Need help making my computer suck!

[Tsyr]

Heh.

Actually, that's not quite what I need.

I've been digging out CDs and disks for the past few days of the good old games... my Ultimate Ultima Collection disk, my Forgotten Realms Archive collection, Synidcate Wars, Transarctic, you name it...

Problem is, these are all DOS games. My computer is so advanced it can't run DOS, or something.

What I need is... I dunno... a DOS emulator, or something. Something that would act like a DOS shell, but set up a fake sound card to route to my real one (That's the #1 problem, sound... I can get a lot of them working from command prompt, but there is no way to get sound), handle the strange memory types, etc.

Does such a thing exist?

I'm running Windows, by the way, if the reference to command prompt didn't give it away.

Baring that, anyone got an old, say, Pentium 100 with *real* dos, a soundblaster 16, and maybe a copy of windows 3.1 or 95 on it they would sell me cheap? Be nice if it had a CD-Rom too, or could at least take one.

Also, does anyone know a way to force windows XP to run in 256 color mode? I have an old windows 3.1 game I like that refuses to run in anything but 256 color mode, but it's not even an option.

 

[MythosaAkira]

Heh.
Also, does anyone know a way to force windows XP to run in 256 color mode? I have an old windows 3.1 game I like that refuses to run in anything but 256 color mode, but it's not even an option.

If you right-click on a program's icon, select "Properties" and the "Compatibility" tab, there's a checkbox for "Run in 256 colors".

Not sure how well it works, but you might want to try it.

 

[Tsyr]

Ok, yay. That got that one working.

I knew about the compatability tab, but I never thought that that was where they would hide 256 color mode.

 

[Femerus the Gnecro]

Here's something else that would work...

If you get Virtual PC for Windows, and install an old version of Windows, like 95 or 98, you can install the games and run them 'natively' in DOS.

It works great for old games.

-F

 

[Tsyr]

Here's something else that would work...

If you get Virtual PC for Windows, and install an old version of Windows, like 95 or 98, you can install the games and run them 'natively' in DOS.

It works great for old games.

-F

The big problem is going to be the sound card, though. Most of those old games just plain won't work if you have anything beyond a SB 32. Some of them refuse to work for anything more than a SB 16 or Pro.

 

[shadowlight]

You could always try a dual boot setup and buy DOS 6 off of eBay! The problem is that you probably won't be able to find drivers for newer hadware...

 

[Zenon]

Heh, had sort of the same problem - my wife loves to play M.A.X. by Interplay(the first one, not the silly M.A.X. 2), but it is a DOS game.

She was running Win98 SE and it ran fine, but when we upgraded her whole computer (the new one had XP Pro), it wouldn't even run.

Here's some tricks I learned while mucking about with it:

She just has on-board video. When we started the game, the whole screen frizzed out into diagonal stripes. I tried Compatibility mode (95/98), 256 Color box checked or unchecked, updating video drivers to the latest version and nothing resolved it.

The fix: Use the Startup Menu in XP (hold down F8 during booting to get the menu). One of the choices is Enable VGA Mode. Once this was selected, the video ran fine. The on-board video drivers claimed they offered a VGA compatibility, but they lied.

Once we got the video going, we also ran into the "no sound" trouble. Although XP claims to be able to intercept DOS sound requests, it didn't work for M.A.X. None of the game menu sound setup options (SB16, SB32, etc) produced any sound.

The fix: After I did a little poking around, I found this program:
http://www.ece.mcgill.ca/~vromas/vdmsound/

VDMSound works (not perfectly, the sound still skips a little occasionally during explosions, but it's better than no sound at all and it doesn't crash XP). If your XP won't emulate the DOS game sound, give it a try.

Here's another XP DOS game emulator that I ran accross, but didn't try:
http://www.softsystem.co.uk/page4.htm

Let us know if any of this works for you! Good luck!