DOS Gaming and ArcaOS

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi

I want to start now with some DOS games on ArcaOS. Which DOS games do you suggest to try/test on ArcaOS ?
This Internet Archive page can help with some ideas/insipiration.

I want to try both ways, the DOS VDM  and DOSBox, and see how everything goes.

From the other game thread I kind of understoodd that I'm limited with DOS VDM with the sound support until we have an updated DTA driver with DOS support. I haven't found any other way to get DOS sound with Uniaud yet.

Please let me know of any links to the old days when people used to post links of the suggested DOS VDM configuration for each game.

Suggestion, comments and feedback is always welcome. 

Regards

[Martin Iturbide]

I got these:

- OS2World Gaming Site - DOS List. It list some games and if it needs GOSierra, vCompat, etc).
- eGamer: App and database. I have to check on this.

Regards

[Roderick Klein]

Aaah Martin, thanks! I had mentioned that to you in a private email (I think). That was the database I was thinking about with DOS settings! The egamer database I mean.

As for UNIAUD there is no way that I know of that you can get DOS audio from a DOS application.
In my opinion for DOS games you would need to emulate a Soundblaster 16, Pro or Soundblaster. Other cards is fun but you need *a* way for the DOS games to access a sound device. The old SB card range seems to make the most sense. For performance reasons you would need to use a VDD that communicates with the DTA.

Roderick

[Mathias]

Martin, I`ve started with Epic`s Secret Agent Man and found it fully working (as long as you select speaker as sound source).
Next I tried Epic`s Extreme Pinball. (Both games that I loved to play back then in DOS times)

With Extreme Pinball I have a weird situation: The demo (only having one table ¨Rock Fantasies¨) works excellent in ArcaOS DOS Full Screen. The full version of Extreme Pinball however, I didn`t get working, regardless which DOS settings I tried. Can you reproduce this?


Roderick, this sounds like an awesome idea: A sound card wrapper driver, that emulates a widely used card, the SB16 or AWE32, and maps through to UNIAUD..
Hard to believe nobody made such a thing yet. - The SB16 driver should be open source on linux for istance, so people knowing how to write drivers (and have some spare time.. :>) should be able to write such a thing.

[Pete]

Hi All

Could the soundcard source from DOSBox be used as a starting point in creating a virtual soundblaster for DOS proper?


Regards

Pete

[Dave Yeo]

Hi All

Could the soundcard source from DOSBox be used as a starting point in creating a virtual soundblaster for DOS proper?


Regards

Pete

Not really. DOSBox just uses SDL for sound and graphics.
Need a VDD, a driver that loads in DOS, that communicates with the OS/2 sound system, either DART or directly with UniAUD. The VDD would present the same interface as a SoundBlaster or whatever is chosen.
Be nice to have another one that does MIDI as well, perhaps interfacing with timidity or fluidsynth. Not sure how well sharing the sound would work then though.

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi Mathias.

I will try the games you listed. Yesterday I tried "Secret Agent" with the same results (It was the first time I played that)

I'm looking at Extreme Pinball (Medieval Knights):
- On DOS VDM Full screen, I just run "Extreme.exe" and the screen shows some "color vertical lines" and quits. Is it the same results you are experiencing?
- eGamer does not seems to have that game on the list for any setting suggestions.(It has a suggestion for the older one called Epic Pinball)
Suggestions to learn more about how to take any log of different alternatives to try are welcome.


On other DOS game subject:
- It would be interesting also to know if there is a DOS game that does not work (or that runs bad) on DOSBox and test it on VDM. I haven't found any but if something appears let me know.

Regards

[Mathias]

Hi Martin! : )

About Extreme Pinball:
I've had the same effect, indeed. - But setting the sound to "no soundcard" (Setup.exe), which unfortunately leads to no sound at all (speaker not supported in this game?), plus adding "mode co80" to autoexec.bat seems to have done the trick. Now all the tables can be played. \^___^/ - Yihaw! So this game actually works in OS/2's DOS full screen. Sound needs to wait for the maybe upcoming SoundBlaster "mapper" driver.. ; )

[Mathias]

Now I've tried the game [Electro Body]. All with default settings for DOS Full Screen. Autoexec.bat with a "mode co80" line, Config.sys unchanged from ArcaOS installation.

First I was greeted with a message, that Electro Body needs atleast 580.000 kb of free memory.
The "mem" command said I have 591.408 kb free... mhmm..

Then I've left the DOS fullscreen window, and set it's DOS memory properties to DOS=HIGH which results in a whopping 625.856 kb free!!! *_____* WOW, any game runs with that whole lot of free memory!!

The game starts now, and I could play... (even has PC speaker support) BUT, it runs terribly slow. Do you know a trick there? (Quit the game with F10)

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi Mathias.

I had tried just right Electro Bod. DOS Full Screen, no pc speaker, and setting DOS=HIGH works.
It runs and I'm playing it, but I don't see it terrible slow, the character moves ok, it is complete playable.

Regards

[Mathias]

Didn't work for me this way. I have found a solution that runs ElectroBody for me with Speaker Sound:
memory settings: DOS = HIGH
other settings: HW_TIMER = ON

(both non-standard)

Right to the next game..

The great well and known Sim City 2000! (DOS)
The sc2000.exe tells me:

Code: [Select]

DOS/4GW Professional Protected Mode Run-time  Version 1.95
Copyright (c) Rational Systems, Inc. 1990-1993

You do not have enough memory free to run SimCity 2000

1.904.096 bytes more free expanded/extended memory required

according to the mem command I do have...

Code: [Select]

    646144 bytes total memory
    646144 bytes available for DOS
    625856 largest executable program size

   2473984 bytes total EMS memory
   2097152 bytes free EMS memory

   2031616 bytes total XMS memory
   2031616 bytes available XMS memory
         0 bytes available contiguous extended memory
           DOS resident in High Memory Area
           High Memory Area in use

Maybe they need this 0 bytes available contiguous extended memory? Mhmm.. how to set this up?

Running the "install.exe" in the same directory as sc2000.exe brings up a weird one:

Code: [Select]

Your computer only has 1015 MB of RAM installed.
This game requires atleast 4096 MB of RAM.
This machine has thousands MB of installed RAM.. grr xD

[Dave Yeo]

Simcity2000 ran fine if you let OS/2 create the program object using the DOS gaming database that came with OS/2. Unluckily it has been so long that I forget how to do that

[ivan]

It might be easier to use the OS/2 version of Sim City 2000.

[Martin Iturbide]

Yes, but now the idea is to try some DOS games and check the DOS VDM configurations to make it run ok.  I had a different thread testing native OS/2 games.

Regards

[ivan]

Sorry Martin.

Are you including win 3.1 games in this category?