20 Jun
2003
20 Jun
'03
9:50 p.m.
I also make sure that for later dos games my video card does all the
necessary video modes (VESA) without having to use drivers. I use a Riva 128
4mb card (PCI) and it does all the VESA modes without a driver. My 386 has a
Tseng (diamond speedstar 1mb ISA) ET 3000ax or 4000 cant remember, works
fine with the older games.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dr. Ido" <drido(a)optushome.com.au>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2003 4:17 AM
Subject: Re: Sound for DOS games on modern hardware?
before
At 04:56 AM 6/21/03 -0400, you wrote:
>Emulators usually choke on games because of shortcuts in programming and
the
>demands of graphics and sound. If you just want to
play a game or 2 its
not
>bad IF the emulator works with that game, but for
anybody who wants to
play
>alot of dos games you have to use a vintage
computer with vintage sound
and
>video cards. Some people have enough problems WITH
vintage equipment
because
>of irq conflicts, wrong sound card, cpu is too
fast, using old cyrix
chips,
>memory configuration or amount etc.
>
>I went to the extreme and made 2 DOS machines, one for later games and
one
>for the real early games. I still dont have the
ancient 80's CGA games
>covered but I dont care about that period that much since my C64/C128 and
>Amiga 500 had better games in that time period.
>
>Considering what 386/486 systems cost these days (pretty much free on the
>curb, or VERY cheap on ebay if you dont have to ship), I say if your into
it
>go get the equipment to do the job.
>
>You would be surprised how nice the games look, sound, and play on a
newer
>19" or above monitor and some good speakers.
I use a KVM with sound
>switching on my 4 game rigs so I dont have to mess with switching cables
and
>wires, or having multiple monitors, keayboards,
and mice. Classic games
are
still alot of
fun to play.
I take the original machine approach myself. I only usually use the
emulators to take screenshots, or to quickly check if something runs going to the trouble copying to the older machines (my
oldest DOS boxes
aren't on my network yet). I've still got a P166 and a 486-66 set up here
and many others stacked in the spare room. I still haven't worked out a
way to integrate my Tandy 1000RL into the rack yet, though. I think it's
the best system for early 80s PC games as a lot of them supported it's 16
color graphics and 3 voice sound. I think it's the nicest of the Tandy
1000s as it has PS/2 keyboard/mouse connectors, IDE and it's a tiny little
box. Still haven't worked out how to convert it's RGBI output into
something my 21" monitor will display though.
I only mentioned the emulators as the original poster asking the question
said finding space for a pure DOS machine was out of the question.
If he's case is big enough maybe he could install it in the same case as
the current system? :)
I've got some tiny 486-100 all in one mobos from POS systems that still
have 2 ISA slots.. enough for the all important SB16 and a NIC.