That is a big task. Erm... The biggest problem is that the majority of the titles would be DOS games, and every DOS game is like it's own O.S.

The easiest/best option is to give the software the hardware that it wants: an old PC. That is not practical for many people, so there are many other things you might try.

I would say the most important thing is to learn about your PC and it's O.S. and about how DOS works. Once you understand those, everything else will be much easier to understand (IRQ, DMA, etc...).

There is a lot more... Perhaps someone else can jump in and help.

In the meantime, look at the "Deep Thought" forum inside "Magrathea". Those posts are a good collection of information.

A little vage, but thanks anyway.
I'll look into the forum "Deep Thought" and hope I'll find something there.

And I'm still open for more tips...

hvilket blad da? 😉

and furthermore: you should mention the utilities VDMSound and Dosbox, perhaps a little info on that cli2nop stuff (anyone care to give it?).

Okay, um, let's see how I do.

Basically, in DOS, each program run has direct access to all of the hardware in the machine, meaning that it can do whatever it wants to with the hardware. This, however, caused a lot of stability problems. The solution, at least in Windows NT-based operating systems (NT, 2000, and XP), is to have a 'buffer' between the hardware and the software, thereby reducing the ability of a program to lock up a piece of hardware. There are some utilities, such as GIVEIO.SYS, that allow software to interface directly with the hardware, but generally these cause more problems than they illeviate. They will also not get your sound card working with DOS programs in NT/2K/XP for a variety of reasons that I won't get into here.

A good list of things to try are as follows:

• DOSBox, which will run about 50% of all real-mode 386 DOS games. No games that use protected-mode memory (games that use "extenders" such as DOS/4GW) will work at the moment, nor will games with 486 instructions, but compatibility is improving greatly with each release. Best for games from 1993 or earlier.
• VDMSound, of course, for games that use protected-mode memory, that use 486 instructions, that run from CD, or that just don't run properly in DOSBox. Best for games from 1994 or later, although depending on how well-coded a game is (the most important factor being timing), this can be used for earlier programs as well. Oh, yeah. Don't forget to get update1 and the latest Launchpad from here.
• ScummVM for LucasArts and AdventureSoft games. The latest release, 0.3.0b, has support for lots of nifty stuff to make your games even better, such as 2xSaI filtering, bilinear filtering, and, of course, plain ole' vanilla.
• Ask us for help, of course! I've gotta have at least one shameless plug. 😀 Besides, we've got a few tricks up our sleeves that I haven't mentioned here.
• Emulate another version. In a lot of cases, particularily with Arcade and Amiga games, the non-PC release was better.
• Use hardware the game was designed for. A basic 486/66DX-2 can be picked up for about $30 on eBay. Add in a cheap monitor (or use the one you've already got with a switcher), keyboard and mouse, CD-ROM drive, and an SB16 or AWE32, and you've got yourself a lean, mean, oldgaming machine! (Of course, some of these things could come with the computer, but mine didn't. 😜)

Anyway, I hope this is enough advice to get your readers off to a good start! And, since we're poor, maybe your magazine would like to sponsor us? 😀 (Hey, thought I'd at least try.)

Thanks alot, that really helped.

I will name this site if that helps, but I don't think I can hand out any money... This is my first try on a article for this mag so it's possible it won't be granted. But I'll try to make the best out of the information I've been given.

Thanks again.

I'm sorry if I wasn't specific enough, but there are a LOT of different things involved in running these old programs. Enough to fill a good, thick book.

Snover did a good job of "hitting the highlights". Once you start tinkering with these things you will see what I was talking about when I said "know how your OS works and how DOS works".

If you do not understand these things, many of these tools will be of little help.

Obviously, knowing English is a big help as well.

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

Obviously, knowing English is a big help as well.

I hope you weren’t referring to me... 😉

Originally posted by Apond I hope you weren’t referring to me...

No, just speaking in general terms. There is a lot of English-only text out there. I figure you know that already. Heh.