Sound for DOS games on modern hardware?

From: TeoZ <teoz_at_neo.rr.com>
Date: Sat Jun 21 04:02:00 2003

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.

TZ


----- Original Message -----
From: "Dr. Ido" <drido_at_optushome.com.au>
To: <cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2003 3:30 AM
Subject: RE: Sound for DOS games on modern hardware?


> At 12:17 PM 6/20/03 -0600, you wrote:
> >AARGGH!
> >
> >Read Ethan's posts. He can NOT use ANY ISA sound cards, because the
> computer does not have any ISA slots. Period.
> >
> >So, can anyone answer Ethan's question about how to get a PCI sound card
> to work with a ca. 1994 MS-DOS game?
>
> What about using a PC emulator? I run DOS inside Windows using Virtual PC
> and sound works, though it does skip in some games.
> There are other PC emulators that I haven't tried yet. Bochs and DOSbox
> comes to mind. DOSbox may be the better one to try as it's freeware (as
> far as I know) and is designed specifically to run DOS games on Windows
> PCs. A known limitation is that it currently does not support 32 bit
> protected mode, but for wolf 3d and other pre DOS4GW games this shouldn't
> be a problem. I'll get around to trying it one of these days.
>
> If the 2 cards will coexist or he's willing to replace his current card it
> may be worth looking for a SB PCI64. I use one and compatibility with
> older software is usually pretty good.
Received on Sat Jun 21 2003 - 04:02:00 BST