keep a floppy disk image with the DOS CD-ROM extensions and drivers, and use that feature to transfer over all other drivers and software.

>>12051419
Thanks. Don't care about most of the games but using this to compare the performance to my own 86box/PCem Win95 setups, because I wasn't happy with them. The mouse behaviour is so strange in both of the emulators - really apparent with WinQuake for example.
Now I have a reference point, let's see.

>>12051612
I'd say definitely better than my own lol I'm currently running a non-OC'd 7th-gen Core i5 desktop, and it struggles a bit with 86Box, getting occasional slowdowns here and there at 100 MHz. I'd say at least a 9th or 10th-gen Intel Core i5 and its AMD equivalent can hack it better.
>>12051812
I ran out of post space so I didn't mention it, but I included a couple of interpolation shaders within the PCem folder that may help with this. They won't make it look razor sharp, but the blurriness will be mitigated. You can also enable integer scaling in full screen, though obviously you'll end up with letterboxing.
>>12052357
A small note on that: they recently made it so that you need to use a DVD drive to mount folders larger than 700 MB IIRC. It still works with a CD drive as I have it, you just can't mount folders that are enormous.
>>12052372
One other thing I did is add the ps2rate program, which increases the mouse polling rate to 200Hz up from the Windows 98 default of 40Hz. However, it doesn't do anything on PCem, only 86Box, so the mouse will likely feel smoother on the latter even before taking the steps outlined in my post above. Again, not a lot can be done with PCem to make it feel better, but 86Box feels very good at least on my end, provided it's running at full speed.

Hi anon, thanks for all the work. I'm sorry for being the retard on the thread but:
Is this an app that I run and turns my PC into nostalgia machine until closing time or do I have to install the OS and that's the only OS in the system? If the latter is true, can I use Virtual Machines to make it run, if you could rec a VM as well I also appreciate it. Thanks for the spoonfeeding.

>>12052592
Everything is already set up and ready to go. You just run the program and it boots straight into Windows 98 in its own window, which you can then fullscreen so it feels closer to using an actual retro machine. You can also use it to create your own machine with another OS if you so wish, but you're on your own there!

>>12051419
Your half life didn’t have music if I remember correctly so I didn’t trust the rest

>>12052635
Might you be thinking of another pack? I never installed Half-Life on mine, as its beyond the scope of this project.

>>12052626
Damm dude thanks, I hope you have a great day anon

>>12052187
If ever I do such a thing, I'd have to experiment. Windows XP is not feasible in the slightest on either of these emulators, so it'd have to be on a VM. I'd have to research which VM solution works best for XP-era games at this time.

>>12051419
This is really cool, gonna download it tomorrow

>>12052592
Not the crazy Godtier OP anon but a separate dude


It's ok to feel retarded. Emulation is a bit tricky at first to wrap your head around but the easiest way to think about is imagine having a retro PC in a program window.

Except instead of a "virtual machine" like in stuff like Virtualbox, the hardware is emulated, so it's way more accurate.

Aka older retro PC games run great in PCEm and 86Box as a result.

You're in good hands imo, I've seen OP lurking in threads this past year and goddamn, you are a beast among men my dude.

Thank you for this. Gonna try this on my Linux PC in a week or two.

>>12051419
Thank you for your work.

>>12051419
This is awesome, thank you anon. These games are so nostalgic it almost hurts, lots of fond memories of being up late on the family PC playing these.

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So here's the DOS pack as it currently stands. As I said before, it's currently a WIP, and I'm in the process of testing the games to make sure they work correctly on this machine. DOS games can be finicky regarding things like CPU speed, IRQs, and other crap related to your hardware configuration, so this will take some time. My goal is to have not just the classics everyone remembers, but as wide a variety of games as possible, with everything from simulation to strategy, adventure, platformers, FPS, and whatever else defined the DOS era.

My hunch is, once finished, it will mostly include games from 1992 onward, as games before that tended to be speed-sensitive, so unfortunately classics like Wing Commander are out, unless I can figure out some way to slow the machine down enough to play them correctly. Just like the Windows pack, I want this pack to Just Werk™, so the less fiddling you have to do to get a game to work, the better.

Particular attention is being paid to sound compatibility for these games. Rest assured, I am making sure all available sound options work, which in this configuration means selecting PC Speaker, Adlib, Sound Blaster/Pro/16/AWE32, or General MIDI (here powered by a SC-55-esque soundfont through FluidSynth on 86Box) will work. The big outlier here is MT-32 support, and sadly, you are forced to choose between MT-32 emulation or General MIDI support. That said, you can switch to MT-32 emulation under the machine settings easily enough if you so wish, and I can confirm it works after configuring games that support it to look for it.

As you can see from pic related, I have a 2GB image to work with, and it's only about 10% full, so if you have any suggestions, let me know! Keep in mind I'm trying to stick to games that don't required a CD or Redbook audio to minimize hassle and so they don't eat up all of the space in one fell swoop.

>>12053720
Usually people with pentiums or similar used utility to slow down the computer when playing older titles, like moslo or similar.
https://hpaa.com/moslo/moslo.asp

>>12053987
Yep, before DOSBox became fully glued-together, I used VDMSound and MoSlo to make stuff run adequately.

>>12053994
DOSBox is still subpar with timing-sensitive games to this day. You will not be able to get Wing Commander 1 running as it did back then. The speed will always be off and you'll need to constantly manually change cycle count up and down to get it somewhere even approaching accurate. Devs say there's really nothing they can do in those cases.

>>12051431
dont expect that link to work for long, if you like something you have to download it or it will disappear randomly, thats just how it is.
file hosting sites randomly go under

>>12051419
Is there any way to get Nuked-SC55 working with this?

>>12051419
>The hardware config is as follows:
>CPU: 100 MHz Pentium OR K6-2*
>Mobo: Super Socket 7 VIA FIC VA-503+
>RAM: 128 MB
>GPU: 16 MB Voodoo Banshee
>Sound: Sound Blaster AWE32
>HDD: 16 GB

Hmm, that's not quite how I remember it.
Admittedly, this was East Yuropooria, so some things weren't available, or were really expensive.
The "(fools') gold standard" for a Win98 machine was something like a Cyrix "686" (shitty pseudo-Pentium pushed to high MHz) around 233-266 MHz, with about 32 MB RAM, an 8 MB crappy video card (Voodoo Rush, S3 Savage, I think maybe some ATI Rage and nVidia TNT Vanta), and either the shitty Realtek on-board sound, or some sort of Soundblaster 16-equivalent card (no proper General MIDI support).

>>12054060
You can definitely do that with 86box, but I think OP was trying to make it as accessible as possible. You need a decently powerful CPU to emulate period-accurate Win98-era CPUs without emulation slowdown

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>>12051419
>monster truck madness
>jazz 2

thank you for this OP!
this should be saved on the internet archive really.
if someone has a link to the win95 one it would be great too.

>>12051419
this question is almost too obscure for its own the thread so I'll ask here
I heard people talking about Mordor having a unique "shared world" mechanic where different people playing on the same computer could see signs of another player, like corpses and items and such, and someone talked about using file sharing to have that effect over a network or something. did anyone ever do this? I'm not sure what it is but the idea of early LAN type games like Spaceward Ho or Mordor having a mild persistent element is very interesting to me. it's too bad Mordor seems like one of those games that's hard to get running on anything modern because I would love to tinker with it.

Nice job OP, tried out a few games that worked perfectly, unfortunatley Fuji Golf is not one of them, says it's missing the .dat file

>>12054060
I think you're getting the generations mixed up. Socket 7 motherboards did not usually have onboard sound and even when they did it wasn't realtek.

>>12051419
Fuckin A, anon delivers. Today OP wasn't a faggot

>>12054060
>>12054575
I think that specific mobo MIGHT have pins for a PC speaker, but don't quote me on that.

>>12054575
Yes, you're right, the early integrated sound chips were Crystal Semiconductor. It's weird I forgot about them, especially since my 1997 Compaq Armada 2530 has (or rather had, since it's dead now) one.

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It could be better to have all the true 16-bit games like the Microsoft Entertainment Pack and such running on a Windows 3.1 setup instead so the emulation is lower on resources.

Just get
https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

>>12054751
How about you go jump in front a speeding bus.

>>12053987
Yeah, I tried playing around with setmul, but it didn't seem to do much. Maybe I'm doing it wrong or it doesn't work with emulators yet, idk. I'll try out moslo later on.
>>12054054
Yes, I've tried it and it works. Just set it up with loopMIDI, then set the MIDI device on 86Box to System MIDI to use it. I believe PCem can use it as well. I'd actually have loved to include it instead of relying on a soundfont, but I couldn't figure out how to do so in a portable way.
>>12054223
Drat! I'll check that out when I have time. I'm thinking the file is likely present, but set to Read Only. One downside of using 86Box's Folder-as-CD feature for file transfers is it makes files Read Only, and they stay that way if you do a simple copypaste, and that sometimes fucks with files that expect to be written to. In any case, I'll look into it. Could've sworn I checked all the games, but oh well.

>>12054794
I'm just so seek about you faggots who only care about the aesthetic of playing retro games but not about actually playing them.
Those games work without hardware emulation on modern systems with better performance and much faster loading times. Anyone in the 90s would have prefered to play them like this but you will jump through a million hoops to make the experience as bad as possible just because this gets your dick hard.

>>12051419
This is amazing, thanks a lot anon

>>12051419
Ah fuck yeah Rodent's Revenge. I been trying to remember what that one was called.

>>12054794
>>12054751
Amen, reply faggot doesn't understand some people prefer 86Box and PCEm to get a better sandbox environment to learn from instead of having to hope that the WINE team doesn't change shit on them with any release.

t diehard Linux fan

I hate when WINE is thrown around as a solution. It is half assed and you know it.

>>12055480
Agreed. WINE is unreliable between major versions. I have had it screw me over for 32 bit compatibility as well.

I'm getting a 'primary slave hard disk fail' in the emulated bios when I try launching 86box odm and vdm

>>12055583
I got that as well, but I just continued the boot sequence and it worked. No idea if that's gonna cause problems later on because I'm a techlet

>>12054890
>blah,blah,blah
(you)'re so predictable~ ;3

>>12055583
>>12055589
Right, that would be because it's trying to look for the hard drive image with DOS games that I took out for this pack, and I forgot to set the BIOS to auto detect the drive rather than look for a specific one. It's a mistake, but a very minor one, and it won't cause problems. If you want that message to disappear, just go into the BIOS settings and set primary slave to AUTO.

>>12054751
my problem with that kind of wrapper is how it doesn't handle the issue that a lot of the old games resort to full screen or even directly taking control of the display resolution.

>>12054735
Check out the Rom Depot Win3.1 PCem pack. I made that before PCem stopped getting development, it has most Win3.1 games that work without needing a CD in the drive, including all the Microsoft Entertainment Pack games, Castle of the Winds series, Exile series, and a few odds and ends like that Ace Ventura graphical adventure game based off the cartoon.

>>12055806
There's been talk of a new version of PCem since late last year, and its current dev claims v18 is just around the corner, but it also seems like some shit got borked somewhere along the way, so who knows lol even if it does release, I'm not sure anyone really cares anymore. All it has going for it over 86box is speed.

>>12054060
These are for the virtual machine - they seem to be the most performant options.
If you are emulating some specific mobo x with cpu y it can be a lot slower than some other options but the result is same...

>>12051419
based

>>12051419
thanks OP, hope it's safe

>>12054223
So yeah, turns out Fuji Golf does need a .dat file that goes in the Windows folder, and since I was not aware of this, I didn't think to carry that over. I'm not 100% sure this will work, but what you may be able to do is create a text file in a folder you can access using 86Box's folder mounting feature, and paste the following:
https://pastebin.com/jnvRBXhp
Rename that file into fujigolf.dat, load the folder it's in in 86Box, and paste it into the Windows folder. It may work then.

bumping from the faggot spam threads

>>12051419
Right on

>>12056147
>hope it's safe
Michelangelo is back baby in full force!

Give it to me straight. Am I downloading some sort of crypto miner/dolphin porn generator?

>>12056828
No. Just scan the file if you're paranoid.

>>12051419
Nice, thanks bro

>>12051419
Cool stuff. Thanks anon.

Thanks a lot anon, this is really cool I appreciate you