Radio F Software Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 I inadvertenly sold my old PC 3 years ago and bought a POS eMachines so I could have internet. Biggest mistake ever. All of my great old games (Megarace, Jazz Jackrabbit, Tyrian, Hover, Doom, Blood & Plasma Pack, Wipeout XL, Arctic Adventure, Monuments Of Mars, etc) don't run on my new Compaq XP. They eithe run WAY to fast, or they have no sound at all. So. I have $50 in cash at my house (and a tad bit more in my bank account). I KNOW these PC's can't be too expensive. I saw one on eBay for 5 bucks and then shipping. This PC didnt have a CD Drive. My Compaq doesn't have a 4.5" Floppy drive, so I would be needed to burn a CD with my game installers on it to run on it. Do you think that would work? Out of all these games I have only 3 of them work (Blood & Plasma Pak, Jazz 2, and Megarace 2). What I am mainly looking for is a small complete set. A PC with a CD drive, keyboard, monitor, and a mouse. (of course, the power plugs and that so I can set it up. I have lots of speakers at my house that should work. I don't need a printer and I dont need a floppy drive, but if it has one that's fine. Also, dont worry about a mousepad or anything fancy, I just need the bare bones to save cost and just enough so I can run my games. So, please, if you have a 3.1 you can part with, maybe we can make a deal. :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidcross Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 Don't ditch that new machine just yet! Try some of this: http://dosbox.sourceforge.net Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeepnut24 Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 Don't ditch that new machine just yet! Try some of this:http://dosbox.sourceforge.net there are dos emulators that should work for what you need. BTW, got any picts of a 4.5" drive... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voch Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 How's about Virtual PC for Windows? I have it for Mac and have used it in the past for older games (Commander Keen comes to mind). Voch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dones Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 Don't ditch that new machine just yet! Try some of this:http://dosbox.sourceforge.net DOSBox! Excellent program. From the titles the original poster mentions I have been able to play Jazz Jackrabbit, Tyrian, Doom and Blood. I have also ran several Sierra and Lucasarts adventure games with no problems at all. DOSBox enjoys a very active community of testers. If you go to their website, you will find a database of DOS games and their compatibility rate with DOSBox (as well as how to make them run). To make DOSBox easier to setup I recommend D-Fend front end. It will let you create custom profiles for different games all through a nice wizard-like window. PS. About Doom, you might want to try Doomsday. It's a fanmade version of the Doom engine. It will let you run Doom I/II, Heretic and Hexen on Windows machines with full OpenGL/DirectX and EAX support. Lots of eye candy, dynamic lighting, 3D sound, Internet/LAN play, mouse-WASD input, etc. You can download MP3 and high texture packs to bump the quality even further. Try it out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radio F Software Posted March 23, 2005 Author Share Posted March 23, 2005 Don't ditch that new machine just yet! Try some of this:http://dosbox.sourceforge.net there are dos emulators that should work for what you need. BTW, got any picts of a 4.5" drive... Blah I got the inches and feet things mixed up again. So, this DOSbox, this will let me run the games like Tyrian even though my processor is above and beyond what these games needed? I installed Megarace and it said "WHOA! You have a SUPER drive!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radio F Software Posted March 23, 2005 Author Share Posted March 23, 2005 Wow! This DOS Box works great! I hjavent played Tyrian or Jazz for YEARS! And now they work Thanks for suggesting that. Since my job is really weak right now (3-4 hours a WEEK ) I might still want to buy a 3.1 for old times sake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindfield Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 You have a few options to get them running on a modern machine. First: VirtualPC. This basically emulates a PC. On your PC. :-) Basically it was designed for a save environment in which to deploy and test software, but it has the added bonus of essentially being able to run old software. I have it and have installed several OSs under it (Linux, Win98, Win3.1, AROS) and it works great. However, there are some other tricks you can use to get proper sound and speed out of those games. 1. MoSlo. This basically slows down your machine to run older games that don't have speed throttling built-in to them. It's a free program, but it's only useful on older PCs (P1s and P2s) -- newer PCs won't be slowed down enough by MoSlo. 2. VDMSound. Essentially a sound card emulator for your PC designed to work for DOS games that don't support newer sound cards. 3. GUSEmu. Similar to VDMSound, this emulates a Gravis Ultrasound card. 4. DOSBox (as mentioned above). Still under development but works great for a lot of the golden oldies. I don't think it supports protected mode (DPMI) yet though. 5. AbandonLoader. Basically a shell you can create different configurations for with your old games. So, you've got a number of options without resorting to an old clunker to get those old classics working. I've yet to see a decent video card emulator (one that can do VESA graphics modes) though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 I think this thread wins for scariest subject line ever! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Franzman Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 BTW, got any picts of a 4.5" drive... Blah I got the inches and feet things mixed up again. No, you got the numbers mixed up... common floppy drive sizes are (were) 8 inches, 5 1/4 inches, and 3 1/2 inches. If you have a 4 1/2 inch drive, I'd like to see it too! :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dones Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 So, this DOSbox, this will let me run the games like Tyrian even though my processor is above and beyond what these games needed? Yup. You can throttle the emulated speed as fast or as slow as you want. There are some hotkeys that let's you do it realtime but I forget what those are now. Did you get D-Fend? It makes DOSBox so much easier to use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oesii Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 I think this thread wins for scariest subject line ever! I had a Packard Bell Windows 95 computer back in the day and it was plenty scary. Can't image a 3.1 box But I'd recommend DosBox too, a great thing about the program is that it's been ported to OS X so I can play a lot of these ancient games on my Mac laptop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 There's even a version of DOSBox for OS X, and a nice front-end available as well. ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radio F Software Posted March 23, 2005 Author Share Posted March 23, 2005 Yeah right now I am just seeing how it works, then Ill get the addons for it. Works awesome. How do I speed up the frame rate of Tyrian from the DOS Box menu? I upped it to Frame Skip 10 on DOS Box but it doesnt do anything. Edit: What I meant to say is, the game plays very choppy. How do I get it smooth like how I used to play it? It's unplayable like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 I had a Packard Bell Windows 95 computer back in the day and it was plenty scary. Can't image a 3.1 box Everything about Packard Bell reeked, from the top on down: As I understand it, the company's very name originated from attempts to confuse consumers into thinking they were producers of quality products. (That is, evoke Hewlett Packard and/or Bell Telephone, even though Packard Bell had nothing to do with either.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dones Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 How do I speed up the frame rate of Tyrian from the DOS Box menu? I upped it to Frame Skip 10 on DOS Box but it doesnt do anything. Edit: What I meant to say is, the game plays very choppy. How do I get it smooth like how I used to play it? It's unplayable like this. In my experience frame skip in DOSBox stops helping when set so high. Anything over 3 is not recommended. I would suggest working with the throttle until you find a value that works best for your system. Also choose a resolution that matches the inteded program the closest. If you go to DOSBox homepage you will find a game database. I am not sure but I think it tells you the recommended settings for each game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinball22 Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 There's even a version of DOSBox for OS X, and a nice front-end available as well. ..Al I hadn't looked at DOSBox in a long time... now I can't wait to get home and put some old DOS games on my beloved iBook!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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