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
To run OS/2 native games I recommend preparing the system with the following utilities and libraries:
- 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:
yum install xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- SDL Libraries
- GI Libraries. A few games require it, not very critical.
MIDI Support
Extra Tools
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.
DOS Games with OS/2's DOS VDM
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 2.12, 1.81 M: The latest Quicktime version that will work with 3.1x. The archive additionally contains the Quicktime Internet-Plugin v. 1.1. [1]
- Video for Windows 1.1e -
- Media Player 5.2 beta, 5.5M [2]
- WIN32s 1.30.172, 2.41M [3]