FreeDos - A Closer Look : \ VOGONS

FreeDos - A Closer Look :

Topic actions

Post a reply

First post, by Malik

Posted on 2010-02-06, 06:50

Malik Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2582
Joined: 2004-04-10, 14:37
Location: Ipoh, Malaysia

Thanks to keropi, I remembered to fire up the the FreeDos in my test setup.

My Test Setup:

DFI CA61 Socket 370 Motherboard
intel Coppermine 1GHz Socket 370 Processor
Micron 256MB PC-100 DRAM (128MB x 2)
WD 80GB used for this FreeDos Installation
Seagate 120GB (power cable pulled off during installation) used for Windows 98SE plus other related files
(Both are IDE Drives.)
Mitsumi Quad Speed CDD.
Lite-On DVD+RW Drive.
1 x 5.25" HD FDD
1 x 3.5" HD FDD
Gainward Geforce Ti4800SE AGP with 64MB RAM
2 x Creative CT6710 Voodoo2 12MB cards running in SLI mode
(the Geforce passes through the Voodoo2s)
Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
D-Link Airplus G wireless PCI Network Card

Post Screen :

Booting from the FreeDos CD:

FreeDos Logo Screen :

CD Boot Selection Menu :

Language Selection :

Sections Selections. The <..> shows the current position of the cursor. [X] denotes it is selected. Otherwise it will be [ ].

System Utilities:

File installation progress screen :

Freeware / Open Source Archivers for Dos! :

Dos I/O Utilities :

Text Editors for Dos :

Free Games for Dos! (Yeehaw!) :

Programming Languages for Dos! :

Multimedia tools for Dos :

Web and internet utilities for Dos! :

The basic system utilities selection screen prior to installation :

The packet driver installation for network cards which begins automatically
towards the end of the installation.

Voila! The Freedos first dos prompt!:

The mem/c command. Look at the Free Conventional Memory! This is the deafult configuration. Got this without altering anything for the first time :

Beware! The full install will eat up about 197MB of the hard drive space! :

The Heretic game in action! No problems loading from the initial setup as made by the freedos:

Errr...sorry for the picture qualities. Taken with my phone when I was "sleepy but not able to sleep" kind of moment. And at that time, "The Day was Dawning on Day 6". (Yeah, I'm a sucker for the Quest for Glory series! 😁)

SB Dos Drivers

Reply 1 of 8, by retro games 100

Posted on 2010-02-06, 07:53

retro games 100 Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 4624
Joined: 2008-05-03, 17:46

Malik, your monitor looks interesting. It doesn't look like the one you normally use. It looks more "square shaped" (not widescreen), as opposed to rectangular shaped. Is it 4:3 aspect ratio? If it is, can you please say a bit about it, such as model number, and whether it's any good or not. Thanks!

Reply 2 of 8, by Malik

Posted on 2010-02-06, 11:56

Malik Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2582
Joined: 2004-04-10, 14:37
Location: Ipoh, Malaysia

retro games 100 wrote:
Malik, your monitor looks interesting. It doesn't look like the one you normally use. It looks more "square shaped" (not widescreen), as opposed to rectangular shaped. Is it 4:3 aspect ratio? If it is, can you please say a bit about it, such as model number, and whether it's any good or not. Thanks!

Yes, this is my smaller LCD display : BENQ G700 17" 4:3 aspect ratio. So far, it's great and all the different resolutions from different graphic cards are properly stored in it's memory in terms of fine tuning for each resolutions.

Here is the specs page from BENQ's website : http://www.benq.com/products/LCD/?product=109 … =specifications

(Mine is the analog only G700A.)

I didn't actually buy this looking for it or after reading the reviews and so on. Saw it in a shop and got it without giving much thoughts because of my experience with BENQ products. (My bigger main display is also a BENQ.)

Bought this for my "operating table" use only. But turns out to be a good one. 😀

SB Dos Drivers

Reply 3 of 8, by Svenne

Posted on 2010-02-06, 17:43

Svenne Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 194
Joined: 2009-08-05, 00:40

I tried installing FreeDos in virtual PC, but it didn't even boot. I'll might try it on my uncle's old pentium rig I just got my hands on.

Reply 4 of 8, by keropi

Posted on 2010-02-06, 21:18

keropi Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 9290
Joined: 2003-09-08, 06:45
Location: Greece

the free conventional memory amount is EPIC !!!!
test more with sound cards!!!

🎵 🎧 ⏳ ⚡ PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 5 of 8, by WolverineDK

Posted on 2010-02-07, 00:08

WolverineDK Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1301
Joined: 2006-07-16, 21:00
Location: Denmark

Malik: I am looking forward to updates on this one, cause it looks to be very exciting.

Reply 6 of 8, by gerwin

Posted on 2010-02-07, 17:05

gerwin Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 3189
Joined: 2004-05-07, 19:21
Location: NL

Very interesting this freeDos article.

Malik wrote:
Yes, this is my smaller LCD display : BENQ G700 17" 4:3 aspect ratio. So far, it's great and all the different resolutions from different graphic cards are properly stored in it's memory in terms of fine tuning for each resolutions.

1280x1024 is almost 4:3 but not exactly. For that you need to trim it to 1280x960. My screen has the same resolution (syncmaster 730BF). Fortunately the Nvidia videocard has a "fixed aspect ratio scaling" setting, but only in windows.

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 7 of 8, by Davros

Posted on 2010-08-31, 11:11

Davros Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2699
Joined: 2004-03-01, 03:08

1280x1024 is 5:4

Guardian of the Sacred Five Terabyte's of Gaming Goodness

Reply 8 of 8, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2010-09-04, 11:27

Mau1wurf1977 Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 7652
Joined: 2010-08-27, 04:15
Location: Western Australia

I will also play around with Free DOS soon. So far I only tried (with success):

- Monkey Island 2
- Last Crusade
- Prince of Persia

on a i815 board with a 900 MHz Celeron and Cache disabled.

I am still waiting for my CF stuff before I can install everything and start trying some games...

I have most other boot disks from Bootdisk.Com. Dos 6.22 for best compatibility, Win 95b for Fat 32 and Win98SE for easy CD-Rom drive access...

UPDATE: So far I was able to play any game I tried.

I highly recommend you do the small install. The full install loads anything from a web browser to games and network software...

Free DOS auto installs a CD driver and also a mouse driver.

Games I tried so far:

- Last Crusade
- Monkey Island
- Monkey Island 2
- Wing Commander
- Wing Commander 2
- Prince of Persia
- Hearth of China
- Ultima 6

Go to top of page Go to top of page

Back to Milliways

Main menu

Common searches