The ArcaOS 5.x Retro Gaming Machine

The goal of this experiment will be to create a Retro Gaming Machine (PC) with ArcaOS 5.x (OS/2 Warp 4.52). The idea is to list the things that you will need to setup ArcaOS to run:
 * Native compiled OS/2 games
 * DOS games on the virtual DOS VDM session that OS/2 has.
 * Windows 3.1 or 16bits games on Win-OS/2.
 * DOS games with DOSBox if required.

So let's start:

Native OS/2 Games
There are some native games available for OS/2. There are games that complete native that had been created with the OS/2 API without any extra libraries, and there are also ported games that runs natively on ArcaOS with some extra libraries that had been ported, like SDL and Qt games.

Here are my recommendations for the Native gaming environment.

Audio Driver
First we need to have our basic audio driver working on ArcaOS. UNIAUD is the default audio driver that may work on some systems, it is far from perfect and it lacks support of some devices, but it is what we have today. The first step is to have basic audio support on your ArcaOS system.

Recommended Libraries
To run OS/2 native games I recommend preparing the system with the following utilities and libraries: yum install xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 * Arca Noae Package Manager is a very good tool install rpm packages, maybe you already have it, but double check that you are on the latest level.
 * There is a pack of libraries that you must have installed, just check that you have the followin:
 * SDL Libraries
 * GI Libraries. A few games require it, not very critical.

ISOFS
It is good to have a tool that can mount ISO images as a drive on OS/2. Remember that there are some games that was shipped, runs and require a CD-ROM, and today this kind of drive is turning obsolete. I'm using ISOFS by Rich Walsh. Version 1.1.0 - GNU GPL.

This tool will also became handy for Windows 3.1 and DOS games.

DOS Games with OS/2's DOS VDM

 * Internet Archive DOS Games

Audio Limitation
There is still a limitation with DOS VDM sound support at this moment. The most common OS/2 audio driver is Uniaud and for the moment there is no way to support audio on a DOS VDM session using this driver.

A VDD (Virtual DOS Driver) is required to be made so DOS VDM can have sound through the Uniaud uadio driver on OS/2. We have our hopes that Arca Noae update the DTA driver so it can work.

Audio on DOSBox works because it uses the SDL libraries for sound.

Win16 games with Win-OS/2
Trying DTA.


 * Install DTA (2002/11/30)
 * Configure the Win-OS2 Session:
 * EMS_MEMORY_LIMIT = 0
 * EMS_FRAME_LOCATION = NONE

Extra things for Windows 3.1

 * Quicktime 2.1.2, 1.81 M: The latest Quicktime version that will work with 3.1x. The archive additionally contains the Quicktime Internet-Plugin v. 1.1.
 * Video for Windows 1.1e -
 * Media Player 5.2 beta, 5.5M
 * WIN32s 1.30.172, 2.41M

Games Library

 * https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_win3?&sort=-downloads&page=4

DOSBox on ArcaOS
On DOSBox the basic things to do after installing it is:
 * Configuring the auto mount of the driver where you have the games
 * Checking the appropriated sound configuration.

Win-OS2 Session

 * The Win-OS2 mouse in full screen moves slowly
 * No solution