A thread for anything and everything DOS gaming and DOS gaming related. Hardware, software, configuration, it all goes here. Real or emulated. Win3.x included as well since it requires DOS to function. Talk about what you are playing, what hardware you have, tricks you've figured out, etc.DOS Pro tip #1: Edit config.sys. On the line with HIMEM.SYS, add the /TESTMEM:OFF flag to disable the extended memory test and speed up booting. The more RAM you have, the more time you'll save. You don't really need to test your RAM every time you boot your PC.Pic related is finally getting my TCP/IP packet driver loaded high with EMS enabled. At 50KBs, it wasn't finding an upper memory block large enough to fit it with default settings. Had to tell EMM386 inside of config.sys to use the M1 flag to force the page file to C000 instead of the default. It complains about that being Option ROM/RAM area, but functions fine, I just turned off all shadow caching in BIOS. Free upper memory area went from 59KBs to about 90KBs with EMS enabled(was about 120KB with EMS disabled), and memmaker had zero issues shoving the 50KB driver in there. And MOUSE is actually CTMouse, I just renamed it so I could type less during testing.
>>12824756Useful Links:WinWorldPC - A large library of OS's and software for x86 hardware, including every revision of DOS and Windows 1.x-3.x. Also has a lot of software for both, as well as serials for just about everything available for download.>https://winworldpc.com/homePhil's Computer Lab - Some guy's blog that has a lot of downloads for drivers and useful software and tools for DOS machines.>https://www.philscomputerlab.com/Hiren's Useful DOS Files - Hiren of Hiren's Boot Disc fame has a collection of useful DOS drivers and tools on his website along with the DEVICE strings needed to make the drivers function so you don't have to dig around for a readme. Includes just about every major CD-ROM driver and various USB drivers for making USB 1.0, 1.1, and even USB 2.0 flash drives work with DOS.>https://www.hiren.info/downloads/dos-filesSimTelNet FTP Archive - XBOX Heug archive of DOS, Win3.1, WinNT, Win9x, and WinXP files, programs, freeware, shareware, and stuff you just can't find anywhere else. Also has a lot of junk from the era, so you'll have to dig to find anything good. Check the index.txt files for descriptions of what the files are.>https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/archive/ftp.sunet.se/pub/simtelnet/Total DOS Collection - Useful for 86Box, PCem, and real hardware. They try to get every single revision and patch and expansion that exists. The most recent set on the Internet Archive is uploaded by GGG in parts. Not sure of the exact version he uploaded, but it was put up around 2023 so it's far more recent than the version 13 or 14 that comes up on google.https://archive.org/details/@ggg_ggg894eXoDOS - Useful for DOSBox. Tries to get the final release of every game working under DOSBox flawlessly. Comes with games pre-setup with config files for DOSBox to make them run as well as possible. They have torrents on their official website.https://www.retro-exo.com/exodos.html
>>12824756I've always wondered: are there any documented benefits to dual-booting standalone MS-DOS 6.22 alongside Win9x instead of just setting up and using MS-DOS mode on the latter?
>>12824808If anything, it would be a downside if you are using the later versions of Win9x that supported FAT32 HDDs, since DOS 6.22 would keep you stuck on FAT16 and the 2GB partition limit. FAT32 gets you up to 137GBs, which is much better suited for installing a shitton of games. If you're going dual DOS/Win9x, you're usually best off using the DOS 7 that comes with Win9x. You might find a rare game that has some bizarre issue with the DOS version and won't accept what setver.exe says, but I have yet to encounter one.After reading that C000-CFFF might be VGA territory, changed M1 to M9, pushing the page file to the extreme top of the upper memory block in E000. Now have 69K free upper remaining, and a 47K block possible.
>>12824869Postmortem on that change. Went into one of DOSBENCH's test programs that actually works when himem and emm386 are loaded, and it locked up. Guess my system uses E000 to E400 for some hardware query capability. Same program worked just fine when I went back to M1. Quake test worked just fine as well, so I'm not messing up VGA any by shoving the table in C000.Oh well, 37K of upper free is still plenty for CD-ROM drivers and DOS games.DOS Pro tip #2: SBAWE32 and SBAWE64 require you to have TSRs loaded in DOS to function. SB16's and earlier only need proper IRQ/DMA assignments in BIOS, and the SET BLASTER= variable in autoexec.bat. SB16's also use a mixer configuration utility to setup the sound levels and active channels on the card after DOS boots, but it doesn't stay in RAM after it does it's job. SB16 comes with some CTxxx.SYS drivers that it might try to install, but you have zero use for those drivers unless you plan on recording samples with your SB16. So if you find yourself running low on RAM, use a SB16 or older SB card so you can skip the drivers.
>>12824921I've figured as much. The AWE cards look like they would've been a nice option back when they came out, but these days, you're probably better off with a SB16 and another MIDI option.
>>12824970Depends on what you were doing. If you were trying to do a dual Win9x/DOS setup, the AWE's were solid cards for Win9x gaming and functional for DOS. If you just wanted DOS gaming, I dunno if any DOS games took advantage of the features AWE's brought to the table. Most DOS games used 8-bit audio that was the bread and butter of SB to SBPro. Some later DOS titles like Duke Nukem 3D used 16-bit audio you needed an SB16 for, but not a ton of those.
>>12824756wish the trend of turning every topic into a "general" stopped - just make a thread about a specific thing you want to talk about>Pic related is finally getting my TCP/IP packet driver loaded high with EMS enabled.for what network card?
>>12825269D-Link DFE-530TX+ rev D2. This specific revision of the PCI ethernet adapter uses a rebranded Realtek chip with a hacked hardware ID to look like a different chip. Using any driver prior to a specific version doesn't work, since revisions prior to D used a VIA chip instead. Revisions after D used a standard Realtek chip, so drivers for those versions won't work either since they are expecting the standard Realtek hardware ID.DLKRTS is the specific version of the driver that works for the hacked Realtek chips.
1I recently had two of my 486s connected via a Cat5(crossover) cable and despite my best efforts there were lockups in windows and no exchange of information(no matter if in Dos or Win9x). It ruffled my feathers but the solution was easy - the cards were 3Com 3C905b-tx-nm pci adapters which, due to belonging to the 905b family, fail to generate interrupts on some motherboards. This was the case for both my Shuttle HOT433 based test systems. Inserting 3C900-Combo PCI-cards resolved the issue.2486 boards can be very temperamental with certain components so gather as much info about your board as you can. For example the HOT433s I have do not like certain hard drives - i.e. none of the 7 seagate drives that I have did work on any of my revision 1.3 boards. 3use fastvid to activate write combining on both the PentiumPro and successors boosting performance in VGA & SVGA modes4when using DJGPP's make utility be aware that it does not accept make files generated with Dos' "edit.com" as tabs normally get converted to(and stored as 8) spaces.5when overclocking 486 systems be aware that front side bus clock and optimal timings are king. To narrow in on top performance have as many ram modules and sram ICs handy as possible, since with later not only the latency but also the order in the sockets(+die quality) may decide if you get handed over the keys to the 486-Ferrari. 6when testing for stability in DOS environments use Blood in demo mode. Additionally let Doom run in timedemo mode as it is able to detect cache issues which other more complex software(Quake, etc.) seems not as sensitive towards. 7if you're looking for a cheap semi-substitute for ISA sound cards you may find the PCI based Terratec TT-Solo1 to be a nice trade off. Sometimes these cards can be had for around 5$.My hardware is primarily late era 486s(UMC888x or SiS49x), Pentium66s and two Pentium/PentiumII based systems.
>>12824756A juicy CRT lends +10 dopamine to the whole experience
>>12824756For a simple IPX based network in DOS load from(autoexec.bat)a) lsl.com(optimally providing "net.cfg" file)b) your cards novell packet driverc) ipxodi.com
>>12824756Some things I usually domake batch files such asd.bat with dir/w so you don't have to type dir all the timen.bat with a command to start norton commander or similar like VKe.bat for editUse the path command to point to those bat files in Autoexec.batUse the newer version of the edit utility as it is much faster on an 8088If you have a book 8088 or 386 put heatsinks on the chips or don't use it for more than 30 minutes.If you have a pentium 3 or 4 a program called slowdown can change the sleep timing to make it almost identical to a real 486 or 386. On some Dell P4's there is a compatibly mode in the bios that makes it run like a slow 486.>>12824760>>12825868Good info and stuff I didn't know>>12824869For sd cards I like fat 32, I tried copying thousands of files to a Fat 16 sd card for an 8088 and it ended up taking 30 minutes after which the card was permanently unable to be written to again. For my 386 I had a Fat 32 4 gb sd card that I can write to easily.With a bios update you can make old motherboards able to use huge hard drives.For a book 8088 you run games from the usb port with the right driver but it had to be fat 16 and a max size of 512 mb.
>>12824756Skellington Bumpx86 - the thinking man's computer
I have to read up more on config.sys and autoexec.bat for real. Any good resources?
Here's the biggest protip for DOS gaming - you create a boot menu so that your config.sys and autoexec.bat for various ones are easily selected. I used to have a tuned config for each of the games I played, a couple generic ones for games which weren't so picky, one for Windows, one for Pascal programming (I can't remember why but there was something), etc. that way when you boot you just punch a key and hit enter and it'll use your custom crafted setup and launch the game automatically.
What's the verdict on alternatives to EMM386 and HIMEM? I use HIMEMX and it's worked for everything I've tried so far.
>>12826879>>12826960>you create a boot menu so that your config.sys and autoexec.bat for various ones are easily selectedPhil has a starter pack that's pretty much thathttps://www.philscomputerlab.com/ms-dos-starter-pack.html
>>12826041I usually wipe out SMARTDRV from the autoexec.bat first thing since I have yet to encounter a situation where I actually need drive caching, and it's a real RAM hog.>>12826879Simply put, CONFIG.SYS is the startup info for getting DOS setup, and AUTOEXEC.BAT is all the stuff you want to run after DOS is ready to roll but before you get a prompt to work with. Good source is the DOS user manual, which has info on the DOS-native stuff in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Beyond that, you're best off googling up individual lines and reading up on what they do.>>12827192On emulated 286 machines I got a lot of use out of The Last Byte, which was able to get RAM above 640K and 1MB on SCAT and NEAT chipsets. Beyond that, I usually use bog standard HIMEM and EMM386 since they work, but I've been thinking about messing around with some alternatives like JEMM and QEMM. Also been thinking about trying to run DOS 7 or 8 standalone.DOS Pro tip #3: Sierra graphical adventure games failing to load audio? Their audio driver was poorly coded and will crap out if your CPU is too fast. GOSIERRA.EXE will patch and fix those games. Getting a Runtime Error 200 when trying to run programs? They're Turbo Pascal programs and they can't handle your CPU speed. TPPATCH.EXE will fix them to function properly.
>>12827221That's cool, it's very helpful. That way you don't have to screw around with having multiple configs and copying them to and fro. Which was how I used to do it and IMHO probably 99% of DOS users did it.
>>12827221I make use of this myself, the Windows 98 version to be exact. Phil is so based for simplifying things for the rest of us, shame he's gone dark over the past year.
>>12827251.ini file management in Windows was akin to managing config.sys and autoexec.bat in DOS, most normes would never even think about it but a POWER USER would have to fool with it
>>12827192emm386 was later supplanted by, 4g memory manager irrc
Found another useful DOS/Win3.1/Win9x website. The design is pure 90's style, and the information isn't laid out all that well, but there's a ton of good info and programs there, though there's also a lot of dead links so you might have to google around for what you're looking for.>https://www.mdgx.comGuy seems to know what he's talking about, he has a DOS6.22/WfW3.11 config/autoexec combo that has EMS, XMS, memory reserved for Windows, and still has 625K Conventional RAM free, along with 34K of upper RAM still free for other things. Includes CD-ROM and mouse drivers loaded high along with ANSI driver and SMARTDRV. See here:>https://www.mdgx.com/mem6.htm#M6
>>12827297vogons is the premiere site for classid dos gaming
not strictly MS-DOS, but this guide explains pretty well how to set up multiple DOS/Windows installations on a single hard drivehttps://www.goodells.net/multiboot/following it, managed to get MS-DOS 6.22, Win98SE, Win2k, WinXP and Win7 installed and working all off the same hard drive
>>12827797Wow, that guy put up a shitton of words just to say "install OS's normally, create backup image of the partition, format and install next OS, repeat until you have images for all installed OS's you want, use this tool to carefully partition out the HDD and throw the backup images on there, then use this specific boot manager to force the other partitions to be hidden from the OS's that don't use them". It's a good functional guide, but has a lot of words that mean nothing in the end.
>>12827282Both are "related" but very roughly. 4G(among many others) is a Dos extender(using the DPMI interface) and emm386(depended on himem.sys) is used to map upper memory(expanded) into the HighMemoryArea(part of the extended memory beyond 1MiB) to save space.
>>12827297Some good info - THXSite design is totally shizo.
>>12828313Site design is beyond ass, it's 90's in the worst possible way. I found some useful info and forgot how I got there, then spent 30 minutes trying to relocate the info because History said I was just on the base site, not any specific page. Still, lots of good info and programs.
>https://www.windowsupdaterestored.com/If you are using Windows 9x to Windows XP, you can get updates as long as you have IE 4.0-6.0 installed. Win95 didn't include IE 4.0 until OSR 2.5, so it will need updates prior to installing IE 4.0 if you're using 95, but 98 has 4.0 out of the box.
>>12828237you do know you can just skip paragraphs that only describe how things work/are designed if those don't interest you or you already know those things?or that, after reading and understanding the principles behind actions he's describing (ie. those "lot of words that mean nothing"), you can use different tools with the same functionality, eg. GParted and Norton Ghost?
>>12828382IIRC the Windows Quick Install project already includes every available update for both Windows 98 and ME.
>>12827310Just wish they wouldn't randomly restrict access to their driver database. Great community though. Them and the Vintage Computer Federation forums are pretty good sources of info.>>12828764Yet another link to add to the next copypasta. Too bad they don't have a way of doing the same with Windows 95.
Just finished configuring up a Win98SE install on my machine. Now I have three 4GB CF cards to pick from when starting up.>1. DOS 6.22Set my CPU cache to disabled for external and internal, set PnP Aware OS to No, set IRQ 5 and DMA 1 and 5 to ISA, set Assign IRQ to USB to No.>2. Windows for Workgroups 3.11Same as DOS 6.22.>3. Windows 98SECPU cache all on, PnP Aware OS and Assign IRQ to USB set to On, all IRQ and DMA set to PCI/PnP.For DOS and Win3.x, it runs like a 486DX2 33-66Mhz, and only sees 64MBs of RAM. For Win98SE, it runs at the full 366MHz and sees the full 256MBs. DOS has native VBE 2.0/3.0 support, Win3.x has a generic VGA/SVGA since there is no Win3.x driver for my GPU, and Win98SE has the ATI 3D Rage Pro Turbo AGP latest driver. All three have working TCP/IP internet, making transferring files over as easy as running an FTP server and telling it which directory to put the uploads, then copy+pasting from my modern machine.
>>12829719I like that they give you the option to install 98lite as well. The full lite installation with the Windows 95 shell is probably overkill in most cases, but the one that removes IE integration while keeping most of the Windows 98 shell's functionality intact except for the Active Desktop stuff.
>>12830419Meant to say *I like* the one that removes IE integration.
>>12824756This board is for clueless zoomers, unc. Nobody has the patience to watch a stream about editing autoexec.bat fr fr sheesh
86Box has been making some seriously impressive progress, for anyone who hasn't been keeping up with it. Even on the performance front it has gotten better, to the point where it's almost not even worth keeping PCem around.
>>12832028Yeah, it seems like all x86 emulation development has converged on 86box. 86Box 4.1 was released back in 2024, and it was build 5555. 6.0 released this spring, and it's at build 9001. Current build is 10090. Really like they finally condensed down all the hardware by chipset, so you aren't guessing which of a dozen video cards is the best one when 9 of them are actually the same card with a different BIOS and manufacturer name on it.
>>12832028It's getting pretty goodAlso, if anyone wants to try it out, don't use the stable build, as performance improved since the last one. Always get the latest dev build
>>12832097To add to this, use the NDR build, it's a decent bit faster than the old recompiler build in almost all cases now and quite stable for the most part, though I've had the odd crash here and there, but it's rare.
>>12829856Just did some benchmarking under Win98. As expected, the ATI 3D Rage Pro Turbo is a weak chip. Quake can run at full speed at 800x600 on pure software, but Unreal needs 400x300 or 320x240 to get over 15FPS average, with all visual effects disabled. No bloom, no reflections, low quality textures, the whole 9 yards as low as it can go. Even at 320x240, it still dipped down to around 21FPS on really taxing areas. Oddly enough, Turok 1 ran at full speed with all features on except Overlay, which caused it to black screen.Using the ATI CIF the chip supports might make Quake 3 run at a decent clip. I read somewhere Turok 1 also supports CIF, but I'm not sure if I even need it for that game. Either way, this will spend most of it's life as a DOS or Win3.x machine, it just doesn't have the juice for much Win9x gaming.
Just got a 98 SE vmware box setup. I haven’t dicked around with these old Windows since I was like 10, what are some must do’s to squeeze out performance? One you anons posted this desktop and I’m currently about halfway through acquiring and installing all these games. Could’ve get smb to work right so have to mount isos to transfer files in.
>>12833097You can disable some of the visual effects, which may speed up desktop performance. Also make sure DMA is enabled in the hard drive properties accessed through the Device Manager. There's also some virtual memory tweaks you can do that supposedly helps with performance, but I've no idea if they would do much of anything on a VM the way they potentially do on real hardware.Also, are you using SoftGPU? If not, you won't get hardware acceleration on Windows 98, though if you're mostly only installing the games on that pic, I suppose it won't much matter, as only a small handful use 3D acceleration.
>>12833135>You can disable some of the visual effects, which may speed up desktop performance. Will check these out although I kind of want it to run at max settings since I have the juice for it.Also make sure DMA is enabled in the hard drive properties accessed through the Device Manager. Will look into.>There's also some virtual memory tweaks you can do that supposedly helps with performance, but I've no idea if they would do much of anything on a VM the way they potentially do on real hardware.Yeah it runs nearly identical to real hardware since I resized the hdd on vmware but had to load gparted live as an iso and boot from it to resize the win98 partition.>Also, are you using SoftGPU? If not, you won't get hardware acceleration on Windows 98, though if you're mostly only installing the games on that pic, I suppose it won't much matter, as only a small handful use 3D acceleration.I have no clue desu I’m basically running stock using the winworld win98 vmx.
>>12833430Do let us know how well it works out for you. I use 86Box myself because I value compatibility above all (that pic is mine, btw), but the performance, while better than it's ever been, is still not good enough to make playing 3D games made after 1997 or so feasible unless you have a monster PC. Mine can barely handle a 100 MHz Pentium II, which wasn't a real variant but was introduced so that people could actually use emulated Pentium IIs.
>>12833457Running into issues with AoE and Commandos so looks like it will need lots of configuring and troubleshooting
>Combining this method with the blooming landscape of third-party patches and fixes, it opens up these classic operating systems to a vast variety of machine classes, ranging from early 486 systems to the very latest Core Ultra and Ryzen machines available on the market today (yes, really).Has anyone tested this? Does QuickInstall really let you run 98SE on modern hardware natively?
>>12833794That's neat if true. Wonder how it handles modern GPUs, though.
>>12833049Ok, the ATI CIF API is actually a surprising upgrade from the DirectX 5 Turok was using. Better framerates and no more weird graphical glitching. Too bad there is no real definitive list of games that used the CIF API. Vogons has an incomplete list that misses Quake 3 entirely, Mobygames doesn't even bother trying to list CIF games, people only really paid attention to what supported Glide. Other than Turok, Quake 3, Tomb Raider, Mechwarrior 2, and POD, there doesn't seem to be much else AAA-wise that supports CIF, or at least is commonly known.
>>12834064How many goddamn proprietary APIs were there during this time, anyway?
>>12834082S3's S3D, Matrox's MSI, PowerVR's SGL, Rendition's Speedy3D, 3dfx's Glide, Nvidia's NV1, and ATI's CIF I think covers all the hardware specific 3D API's of the era. Tomb Raider supported all of them except NV1 IIRC since the NV1 depended on quads instead of triangles much like the Saturn, and TR DOS was built around triangles for polygons.
S3 bros?!?
>>12834146can confirmI remember running games at about 0.1-15fps and having no transparency in 3D (all sprites had solid black boxes)
>>12834064Well crap, Mechwarrior 2 ATI Rage edition ran, but every time I was supposed to go into the field, it just dumped me back at the menu I was just in. Looks like I get to play "What ATI3DCIF and video driver version do I need?" since the 4.10.2640 version I used listed as working with this game and card and specific ATI video driver file, apparently doesn't.4.10.2278 and 4.10.2640? 4.10.2411 and 4.10.2690? 4.11.2611 and 4.11.2695? It's always a mystery when playing ATI driver roulette.
I just noticed 86Box has support for SCSI adapters and hard drives, and one adapter is even capable of 160 MB/s data transfer rates, which is pretty wild. Wonder if it's worth building a system around that, though I'm sure the CPU will bottleneck it hard if you don't have a good PC that can handle faster ones.
>>12833794yes, but actually no.i installed it on an old mini laptop (hp dm1-4170la). it crashed randomly and couldn't find drivers for almost anything. tried all install options and while some were more stable, i still didn't had drivers for video or audio. it was a bad experience.it would have been awesome as the performance was great.i settled for a minimal arch linux install that autoboots dosbox. i was setting up qemu with hardware acceleration but didn't get too far.
>>12835297Yeah, it sounded too good to be true lol still it's nice to know there's still active efforts to improve old Windows versions to make them better and more useful.
>>12836067well. i tried it a while ago with version 1.0.1 i believe. maybe things are better now.but thanks to the reminder, i took another look at qemu and i'm making progress.
>>12836391>qemuI've got to admit this thing utterly filters me. I've heard tales of its performance, but I take a look at how to get it running and I nope out. Guess I'm just a brainlet.
>>12833457Going to have to shamelessly ask you for your 86box 98 rom list/config if that would be possible. My 98 SE vm is running reasonably well but I’m having issues with certain games like AoE not loading in to a match (while AoE II works fine), System Shock 2 not running at all, etc. Would like to compare my vm with 86box.
>>12837550Sure, here it is. I can tell you AoE most definitely works. However, I'm going to warn you that this config is pretty much made to run on toasters like mine and is not powerful enough to run the likes of System Shock 2. You can switch to a faster processor, of course, but you better have a good CPU to handle it. I also installed Windows 98lite through the QuickInstaller project, since the regular shell from 98 SE is too bloated due to having to load IE and makes performance suffer. I've also found having the NIC present drops performance, so maybe don't have that, either.
Alternatively, you could try this config, which is the one I'm currently testing, but I've yet to install much of anything games-related on it since I'm still testing some shit out to make sure it'll pan out in the long run. My PC is just ever so slightly too slow to actually run it at full speed all the time at 133 MHz, but at 100 MHz it's much smoother. YMMV depending on your own hardware, of course.
>>12837738>>12837741Much appreciated, I’m on an i7-7700 with 32gb ddr4 so shouldn’t have too much issues the VM ran smooth IMO the only crashes were familiar Windows 98 quirks and behavior. Even dealing with frozen tasks is not a headache the only issue I had was with the vm taking over my mouse but Ctrl+Alt usually brings it back to host.
>>12837751>i7-7700Yeah, your CPU is only a tiny bit better than mine, so I expect you'll have to stick to that configuration if you decide to try it, and you're certainly going to want 98lite. 86Box is full emulation, unlike the virtualization approach of VMWare, which is why it's so much more demanding.
>>12837760Got it, didn’t know that but excited to learn now, going into VM’s like a decade too late lol
>>12830680>implyinganon please I'm still using coral m8
>>12837135it filters me too.but i'm following some guides to make it work.take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuP8OsStURQthe problem is that most of these retards hide the info on how to get the necessary files, intentionally or accidentally. i mean, the url in the video description is cut and the idiot never fixed it.thankfully, it was quite easy to find on archive https://archive.org/details/qemu-3dfx-win11-win98.7zbut i'm now trying this other instead on my main pc https://archive.org/details/qemu-3dfx-9.2.2.7z and will try the linux version https://archive.org/details/qemu-3dfx-9.2.2-linux later on the note i want to use for this.
Anyone mess around with DOS 7.1? Not the CDU release, I mean converting Win98SE over to pure DOS. Been messing with it, and it seems promising so far. It can see the entire 256MBs available instead of only 64MBs like DOS 6.22. It's supposed to have FAT32 support, but I seem to be having some odd issue getting it to see more than 2GBs of the 4GB FAT32 partition it's living on. Wasn't really concerned about the RAM upgrade, really want FAT32 so I can have twice as much storage on C: for moar games.
Heard about QEMM for years, never tried it on real hardware before. Must say, not impressed.QEMM's best effort was to give me a whopping 24KB of upper free and 573KB of conventional free, and leave my 50KB ethernet driver loaded conventional. And that was after about 30 reboot cycles since the Optimizer program kept locking up on boot. I got better results manually editing config.sys's EMM386 line. But I have to admit, QEMM wasn't a complete wash, because the Manifest(mft.exe) program it comes with is top notch for looking at your A000-FFFF range to see what upper RAM is really used and what's really free.Using it I was able to find out I left the system BIOS shadowed in upper RAM, sitting at E000-E13F. After disabling that, E000-EFFF became a free 64KB block, and I was able to switch back to using M9 to shove the page file in that chunk, freeing up 124KB of upper, and leaving 47KB of upper free after all drivers were loaded high including the 50KB ethernet driver. EMM386 still bitches on boot that that RAM is system reserved, but Manifest showed it was completely empty when shadowing is disabled for the system BIOS, and now everything from B800-BFFF and C800-DFFF is free for use instead of having the B800-BFFF and C800-CFFF regions available and everything from E140 to EFFF ignored because E000-E13F were occupied.Yes, I could just use I=E140-EFFF and get back most of the block, but having C800-DFFF all free is much better for loading large drivers than having two smaller blocks.
>>12838080ok, it works.the first link i posted is a ready to go win98 install with everything already installed. but it's good'ol clunky vanilla 98se.i'll continue experimenting tomorrow and try to do everything from scratch but using win98 quickinstall as the base. the windows me install to be precise, i like it more because of the qol it brings and i was one of the 3 people who used it without issues back in the day.
>>12838423Welp, apparently the format.com that comes with quickinstall is actually the old DOS 6.22 or Win95 format.com that only does FAT16. Finally located a version of format.com that handles FAT32 properly, now have a 4GB FAT32 DOS7.1 partition that boots. But the oddness hasn't ended yet. Now the mem.exe command I have doesn't see RAM above 64MBs, like the old DOS 6.22 mem.exe file. I'm 100% certain I have the himem and emm386 from Win98SE, but apparently not the mem. Time to dig that out of my working Win98SE install and copy it over. Don't even wanna try to tard-wrangle memmaker from 6.22 into working with 7.1, so gonna stick to manually editing the config.sys.When I'm done I'm going to make my own DOS 7.1 boot/install disk. This shit shouldn't be this much of a pain.
>>12838474Supposedly there's a wholly leaked and open source version of this that has the latest binaries and everything. It's on some github repo, though.
>>12840108Success. Have put together a bootable DOS7.1 .ima file for standard 1.44MB floppy drives that has all the needed files to create a DOS7.1 install. Includes the Win98SE version of HIMEM.SYS, EMM386.EXE, FORMAT.COM, FDISK.EXE, and MEM, so you can go with a bootable DOS FAT32 HDD partition and have a HIMEM/EMM386/MEM combo that sees RAM above 64MBs. It's a proper DOS7.1 install, running through IO.SYS, with QBASIC built into it. I'll monkey around with adding in some useful programs and drivers like CTMouse, and a batch file for easy install operations, and post it when it's finished. Only using about half the floppy disk image so far, so that leaves a lot of room for extras.Too bad the cheapest 64GB CF card with True IDE interface is $60 on ebay. An upgrade for down the line I suppose.
>>12840339Nice work, anon! I've always been curious about it myself, especially if there's any compatibility issues.
>>12840396Just took it for a test ride in 86box to see if it would work on hardware other than my PC. I fucked up the batch file and have to fix it, but the rest of it worked just fine. Here's DOS 7.1 with HIMEM and EMM386 with CTMouse driver loaded on a 486 with 255MBs of RAM.
>>12840461And here's the DIR command showing the 8GB FAT32 partition it boots and lives on. BIOS couldn't handle HDD's larger than 8.4GBs, but later machines can go bigger. Also the results of typing VER at the command line, reporting Win98SE even though there is no Windows folder.
>>12840461Nice. What if you used HIMEMX, though? That one uses a lot less memory than W98's HIMEM.SYS.
>>12840468>Also the results of typing VER at the command line, reporting Win98SE even though there is no Windows folder.iirc, you can easily edit that because it's just a plain text string inside command.com
>the HDD and floppy sounds in 86BoxHoly sovl
>>12840542I like it, too, though I do have to say the hard drive hums eventually get a bit grating for me. Might just be because the only samples they have atm are for really old and loud ones.
>>12840469I suppose I could, but HIMEM.SYS is using all of 1KB of conventional right now, so that's low priority to me at the moment.>>12840396Well, testing is showing it's a mixed bag but generally OK. Doom ran fine, and Quake ran fine too, but Quake locked up the PC on exit, forcing a reboot. So not flawless so far, but quite functional. All the DOS testbench utilities I've thrown at it have worked, though half of them have failed to see the RAM above 64MBs and the HDD. SpeedSYS 4.78 on the other hand has recognized everything perfectly, including the special snowflake rebranded chip on my ethernet card, and the fact the HDD is actually a CF card. I'm so impressed with it, I'm including it on the disk image. Already threw on about a half dozen different CD-ROM drivers along with SHSUCDX. Also has RESTART.COM so you can reboot the system by typing in RESTART on computers that support APM at the minimum.Besides the standard IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, and COMMAND.COM, also has HIMEM.SYS, EMM386.EXE, a ready-to-go CONFIG.SYS and empty AUTOEXEC.BAT, FDISK.EXE, FORMAT.COM, EDIT.COM, MEM.EXE, SETVER.EXE, and SYS.COM. Also includes RESTART.COM, GOSIERRA.EXE, TPPATCH.EXE and TPPATCH.ENG, CTMOUSE.EXE, UHDD.SYS, ZANSI.SYS, SPEEDSYS.EXE and SPEEDSYS.HIS with the thumbs.db file that came with it(need to test if it needs that file or if it's just some random trash that came with), ATAPICD.SYS, GCDROM.SYS, OAKCDROM.SYS, QCDROM.SYS, XCDROM.SYS, SHSUCDX.EXE, SHSUCDHD.EXE, SHSUCDRD.EXE, readme files for SHSUCDX and the HD and RD mounting programs, and CDTEST.EXE. Still have about 287KBs of free space remaining if anyone would like to recommend some useful drivers/tools to be included. FDISK, FORMAT C: /S, COPY *.* C:\*.*, then some quick changes in the CONFIG.SYS to replace A: with C, and you get a DOS 7.1 install with EMS/XMS, UMBs, Mouse and CD-ROM drivers.https://filebin.net/7rnad1phjm6c2fpq
>>12842275Based anon delivers. I'll redouble my efforts on a new Windows pack as well. Just a pain in the ass to get all those games reinstalled, though I suppose I could release a "clean" pack that just has Windows already installed and with all the non-game stuff already set up first.
If any of you guys were getting 86Box crashes when changing settings on a running VM, this bug was introduced with build 10172 but build 10191 just fixed it
>>12837738Was able to get this much set up and running rather smoothly thanks to this anon except I used the voodoo 100. Ditched the vm but gna keep a stock copy.
>>12842283>Just a pain in the ass to get all those games reinstalledJust mount the old drive as a 2nd HDD in 86box and copy+paste all the game directories over. Then boot off the new drive and test to see which ones made registry changes and NEED to be reinstalled. That way you don't have to do them all over again.
>>12842413I thought about doing something akin to that, indeed. I suppose it's the fastest way to get through it all. I'll give it a go later on.
>>12842413>>12842536Nta but I had a similar issue where I had to restore a registry backup and all installed programs were wiped but they still work for the most part, I liked that about older Windows you can run most programs portably
>>12838080>>12838474AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAi can't for the life of me get this thing to work on linux. it works perfectly fine on my win11 machine.tried 2 different pc's already. on one of them i had arch and compiled the bloody thing from AUR, gave up and installed debian and tried 2 precompiled ones that i found but nothing and then the other pc has fedora and is more capable but same result, when everything is installed and about to get working, i get slapped by a black screen after booting windows. i know the vm is working because i can hear the win98 start up sound and i can even write system_powerdown on the qemu console to simulate a power button press to safely shut it down.
>>12844182ok, i solved the blackscreen.still can't get 3d passthru working.
Why qemu instead of 86box?
>>12844357Emulating a Pentium II is so demanding that the 86Box devs even added fake variants that run at less than 233 MHz down to 100 MHz, so for late 90s games that need a P2 to run smoothly, 86Box isn't an option unless you have a top end CPU that can emulate a P2 at full speed, especially at higher clocks
>>12844357because i want to run it on a mini laptop with an amd e-300 apu.it's perfect for the task because the cpu is overkill for win9x and the igpu should give period accurate performance. also i have it with 8gb of ram. though i will steal a 4gb stick to use it elsewhere, not like it will impact the performance after everything is set up.
>>12844343>>12844418YES!i managed to run a ready made windows 98 image on my fedora machine. it's running 3dmark2000 as i write this. it has a i7 6500u which means intel hd graphics 520. also has a nvidia 940m, but qemu-3dfx has issues with nvidia proprietary drivers and crashes. no problem tho, this isn't the pc i intend to use, it's just a test. and it scored 5113 3dmarks, around the level of performance of a geforce256 sdr according to https://www.512bit.net/3dmark2000.htmlthe problem seems to be windows98 quick install or the version of directx 9.0c i was installing, no way to be sure right now unless i make a new clean retail win98 install and try again.
>>12844596Unless you're using bog-standard hardware for the era including IDE HDD's and a CD-ROM drive, then you kinda gotta play roulette with Win98 to see what will work with your setup.In my case, using CF cards instead of HDDs, and having no CD-ROM drive to work with, the Win98 Quick Install was the only method that worked. Trying to install directly from the CF card kept dying during transferring files and causing horrible write errors I couldn't resolve since CF cards don't exactly have the same properties and cache that a normal HDD would have and Win98's installer was really expecting both to be in play. The BIOS didn't support booting off of USB, but the Quick Install linux system supported pulling files off of USB, so the floppy+USB image combo worked the charm.Good luck.
>>12844596Is there really a reason to install anything past DirectX 7.0a on Windows 98? Pretty much everything that requires DX8 or above is solidly in the XP era and probably best played there.
>>12845797I think if you want to use a glide wrapper like dgvoodoo 1.x or nglide under 98 you need to have DX9 installed.
>>12844596well, i was sort of able to make it work on the amd e-300 machine, everything was fine until i tried to use a program that uses 3d hardware. the terminal reported that it was starting the wrapper but that is as far as it got. on the guest i was just seeing an afterimage of what it was behind the window, but the machine was still working and i could blindly close 3dmark2000 to get a screen again.it could be that the hardware is not really up to the task or i fucked up installing debian.i'll just go back to arch now that i know better all the quirks of the qemu fork. the pc worked faster on arch anyway.>>12845103oh, i'm not running on bare metal. i'm using a fork of qemu that offloads 3d acceleration to the host. the problem is that for it to work you need to meet certain requirements and install a very specific wrapper, all on the guest machine.>>12845797qemu-3dfx requires at least directx 8.1, so i just grabbed the first directx installer i found.also, winxp sucks and i want to convert this piece of crap broken down mini laptop into a win9x beast.it would be like a micro computer from the 80's but actually good. battery still works for around 4 hours btw.
>>12845797I'm pretty sure DirectX 9 is required if you want to use a Sound Blaster Audigy 2, though some people over at VOGONS say otherwise if you install Creative's drivers and software piece by piece.
Bit of a noob question but can you swap out machines/cpus or gpus on the same configuration without issues or do you need a new machine?
>>12846590Speaking strictly about a Windows 9x installation, swapping CPUs should be completely fine so long as the machine itself remains the same. GPU is normally OK, though it's usually recommended to first uninstall the driver of the current GPU before switching to the new one. A new motherboard/machine altogether, however, is NOT recommended. Windows will try to recognize all the new hardware, but it doesn't always succeed to do so without resulting in rendering the OS unbootable or highly unstable, and can lead to other random issues even if it does appear to succeed. It's just not worth the risk.
PCBox (an 86Box fork) plans to add an optional dynamic recompiler that sacrifices timing accuracy for speed. If the accuracy is still good enough this could be great, as emulating 233+ MHz P2s is still too demanding for most people's hardware
>>12847046A virtualization core a la QEMU would be better if speed is the issue, no?
>>12847125Yes and noOf course QEMU will be the fastest solution, but it's not emulating real hardware and all of it's specific quirks, which is a dealbreaker for a lot of people
>>12847158Yeah, I know that, I'm saying if they're going as far as to offer an option to sacrifice accuracy for speed, they may as well go for virtualization. Those who need accuracy would stick to the normal dynarec emulation route.
>>12847186Having an additional "middle ground" option is a good thing
>>12842275Some changes to the disk.>Removed the junk thumbs.DB file, it turned out to be some cruft from the uploader>Removed the readme.txt files for the SHSUCD programs>Removed OAKCDROM.SYS and ATAPICD.SYS, they are the largest CD-ROM drivers on the disk, and I needed the room>Added in Manifest from QEMMStill haven't gotten the install.bat file setup yet, so it's still a manual install disk, as such I'm calling this one 0.9. The two big CD-ROM drivers are easily obtained elsewhere, and the three that remain are plenty generic and functional. The readme's can easily be gotten by getting SHSUCD's programs anywhere they can be downloaded. The space was badly needed for Manifest, which is about 400KBs. Down to 14KBs of free space remaining on the disk because of it, but MFT.EXE will be a huge help for configuring the EMM386 inclusions and exclusions since you won't have memmaker to work with. Just tested under 86box to make sure it will work on computers besides my own, and it booted and ran MFT.EXE without issues.Same download link as the first release, but here's a specific link just for 0.9.https://filebin.net/7rnad1phjm6c2fpq/DOS71%20Boot%20Install%20Disk%200.9.img
>>12847279Nice work again, anon. I'm assuming you can still install Windows 3.x on top of this, yes?
>>12848012Huh, I have not even tried that. Dunno. I'll give it a go when I get home from work and see if it works. Win3.x never got FAT32 support officially, and I dunno if it goes it's own way on RAM or if it just repeats what DOS says. So it may or may not install, and may or may not support partitions over 2GBs and RAM above 64MBs. The big question is the reserved RAM spot for Windows that memmaker usually sets aside. From what I've seen so far, DOS 7.1 already has that spot reserved, so hopefully it will work out after I set the PATH for Win3.x.
>>12848264Would be pretty cool if you get it to work. Worst case, could you not just create a separate FAT16 partition for Windows?
ok, i failed...i was unable to use >>12846073 because the igpu seems to lack a feature qemu-3dfx needs.but i installed it on another obsolete laptop, a hp pro x2 612 g1, i5-4202y 4gb ram (not upgradable) and intel hd graphics 4200 running fedora 44 cosmic.i'll be installing games and see what it can run.
>>12848264And that's a big no. Installed without issues, showed me the desktop before reboot. Trying to run it, Win3.x complains the version of DOS isn't compatible. Told SETVER to tell it I'm using 6.22, but Win3.x still cried it was incompatible and wouldn't boot.So 7.1 is good for DOS gaming if you have a HDD bigger than 2GBs, but not compatible with Win3.x at all.
>>12849227Is it really due to the DOS version, or because it's on a FAT32 partition? Probably the former, I'd wager, but still. Maybe install DOS 7.1 on a separate FAT16 partition and then try to install Windows then?
>>12849237By all means, go ahead and try. I see no point of trying to do anything with DOS7.1 on FAT16, since you lose the benefit gained from using it.Just encountered an issue trying to get Return to Ringworld to work in DOS 7.1. Threw an error I've never seen before. "Engine Fatal: Memory List Error: Bad used memory link etc etc etc" Which is the DOS way of saying it shat itself. Now comes the fun part of finding out if this is a problem with my config.sys settings, DOS 7.1, or a bad download. Gonna try the same files on the DOS 6.22 CF card I have to see if it's DOS 7.1 being a whore since they are using nearly identical config.sys files. If it works there, then DOS 7.1 has some odd issue with Return to Ringworld. If not, then my config could be fucking things up.
>>12849260That's fair enough, though I was thinking one could create a small FAT16 partition housing only DOS 7.1 and Windows (assuming the partition scheme is the problem) and then another bigger FAT32 partition housing the games. In any case, it does seem like it's more trouble than it's worth, so I don't fault you for not trying.Speaking of multiple partitions, that is something I am exploring for my Windows 98 pack, namely keeping Windows in a smaller partition while having another dedicated to the games themselves. In retrospect it seems a no-brainer.
>>12849260And Return to Ringworld worked just fine on my DOS 6.22 install using the same EMM386 settings. I'm guessing something about how DOS 7.1 handles RAM differently is enough to mess with some games. Compatibility appears to be hit and miss. Some games work just fine, others refuse to run, and some spit up errors I didn't know existed. My guess is DOS 7.1 will work better on later DOS games and be more hit and miss the further back you go. Kind of a bummer, I was hoping to use a DOS 7.1 install to handle a bunch of the graphical adventures that install big voice files.
>>12849285Multiple partitions like that is doable, unless you get some weirdo games that STILL demand to install/run off of C: past 1995. The only downside I see is that you don't really gain anything from it unless you're actually need more than the 137GBs FAT32 offers for a partition. Games will still mess with the registry, requiring a re-install if you move them to a different Win98 install, so you'll still be stuck refreshing the entire setup whenever you update your pack.But hey, if it helps with keeping things organized for you, go ahead. You're not really going to lose anything by doing it.
>>12849296It's more about keeping the main Windows installation as bloat-free and pure as possible. I noticed on my last pack that the more games I installed, the longer it took for it to boot and for everything to load. I can't say for sure that putting most programs on a separate partition will make a significant difference, but that is why I am trying it out. Right now the boot time is phenomenally fast, even at 100 MHz, and I'd like to keep it that way as best as I can.
If some of you like recording shitposts, 86box has been adding audio input to several sound cards recently. Meaning you can use your mic to record shitposts in Windows 95 now
>ctrl-f>dosbox>only one non op postHas it fallen off? Anyway, I discovered that it has an "autotype" command, so you can automatically choose options for games that ask for soundcards, etc, at startup. Pretty cool huh?
>>12849434>Has it fallen off?Absolutely not, the modern forks are greatIt's just that some very specific autism can only be satisfied with 86Box
>>12849434Nah, DOSBox is still good if all you wanna do is play DOS games easily, especially if you use forks like Pure. But if you wanna use Windows past 3.x, it ain't that great, and like >>12849456 says, there's an itch that it won't scratch, as it's not really its scope.
>>12849434Like others have said, DOSBox is great for the stuff it does well. Wanna quickly get into a DOS game you just downloaded? DOSBox is the fastest way. Even has the pre-setup eXoDOS collection that has the conf file for that game ready to go so everything will work out of the box. It's fast and works great with most games. There's also a fork emulating the old ReelMagic MPEG decoder card for the handful of games that used it, making it the only way to experience them without having an actual ReelMagic ISA card in your machine.The downside is when you go beyond what DOSBox can offer. Wanna boot into Linux to do some work on the DOS partition? Wanna install Windows NT? OS/2? DR-DOS or PC DOS? Mess around with one of the early 3D API's besides Glide? Use a Hercules card as a secondary screen instead of MDA? Or actually get a real secondary display instead of just terminal output? Good luck. DOSBox emulates a DOS environment and generic hardware, it's not built for general x86 emulation.I use both DOSBox and 86box, and real hardware as well. Each has their benefits. Though at this point 86box is serving as a testbed for the real hardware, so I can make sure downloads are good before I transfer them over.
>>12850794>Though at this point 86box is serving as a testbed for the real hardware, so I can make sure downloads are good before I transfer them over.I sadly didn't keep my old PCs so I can't test this, but I'm guessing it's also useful for quickly setting up a system for real hardware that has a CF to IDE adapter. For example quickly installing Windows with 86Box's turbo CD-ROM speed + fast forward, then just copying the content of the VHD to your CF card
>>12850958I'd only venture to try that if you can build a system with the same components as your real PC. Besides, there's now the QuickInstall project, which makes installation fast and easy.
>>12850958If I had a CF to USB adapter or some other way to plug it into my main PC, most likely. I might get one when I get a bigger CF card for Win98SE to use.>>12851085Not the exact motherboard, but one that is one revision away. Real board is a Trigem Florida TG, 86box board is a Trigem Como. Not 100%, but close enough that whatever results I get on 86box I can generally expect on the real deal.
>>12824756Outsider question. Is there any difference between using freedos and actual ms dos?
Yes please
>>12851364Would be nice, but the current implementation is pretty painless to set up. Or it would be if they would only put up some kind of documentation on how to actually do it. I had to figure it out myself.
>>12851374Do you still need two extra pieces of software (the SC-55 emulator, plus another piece of software to create a MIDI channel on your machine) or is it simpler now?
>>12851378Simpler. You just download a CLAP plugin and accompanying resources, and place them in a folder. Should look like pic related. Then you select it from the MIDI tab in the 86Box Settings.
>>12851218The FreeDOS people claim there isn't, but every time I've messed with it, I've always had a bunch of weird issues and bugs I don't have with standard DOS. There are parts of FreeDOS that are superior to the MS-DOS stuff, and can be copy+pasted into MS-DOS without issue, like HIMEMX, SHSUCDX, and UDVD2.I'll give it a shot on my hardware, see if it plays nicely with CF cards instead of real HDDs.
>>12851394Phil did some tests with it as well, and he ran into some compatibility issues with games. I'm guessing they're mostly just testing it against DOS applications and utilities and not focusing all that much on games.
>>12851393Neat, I'll look into it
>>12851393They should really provide some proper documentation
>>12851407It's weird, too, because they implemented it shortly before the latest public release, but they made absolutely no mention of it anywhere in the release notes IIRC.
>>12851410Just set it up, it works perfectlyCrazy how it's basically a hidden feature
Anyone know how to set up Worms Armageddon with a No CD crack on Windows 98? I'm having a weirdly hard time with it. I couldn't get a crack from GCW going with the US version, so I tried the European version and a crack from the same place, and that seemed to work, but I get an error about not finding sound banks, and indeed it looks like the installer didn't copy them over.
>>12851394Well that's a wash. FreeDOS at it's best managed to locate about 40KBs of the upper memory, and refused to use the unused BIOS ROM shadow area that is literally set to be free RAM in the BIOS. Telling it to check monochrome RAM just made it lock up on boot, breaking the install and preventing me from editing the config file. I wasn't expecting much, so I'm not really disappointed, but more and more I'm forced to wonder why anyone entertains this half-assed project. Anyone can use MS-DOS, a free open-source alternative isn't really needed, and while it has some components that are better, as a whole it's much worse than MS-DOS, and no where near as stable or compatible with hardware.Even DOS 7.1 is better than this, and it's a mixed bag.
>>12851461I haven't taken too long or hard of a look into it myself, but from what I've seen or heard, it seems to be mostly sort of a toy, with its entire gimmick being that you can install it on modern hardware.
>>12851394>>12851396>>12851461>>12851492There is also SvarDOS, which is the other DOS project that is still active in this day and age. But I don't know how it performs in comparison with FreeDOS.http://svardos.org/phpamb.php?fname=help/help-en&f=freedos.amaThe alternative is to wait for Microsoft to open source DOS 6.22, but that is wishful thinking. Maybe in the 50th anniversary, if they feel generous.
>>12851542>SvarDOS>"This project doesn't have version release numbers, it's all the same...">"online distro platform like Linux to download programs and updates!"Not even gonna waste my time downloading this.
>>12852214It's a rolling release OS.
>>12851428Disregard that I suck cocks. I just had to copy the DATA folder over to the installation folder. Works perfectly now.
