What is an idea setup for playing classic DOS games?

[Seob]

The original 8-Bit Sound Blaster (version 1.0) had an OPL-3 chip on it which did Adlib emulation in it's native mode. All future Sound Blasters came out with the OPL-3 chip as well. My first Sound Blaster was the standard one, the 8-bit Sound Blaster 2.0. I then went with a Pro which was 8-bit with 16-bit bus and in stereo, and then a Sound Blaster 16 ASP w/ the ASP chip installed. They all had that. The thing is though, it had to be configured with the SET BLASTER = A220 T3 D1 I5 (A220 referencing the address, T3... no idea, D1 was the DMA, and I5 was the interrupt request).

The sb 1.0 ct1310 has a single opl2 with adlib compatibility. I forgot that creatives first entry into the pc sound market was called the Gameblaster, not soundblaster. This card didn't have adlib compatibility. It used 2 Philips SAA 1099 circuits instead of the opl2 chip.

[Maverick]

I do also have a Roland Sound Canvas SCC-1. It's an 8-Bit General MIDI card that simply cannot be beat when it comes to games like Wing Commander II, or Ultima 6, etc... the sound I get from that has no equal when the alternative is simply only the Sound Blaster. I don't believe you can make use of that in DOS-BOX... (even through emulation).

 

True, but DOSBox emulates Roland's MT-32 passingly well, and since MIDI in most games were composed with the MT-32 in mind, you'll do OK with that - except on GS games, of course. For that, you would need a Sound Canvas... which is why I have an SCC-1a.

Edited January 25, 2011 by Maverick

[Hatta]

DOSBOX also lets you do things like use FluidSynth.

[Arkhan]

you can make DOSBox work with external MIDI divices.

 

At least last time I remember, you could, unless I was methed up

[Hatta]

Yes, that's how you use it with FluidSynth or Timidity. Just have it use the system MIDI, and set FS or Timidity to be the system MIDI. If you have an external device that works too.

[Arkhan]

Yes, that's how you use it with FluidSynth or Timidity. Just have it use the system MIDI, and set FS or Timidity to be the system MIDI. If you have an external device that works too.

Ok good I wasn't on drugs then.

 

I should make some elaborate chiptune setup for Ultima.

 

pick a buncha bleepybloops and MIDI the shit out of it..

 

hmmmm!

[82-T/A]

The original 8-Bit Sound Blaster (version 1.0) had an OPL-3 chip on it which did Adlib emulation in it's native mode. All future Sound Blasters came out with the OPL-3 chip as well. My first Sound Blaster was the standard one, the 8-bit Sound Blaster 2.0. I then went with a Pro which was 8-bit with 16-bit bus and in stereo, and then a Sound Blaster 16 ASP w/ the ASP chip installed. They all had that. The thing is though, it had to be configured with the SET BLASTER = A220 T3 D1 I5 (A220 referencing the address, T3... no idea, D1 was the DMA, and I5 was the interrupt request).

The sb 1.0 ct1310 has a single opl2 with adlib compatibility. I forgot that creatives first entry into the pc sound market was called the Gameblaster, not soundblaster. This card didn't have adlib compatibility. It used 2 Philips SAA 1099 circuits instead of the opl2 chip.

 

 

I knew about the C/MS... but had never heard of the Game Blaster. I thought the CMS was the first card. The thing with the Sound Blaster 16 though is that it adds full AdLib support. But quite honestly, no one really wants to use Adlib unless you have to, and a lot of the later games used MOD files which played through the DSP. All the older games I know made use of Adlib. The Adlib card is extremely rare. For as common as the name is, it's nearly impossible to find one. I just did a search on eBay, and there's one on there for $300 bucks! hahah...

 

The Sound Blaster 16 (NON Plug & Play) will fully support anything that supports Adlib, as well as all the Sound Blaster stuff. It really makes it difficult though when you start using Plug & Play cards... that's when you have to start loading drivers into memory and stuff like that. The SB-16 that I have in my game machine requires no drivers to be loaded AT ALL... it's great. You just have to set the address / irq / dma parameters and all the games can see it.

[Arkhan]

I like adlib. Screw MOD files.

[jeremysart]

Yes, that's how you use it with FluidSynth or Timidity. Just have it use the system MIDI, and set FS or Timidity to be the system MIDI. If you have an external device that works too.

Ok good I wasn't on drugs then.

 

I should make some elaborate chiptune setup for Ultima.

 

pick a buncha bleepybloops and MIDI the shit out of it..

 

hmmmm!

 

Ultima will be one of the first games I install on my machine. A machine I just picked up yesterday had Apogee's Dark Ages (a side-scroller similar to jill of the jungle/ xargon)installed on the hard drive, that was the last thing I expected.

[Arkhan]

Man, Xargon was awesome. I need to go play that one again.

[psquare75]

This thread has made me decide to dig out my 386 12/33.. I know I mentioned it before, but I probably should make it a gaming box. It has a CD burner a 130 megabye HD and a Soundblaster Pro. I suppose I could install a much larger hard drive easily, right? (I remember complaining Ultima 7 took up 1/3 of the drive)

Edited January 28, 2011 by psquare75

[madmax2069]

My old computer is a P1 200mhz mmx with 128mb ram a 3Dfx voodoo 3 2000 PCI. It has one of those hyped turbo mode buttons that will take it from its stock speed and lower it down when the button is disabled ( i have mine set so it lowers the speed to 133mhz i think it is). its been a long time sine i have fired it up but it will play most old dos games with the help of a program that slows the machine down so that things are not playing at warp speed, for the life of me i can not remember the name of the program. but i did start using dosbox because it was a lot better to use then the slow down program (usually caused many game issues and crashes).

 

a 200mhz machine is way overkill for most old DOS games but that is why i use a program to slow the machine down or dosbox. but having a fast machine like this also allows me to play some higher end old games like shadow warrior, duke nukem 3D, UT99, Half-life 1, and even quake with ease.

 

Edit

 

The main program i used for slowing down the computer is called Mo'Slo and a few others

 

also used a few others on this page http://web.archive.org/web/20050113064747/http://www.geocities.com/kulhain/

Edited January 28, 2011 by madmax2069

[jeremysart]

My old computer is a P1 200mhz mmx with 128mb ram a 3Dfx voodoo 3 2000 PCI. It has one of those hyped turbo mode buttons that will take it from its stock speed and lower it down when the button is disabled ( i have mine set so it lowers the speed to 133mhz i think it is). its been a long time sine i have fired it up but it will play most old dos games with the help of a program that slows the machine down so that things are not playing at warp speed, for the life of me i can not remember the name of the program.

 

a 200mhz machine is way overkill for most old DOS games but that is why i use a program to slow the machine down. but having a fast machine like this also allows me to play some higher end old games like shadow warrior, duke nukem 3D, UT99, Half-life 1, and even quake with ease.

 

Oh man, Shadow Warrior. I spent a lot of time playing that game after beating Duke Nukem 3D.

I remember getting a kick out of all the ridiculous and perverted lines. You no mess with the Lo Wang

[psquare75]

Madmax, I used to use moslo. I think thats what it's called. it was command prompt based.

[The Usotsuki]

Should be able to get a drive up to 500 MB in a 386, provided the BIOS lets you enter custom parameters. (My old 386 with AMIBIOS did.)

[madmax2069]

My old computer is a P1 200mhz mmx with 128mb ram a 3Dfx voodoo 3 2000 PCI. It has one of those hyped turbo mode buttons that will take it from its stock speed and lower it down when the button is disabled ( i have mine set so it lowers the speed to 133mhz i think it is). its been a long time sine i have fired it up but it will play most old dos games with the help of a program that slows the machine down so that things are not playing at warp speed, for the life of me i can not remember the name of the program.

 

a 200mhz machine is way overkill for most old DOS games but that is why i use a program to slow the machine down. but having a fast machine like this also allows me to play some higher end old games like shadow warrior, duke nukem 3D, UT99, Half-life 1, and even quake with ease.

 

Oh man, Shadow Warrior. I spent a lot of time playing that game after beating Duke Nukem 3D.

I remember getting a kick out of all the ridiculous and perverted lines. You no mess with the Lo Wang

 

Yeah i loved playing shadow warrior and loved playing Blood. The build engine games always will have a place in my heart

[Arkhan]

Madmax, I used to use moslo. I think thats what it's called. it was command prompt based.

 

 

http://moslo.info/

[jaybird3rd]

Should be able to get a drive up to 500 MB in a 386, provided the BIOS lets you enter custom parameters. (My old 386 with AMIBIOS did.)

And for drives larger than the BIOS will support, you can install a Disk Manager overlay (or a free equivalent, if one exists) to overcome the BIOS size limitations. Another option would be to use an offboard IDE controller with its own BIOS (such as an old Promise Ultra66 IDE controller), although this might be difficult on a 386 because there weren't many of those made for the ISA bus.

[psquare75]

Have one of these sitting around at work

 

 

And a bunch of these.

 

[madmax2069]

Have one of these sitting around at work

 

 

And a bunch of these.

 

 

That old IBM computer put me in the mind of my old Wyse desktop i use to own. it looked like the WYSE PC 386 MODEL 3216 but it had a small LCD screen around the buttons that displayed system status and memory usage and had it to where you could set cpu speed and such, i think it was a server. i just cant remember the model it was or find a picture of it. I did also have a old IBM PC like in your picture.

Edited January 30, 2011 by madmax2069

[82-T/A]

This thread has made me decide to dig out my 386 12/33.. I know I mentioned it before, but I probably should make it a gaming box. It has a CD burner a 130 megabye HD and a Soundblaster Pro. I suppose I could install a much larger hard drive easily, right? (I remember complaining Ultima 7 took up 1/3 of the drive)

 

 

I think, other than the BIOS... most of the DOS operating systems can't support more than a certain amount DOS 5.0 might limit you to 500mb or 215, or something like that.

[gdement]

I think Socket-7 systems are great for a DOS PC, as it can usually be slowed enough to run at reasonable speeds for older games. At the same time, it's new enough that it's easy to hook up with commonly available IDE drives, CDROMs, ATX power supplies, and PCI cards. 486's can be frustrating to find parts for.

DOSBox is convenient, but the OPL emulation doesn't sound right to me. I noticed it the first time I loaded Ultima6, and compared it to the same game on my old Sound Blaster Pro.

 

I can see a slot-1 machine being ideal for somebody who plays late DOS games that can use extra speed. I might go that route if I get into Elder Scrolls: Arena and Daggerfall sometime.

The Ultima games need to run at a controlled speed, so a slower machine helps there. Mo'slo helps but it isn't a miracle worker.

===

 

My DOS machine is an Intel-made ATX motherboard, branded as a Gateway 2000. I can't remember if it's a 430HX, 430VX, or 430TX, but it's one of those.

- CPU is one of my P54C Pentium chips underclocked to I think 90MHz. It runs fanless this way. If it fries I'll grab another.

- Disk drive is a bootable Kingston 133x CompactFlash card in an IDE adapter. Crap card by the way, it started having errors after a couple aborted attempts to install Daggerfall. Switch partitions and problem went away. 10K/100K rewrites? lies.

- MSDOS 5.0 (max partition size is 2GB each)

- Video is an old Cirrus Logic 1MB PCI card I took from a retired Compaq server. I have a couple more powerful Diamond brand S3-based cards, but they "blink" on modern monitors. The Cirrus Logic card works perfectly, and it's fine for the games I use with it.

 

- Sound is 2 cards, a Creative CT2800+CT1920. I bought those for this build, after reading a detailed Sound Blaster discussion on VOGONS.

The CT2800 is a later model, non-PnP Sound Blaster 16. The layout is consolidated and has a better signal to noise ratio than most DOS-era Sound Blasters, which is something I find annoying on my old SB cards from the day. It also has an actual Yamaha OPL3 chip, not Creative's in-house clone which they used on most of their later cards. Creative's OPL clone is noted to not produce an accurate sound compared to the Yamaha.

The CT1920 is an AWE32 add-on card. It isn't a sound card to itself, instead it simply adds AWE32 functionality to an existing card. The hookup requires a homemade cable, I hooked it up to the CD audio input on the CT2800.

There are no AWE cards with a Yamaha OPL chip on them, they all use the Creative clone. That's why I used this combo instead.

 

I think I had some trouble with sound but eventually got it working. I think I might have had to use PnP software for the AWE addon, but I don't remember.

 

Just a random bit of trivia - the early Sound Blaster 1.0 cards don't support DMA. The only way they play digital samples is by pushing the data through in real time - very crappy. A later version, I think 1.5, adds DMA support but it's not double buffered. This can cause popping noises every time the buffer gets refreshed. Proper double-buffered DMA was introduced in a 3rd revision. This was something I found out back when I was writing some Sound Blaster code many years ago.

 

 

I got interested in the idea of hacking a motherboard to have a runtime-adjustable CPU speed, but I never pursued it. The documentation for some clock chips on motherboards claim to be capable of ramping the speed without requiring a reboot. There's also some chips which can be EPROM or Flash programmed to change the selection of preset speeds they provide. In theory you might be able to run a Pentium at near IBM XT speeds.. maybe.

My dream was a pizza-box DOS PC with a multi-position speed knob on the front.

[psquare75]

Reading all this Creative information takes me back to when I was a child (11/12) and I did the Sound Blaster Pro install in the 386. Goofing around with my father using that "Dr Sbaitso, by creative labs" talking program.

[+remowilliams]

I've got a P4 dual Voodoo2 powered dosbox to serve the truest of classic needs.

 

 

But big props to DOSBox as an alternative to real hardware, its an amazing little program.

[82-T/A]

- Sound is 2 cards, a Creative CT2800+CT1920. I bought those for this build, after reading a detailed Sound Blaster discussion on VOGONS.

The CT2800 is a later model, non-PnP Sound Blaster 16. The layout is consolidated and has a better signal to noise ratio than most DOS-era Sound Blasters, which is something I find annoying on my old SB cards from the day. It also has an actual Yamaha OPL3 chip, not Creative's in-house clone which they used on most of their later cards. Creative's OPL clone is noted to not produce an accurate sound compared to the Yamaha.

The CT1920 is an AWE32 add-on card. It isn't a sound card to itself, instead it simply adds AWE32 functionality to an existing card. The hookup requires a homemade cable, I hooked it up to the CD audio input on the CT2800.

There are no AWE cards with a Yamaha OPL chip on them, they all use the Creative clone. That's why I used this combo instead.

 

I think I had some trouble with sound but eventually got it working. I think I might have had to use PnP software for the AWE addon, but I don't remember.

 

 

Years ago, I had the Roland Sound Canvas SCB-55 Add-On "Daughter Board." The Sound Blaster 16 has provisions for that card, and there were several companies that made daughter boards specifically FOR the Sound Blaster 16. Back in the day, I needed the money, and since I already had a seperate Roland Sound Canvas, I no longer needed the SCB-55 since it conflicted anyway, so I sold it on eBay.

 

For someone who has a real-slim-line computer and wants to play all the best games, with the best features, the non-PnP Sound Blaster 16 that you mention is the way to go. It's the one that has the built-in pre-amp, and requires no drivers. You can install the ASP chip which gives you 48khz (DVD quality sound), and install the Roland SCB-55 daughter board (if you can find one). All you have to do is make sure you have all of your "set" parameters configured properly in the autoexec.bat, and everything will work perfectly. I used to use that and it was awesome. At my peak gaming years, I had that configuration, along with a Gravis Ultrasound ACE (w/ 2mb of ram on it) and I could play ANY game, with the best options.

 

There were some DOS games back then which made use (natively) of the ASP add-on chip on the SB16

 

 

Here's the Roland SCB-55 for the Sound Blaster 16:

 

 

It required no drivers... just set the parameters.

 

 

Here is the CT-1740, it's IDENTICAL to the one I had, except that mine had the MCD / Pannasonic CD drive controller (rather than the IDE which this one is) and mine also didn't come with the ASP chip, but had a slot for it (which I ended up buying and filling in).

 

 

 

I wasn't really a fan of the 2800 since it was basically considered a "value replacement" for the 2740:

 

http://www.esaitech.com/commerce/catalog/showpic.jsp?product_id=17616&czuid=1296500827579

 

The Vibra basically eliminated the ASP functionality, and was meant to be a bit more "main-stream" for the multi-media game user that had no intentions of ever using the ASP function. It also didn't have a pre-amp on it, which I think hurt the overall sound. I liked having the pre-amp on the back of the card.

 

 

Ascendancy (I believe), if I've got the games right, was a space exploration game that made use of the ASP functionality. It would play the MOD music files at 48khz and sounded much better. It used the ASP chip natively.