Run Your Old DOS Games on XP

[Donald]

Hi From Texas !

I surf a lot and I ran into this URL. I don't much uderstand DOS in that you have to use commands and stuff like that. I'll stay with point and click. Anyway , for what's it worth , I pass on this URL. You can check it out or blow it off.--------Don
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox

[bailey]

I must tell you that a lot of the older dos games will not run very well with the systems we have today, first they would run way too fast to be useable if at all.

[Donald]

Hi bailey !
Thanks for your reply. You say that it would run to fast on our computers. If I understand what they say is that their program mulates a full x86 PC thereby letting you play the games sound and all . I don't own any DOS system applications. It is that I have heard people in forums ask if you can run DOS in XP, so I put in this post to let them check this claim out . Their program may be bunk, or the best thing to come along for running DOS in XP, I just don't know. Maybe someone will check this out and come back with a report on this. Thanks--------Don

[bailey]

not without dos being installed including all the dos drivers for all the hardware too , and that don't exist, there is no dos support for the hardware in todays systems,
and I am refering to the dos programs written in the 80 and 90 erea.
dod does not exist on a xp system, its just a comand prompt that will do a few dos type commands.

[RJ]

Cool, thanks for the link. I still have many DOS games, and although the game itself plays without problems in XP, the sound does not.
I downloaded the emulator and tried it. The sound sounds very accurate. Not 100% perfect, but nearly there. Or maybe I'm just used to today's modern sound. .. I'll have to run these games on my old PC and compare. . but it seems that I can resurrect my old DOS games :-)

RJ

[TwoRails]

Thanks for the link, Donald ! I thiink I'll wait for at least verions 1.0, but I'll be trying it.

TwoRails

[RJ]

Alright. I tested the emulator with 3 commercial DOS games and some freeware stuff.

Dune II
Indiana Jones and the last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

I wanted to run Pinball Fantasies too but I haven't found my CD. Since it never ran in a DOS box (only in real DOS mode) that game would be interesting.

All three games worked with the DOS emulator, but slow. The website says the performance is about a low end 486, which I can confirm. The sound of the games is pretty good but nevertheless not original. There are still errors in there.
Also the DosBox Emulator doesn't stretch the x400 vertical resolution to full screen but preserves the aspect ratio, which I don't like at all.
Also the freeware programs didn't make any problems with the Emulator.

So, my conclusion: DOSBox Emulator does its job, but it's far from finished yet. Some day it might be worth it, especially for games that don't work in Windows (like Pinball Fantasies) but for now I'd just use VDM sound, a DOS sound emulator, because the games themselves run without problems under XP (with its normal speed and in full screen), it's just the sound that is troublesome.

RJ

[HAL9000]

Hmmm... will have to dig out Duke Nukem and Redneck Rampage again LOL

[DragonNOA1]

I d/l it and will give it a try here shortly.