Emulators and Windows XP

[Fretwobbler]

Please, please help!!

 

Has anybody got any emulators to work with Windows XP? Since I upgraded to the new OS my emulator doesn't work

 

I used to use Z26 by John Seager under Win 98 2nd edition but now my PC just hangs whenever I try to run the emulator. Is this because XP no longer supports DOS based programs or am I being dumb?

 

Any advice/links to an emulator that does work with XP will be very much appreciated!

 

Adam

[Atari-Jess]

you must have a half-decent computer to run xp. ive not tried xp and i dont really want to. ill stick to 98 for as long as i can. (id sure like to get a milan computer though)

[Fretwobbler]

Have you seen the minimum/recomended specs for XP!?!?!?!

 

Microsoft list them as -

 

Minimum - 233MHz Celeron (yeah right Bill), 64MB, 1.5GB and VGA.

 

Recommended - PIII 300MHz, 128MB, 800x600 Video Card.

 

I run it on a PII 750 with 256MB Ram and a GeForce vid card and it works fine, the most important aspect of my PC(the Atari emulator) doenst work though. "Microsoft" and "Backward Compatibilty" are two words that dont often get mentioned in the same sentance though. YOu would think if Atari could manage it 2 decades ago (7800 - 2600) MS could sort it out wouldn't you

 

Adam

[Fretwobbler]

I meant PIII 750 Doh!

 

Adam

[bangles66]

Go back to win98 or win me

 

xp is going to be problems for many.

xp will be the downfall of microsoft and bill gates

if only it would be true.

 

ap is ok for business' and the like but the average everyday person. look out

microsoft has added many bundles in with xp to make it more user friendly

 

it has it's own cd writer software

you won't be able to easy copy cd's even those that you amke that are not copy righted

 

ok that enough i could go on and on with my disgust with xp.

[+Mitch]

Have you tried running it in one of the compatibility modes? I have XP on one of my PCs at work. If I get the chance I'll try out the different emulators on it.

 

Mitch

http://atari7800.atari.org

[liveinabin]

Bloody XP!! When will Microsoft stop ripping off Apple?? They know they can get away with it I suppose.

[Fretwobbler]

quote

Have you tried running it in one of the compatibility modes?  

 

When you install xp as an upgrade it very politely scans all your hardware and software to check for any compatibility problems. When I upgraded it only picked up on a couple of old 4D Sports games(driving and boxing - remember them? driving games have come a long way!) but it didnt mention the Z26 emulator so I didnt think there would be a problem.

 

Anyway, I'm going to spend the remainnig 2 hours of my working day playing with the compatibility wizard to see if it works........oh hello boss, no I'm not trying to play Atari at work, i'm just evaluating this new software boss, honest

 

 

Adam

[Fretwobbler]

quote

Bangles66 - Go back to win98 or win me

 

Its all very well saying go back to 98 but in England the upgrade costs £89.99 - thats $140 at todays exchange rate - not something I would just like to buy and then forget about

 

How much is the upgrade on your side of the Atlantic?

 

Adam

[bangles66]

Windows xp home edition is

$99.99 for the upgrade and $199.99 us dollars for the full version.

 

Sorry if you bought xp and are having problems, no offense was intended.

 

Maybe there will be a patch for some emulators that don't work in xp.

 

Good Luck I hope you get it running.

Once again Sorry

 

If I offended you.

greg

[Albert]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fretwobbler:

When you install xp as an upgrade it very politely scans all your hardware and software to check for any compatibility problems. When I upgraded it only picked up on a couple of old 4D Sports games(driving and boxing - remember them? driving games have come a long way!) but it didnt mention the Z26 emulator so I didnt think there would be a problem.

---

 

I'm not too surprised that it didn't detect z26. My guess is Microsoft built up a database of apps known to have problems. They then scan your hard drive for these programs on your hard drive, either by looking at the filename or possibly even opening up every executable and DLL to look at information embedded in the file. I doubt they actually analyze the programs to look for Windows/DOS calls that might cause problems (not that this is even feasible without actually running the app, which there's no way in hell they'd do).

 

Since there are many tens of thousands of programs out there, they'll only investigate commercial apps and perhaps popular and well-known shareware/freeware apps. It would simply take too many resources, too much time and be impossible to check everything. And unfortunately, z26 isn't a mainstream app. At least not yet.

 

..Al

[+Mitch]

I ran a check on Z26 and PCAE on Win XP and I found that setting them to either Windows 95 or Windows 98-ME compatibility would allow them to run. PCAE for windows ran fine without any changes.

 

A couple notes, Z26 ran slowly like it does in Win 2000. I changed the speed to 100 and it seemed about right. PCAE locked up after about a minute but it may have been an issue with the cheap integrated sound card on my box. Neither Z26 or PCAE liked it too well.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Mitch

http://atari7800.atari.org

[Atari-Jess]

i think that win3.1 and XP are too user friendly, for some reason i just hate user friendly OS i like 98 more.

[Fretwobbler]

To Bangles66

 

You didnt offend at all mate. My frustration was aimed at the offensive prices we pay on this side of the pond for IT stuff, in fact videgames as well. Did you know that new PS2 games cost over £40($60)in England.......disgusting that is, when we finally get x-box its going to be £300($450) how can they justify it, mind you us Brits are stupid enough to pay it so who;s the fool? Enough of my moaning.

 

I feel all guilty and embarrased now, looking back and reading my post I understand why you thought I was offended, it should be me who apologises to you Bangles66.

 

Good news is I've got Z26 working now in 98 mode. I should have thought about that earlier really, i'm a dumbass.

 

Thanks for all the help though guys. This realy is one of the few BB's you really can call a community!

 

Later!

 

Adam

[Mindfield]

Actually I've had excellent success with most of the emulators under XP. Most that ran under WinMe run under XP. I've come across a few that I couldn't get to work, but those are emulators I haven't used in so long that I frankly can't quite remember if I ever got them to work in the first place.

 

And believe me. If I ran into any noteworthy emulator problems under XP I'd be whining about it every chance I got. I'm a certified, bona fide, no holds barred EmuHolic. :-)

 

A few tips for legacy compatibility in XP:

 

1. If it doesn't work, check the properties. Set "compatibility" to Windows 95 or 98/ME.

2. (DOS) If it doesn't work, follow step one, then click the Memory tab and set all values except "Initial Environment" to maximum. Leave the environment at "auto." Do this for every executable belonging to the program you're trying to run.

3. (DOS) If you have troubles with your sound, take your old BLASTER environment variable from an old AUTOEXEC.BAT or DOSSTART.BAT file and add them to the AUTOEXEC.NT file located in your WINDOWSSYSTEM32 directory. This only works for programs that don't have their own native sound drivers. (The default AUTOEXEC.NT file that comes with XP already has a common BLASTER variable; change it to reflect your particular configuration)

 

Some issues I have yet to work out how to pull off. I haven't been able to figure out how to recover more than about 580k of conventional memory under emulated DOS. This means programs that have unreasonably high conventional memory requirements won't run, or won't run properly.

[garyp]

That's pretty much what I was gonna say I can run pretty much all emulators on my computer by setting setting compatibility mode to Win95 or 98. Once you get used to Xp I think it's great for playing mp3s and watching videos etc.

[Mindfield]

I'm running most emus fine on XP. Here's a few things to try to get your emulators running properly on XP.

 

Windows-based Emulators

 

- Right-click on the program or shortcut in question and select Properties.

- Click on the Compatibility tab.

- Under the heading Compatibility Mode click the drop-down menu and select either Windows 95 or Windows 98/Me. (It will automatically set the checkmark to run in compatibility mode)

- Click OK and run the program as normal.

 

DOS-Based Emulators

 

Due to the lack of real-mode capabilities, the command shell may not be able to run everything with certainty. However, it has excellent compatibility in most cases.

 

- Follow the first three steps above for Windows-based emulators.

- Click the Memory tab.

- For all dropdown values under Conventional Memory, Expanded (EMS) Memory, Extended (XMS) Memory, and MS-DOS protected-mode (DPMI) memory set them to maximum. Set a checkmark beside Protected in the Conventional Memory group. Setting environment size is not necessary here unless the program executes a batch file that sets many and/or large environment varibles.

- Depending on your video card, you may also want to force 256 colour and/or 640x480 video modes if you are unable to use high resolution VESA modes in programs that use or require them. (My GeForce 2 MX doesn't do VESA modes. I have yet to try SciTech Display Doctor, so I don't know if that'll fix the problem. Still, it's worth a shot; go to http://www.scitechsoft.com to try it out)

 

These methods have gotten the vast majority of software in my collection to work quite well. Some have their problems -- I am unable to get more than 580k of free conventional memory at the command prompt, which causes problems with a few old DOS games, and still others are unable to employ VESA graphics modes, as has already been explained. Some just don't work at all, though I suspect this is more to do with newer CPUs and card drivers and such than on the OS itself; many of them didn't work on WinMe, either.

[ubersaurus]

I prefer 2000 as my windows OS, but I'm stuck with ME for now.

[liveinabin]

I understand that windows xp can do a very basic emulation of Dos

[Atari-Jess]

eventually you all know that no 3.1-98 programs aren't gonna be compatable with newer windows, MS is REALLY trying to get as far away from DOS as it can it seems....

 

 

YAY 999 POSTS!!!!!

 

(just remembered after i clicked the button)

 

[ 01-05-2002: Message edited by: Atari-Jess ]

[Paul Slocum]

I just installed XP yesterday (upgrade from 2000) and I'm pretty happy with it. I had a few problems with drivers and stuff at first but got them sorted out pretty quickly.

 

Z26 and PCAEWin run fine on my Celeron 500 in XP without changing any windows settings. I've always had a problem with Z26 running slow, but I found that if I set the speed to 120 it runs at exactly game speed.

 

You can run Pitfall and use the countdown clock and a clock to check the speed of the emulator.

 

-Paul

[Jetboot Jack]

I have a fresh install, not an upgrade from 2K etc, of XP Home.

 

My system is a P4 1.8Ghz with 512Mb Ram.

 

Z26, PCAE, Stella, Mess (5200/7800, Coleco and NES), Atari800Win+, Magic Engine, Xformer, Handy, VMSX and Vcoleco all work 100% under XP. All without any tweaks to compatibility settings.

 

Z26 works at a fine speed too.

 

I moved everything over from my laptop that runs 2K pro - where everything was cool too...

 

sTeVE

[Kaliman]

Hello,

I don't want to sound like I'm just against everyone. But Windows XP, not being perfect. Is the less bad of all windows. I install a lot of systems daily and There is no doubt in my mind that XP is faster, more stable, prettier and has more power. Of course some of the older programs may have problems, but none of the emulators I've tried.

Maybe you do not remember of have not had the experience. But installing a new system with 98, 95, Me or even 2000 is a pain if you dont have ALL the correct and most recent drivers. XP does almost all, it even serches the internet if it does not have the drivers needed.

Anyway. All I can say is that I run a lot of emus on my 2 XP computers (formatted with XP) and the only problem I have (which I can't say that it would be solved with other OS) is that I can't get the joystic to work on PCAWIN 2.6

[IceCold]

No offense intended at all Atari-Jess, but if you're talking about "user friendly" os's, why don't you talk about anything to do with Macintosh, and Windows Millenium Edition. I haven't used Windows XP home edition, but I use Windows XP Corporate and it seems to be great.

 

 

P.S. that's just my 2 cents

[IceCold]

I just realized this topic was from January, and the only reason it showed up as new was Kaliman posted something. Well now I look kind of ignorant