Can't vouch for how well it might work for you, but I came across this freeware. Their newest version does not support Win9x but this one does. :

http://sourceforge.net/projects/winmerge/file … /stable/2.12.4/

I know that you move your drives around from one machine to the other for file manipulations, so perhaps even the newest release http://winmerge.org/ may work for you. Sounds like it may be just what you need, if it works for what you need it to.

Also, I had downloaded two (older) games from GOG and had planned on porting them over to my retro builds, just haven't gotten to it yet. I have them burned to CD, maybe I will get to them sooner than later.

Winmerge is indeed a nice free comparison tool, but I can also highly recommend Araxis Merge as an alternative. It's not free, but I believe you can freely download a trial version which you may use for a month, without restrictions.

On a side note about installing on an old machine, the GOG installers are made with Inno Setup. These installers can be unpacked with tools like innounp. It will also unpack the installer script that you can use as a guide to manually install the games. You will be able to find the required registry entries, system files, etc.

That's great news! Thanks for the tip 😀

One game that works perfectly on a Pentium 4, 2 GB RAM, Geforce FX 5950 and Windows XP SP2 is the GOG.com release of Splinter Cell.

Because of the Installer I couldn't test it under W98SE.

To get all the shadows on the FX (and also GF 3 and 4) one little change is needed to a configuration file (GOG.com made this change so it works better on modern PCs) but apart from that all is working well. I won't be able to test the EAX Advanced HD button until an Audigy card arrives, but I expect this to work just fine.

With very early W98 3D games I found it's cheaper, easier and less nerve wrecking to just buy the games 2nd hand on eBay. Games such as Unreal, Incoming, Forsaken, Quake, Quake 2 I have been able to source for just a few dollars each.

Tested the GOG.com release of Splinter Cell on a Pentium 4 with a Geforce FX 5950 Ultra and Windows XP SP2. Works beautifully. They made one well known change to the ini file for compatibility with new PCs, but after this change everything works great.

I like GOG.com releases such as this because I don't have to be online and worry about security dramas.

It also includes a late 1.3 patch and some extra missions.

Found that tool too hard to use 😊

But I noticed one difference in the GOG.com version of Splinter Cell. The EAX tick box in the options doesn't work. It is always disabled.

The original CD version (3 CDs) however works fine.

So they must have made some changes here. Maybe EAX is causing issues on new machines so they disabled it.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

So they must have made some changes here. Maybe EAX is causing issues on new machines so they disabled it.

EAX isn't supported past Windows XP without emulation, and IME ALchemy (Creative's emulation wrapper) tends to cause things to crash more often than it "helps" things. It isn't surprising that they'd remove the options to improve compatibility/playability on newer machines, but it is kind of annoying if they're completely taking the choice out of the end-user's hands.

Quick update!

I had good experience with this utility:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/innoextract/? … ource=directory

While it is a command line utility, it is very easy to use.

What I do is put the executable and the GOG.com Installation exectuable in the same folder. Then I create a shortcut to innoextract. Then I open the properties of the shortcut and add the name of the GOG.com executable at the end.

Then you just double click on the shortcut and it unpacks all the files 😀

Got the GOG.com version of Incoming running on my Pentium III with Voodoo 3 and Windows 98SE off a USB stick.

Incoming forces however shows an error message. I will investigate...

collector wrote:

It will also unpack the installer script that you can use as a guide to manually install the games. You will be able to find the required registry entries, system files, etc.

I have attached the script file for the GOG.com release of Incoming and Incoming forces.

Is there a way to now process this script under W98?

i have the retail version installed under win7 works fine

ps: switches.png

pps:
def forces.exe is the retail.exe , forces.exe is a nocd exe

It seems this is a DX8 game. So maybe that is the issue?

Update:

GOG.com version of Incoming Forces runs fine off a USB on a Pentium 4A 1.6 GHz machine with a GeForce4 Ti 4200 😀

You might find my latest video tutorial useful!

Installing GOG.com Windows games on Windows 98 retro gaming PCs

Thank you!

Just a small tip: you might wanna turn down the system volume next time you're doing a tutorial like that. People can't hear you when the sound of the game you're showing is louder than your voice.

Yasashii wrote:

Thank you!

Just a small tip: you might wanna turn down the system volume next time you're doing a tutorial like that. People can't hear you when the sound of the game you're showing is louder than your voice.

It was an issue with the microphone. I had it set too low 🙁 I then had to boost it all to be audible, but it also boosted the game footage.

Why don't you just put the microphone at 100% volume, keep the game and everything else at, say, 20%, and just boost the master audio in whatever video editor you're using? That way your voice is properly loud but everything else is just as quiet as it needs to be.

I'm not doing this for the first time! It was an oversight, nothing more, nothing less 😀

Oh, I'm very sorry, then. I just assumed too much. And as my phonetics teacher once said, when you ass|u|me too much you make an ass of you and me. 🤣

Yasashii wrote:

Oh, I'm very sorry, then. I just assumed too much. And as my phonetics teacher once said, when you ass|u|me too much you make an ass of you and me. 🤣

No worries 😀

I only realised after shooting the footage and simply didn't want to do it again. Luckily it was just a short moment. I shall take better care for my next video.