In my humble opinion, DOSBox is AND will evolve more. 😎

People from Microsoft could not care less for some old DOS games ... They are making an emulator for business, not for gamers. Therefore DOSBOX is much better.
If some game works in Virtual PC well, then it is good, if not, then you have bad luck - there is only a very small probability that it will ever be fixed.

Mirek

Microsoft Virtual PC does not support MPU-401 in DOS

I think (without researching it though) that dosbox is quite unique in the intelligent mode emulation of the mpu. (at least in a usable state for games)

Virtual PC is great for those games that are difficult to run without an older version of Windows (usually games around the age of Win95). DOS games definitely fit better with DOSBox (if you've got a powerfull enough PC!).

I really wish there was a Win98 emulator as some later Win9x games won't work in XP and I don't want to partition my hard drive...

Examples:

Pro Rally 2001
Williams F1 Team Driver
Extreme-G2
Pod Gold (more a Pentium4 problem apparently)

As Virtual PC only emulates low-end PC graphics cards (S3-era) it won't run these more recent high-end games properly. 🙁

Ice

As far as partitioning goes - very soon now no one is going to be supporting drivers for windows 98 anyway. It'd better to hand onto a vintage windows 98 machine.

I don't suppose that Virtual PC helps if you wanted to install a PCI card with Windows 98 drivers on Windows XP does it? I think this is a fat chance but I thought I'd ask.

There is another freeware emulator http://bochs.sourceforge.net/
but I don't see any evidence of audio support.

Bochs emulates an SB16/AWE-something. Works fine for me and Win95 on XP.

Does it do an MPU-401?

is there a simple setup guide for bochs to run say Win95? Wen Win95 is running in bochs what graphic card/s can it detect/use?

Cheers,

Ice

VirtuaIceMan wrote:

is there a simple setup guide for bochs to run say Win95? Wen Win95 is running in bochs what graphic card/s can it detect/use?

a) The first rule is: Bochs is not simple and userfriendly.

b) Windows 95 - it should be possible to install it in Bochs (I failed some time ago with W98 SE - but it could be some problem on my side - remember the point a) ).
You must make disc image (Bochs contains BXIMAGE.EXE for that), there is no mounting directories as in DOSBOX. You can probably install from CD, but I installed DOS to a disc image, copied Windows files there and installed from there (for editing of Bochs disc images I recommend DiskExplorer from http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA013937/editd … sk/index_e.html (choose VMWare format).

c) Graphic card - I do not remember, probably some S3 card - certainly not any 3D accelerator

d) Bochs emulates CPU as DOSBOX does. So if somebody is looking for something more quicker than DOSBOX, then Bochs is not a solution.

e) MPU401 - yes - it works. SB 16 emulation - I could not get it work now. In any case they are warning that it works acceptable only when the program does no do much else. Some months ago I had some working sound in Bochs, but it was less reliable and more stuttering than in DOSBOX.

Mirek

@MiniMax: How did you make the sound work in Bochs?

Mirek

I piddled with Bochs a little, and it is quite clear from the documentation and the command line interface that it is geared towards people who want to run Windows as a guest OS on a computer with Linux. My recommendation: if you want to run old Windows as a guest OS pay the $110 for Virtual PC or suffer.

@mirekluza - It has been months since I installed Bochs + W95. AFAICR I did not do anything special... Just popped in the CD and it installed?

FWIW, here is the Bochs config file:

1                 boot: disk
2
3                  log: bochs_out.log
4         debugger_log: bochs_dbg.log
5
6                panic: action=ask
7                error: action=report
8                 info: action=report
9                debug: action=ignore
10
11     config_interface: textconfig
12      display_library: win32
13        user_shortcut: keys=win
14
15                  ips: 1000000
16                clock: sync=realtime, time0=local
17 floppy_command_delay: 500
18                 megs: 64
19
20             romimage: file="$BXSHARE\BIOS-bochs-latest", address=0xf0000
21          vgaromimage:      "$BXSHARE\VGABIOS-lgpl-latest"
22
23              floppya: 1_44="A:",      status=inserted
24#             floppyb: 1_44="B:",      status=inserted
25
26  newharddrivesupport: enabled=1
27
28                 ata0: enabled=1, ioaddr1=0x1f0, ioaddr2=0x3f0, irq=14
29                 ata1: enabled=0, ioaddr1=0x170, ioaddr2=0x370, irq=15
30                 ata2: enabled=0, ioaddr1=0x1e8, ioaddr2=0x3e8, irq=11
31                 ata3: enabled=0, ioaddr1=0x168, ioaddr2=0x368, irq=9
32
33          ata0-master: type=disk,  model="200 MB HD image",  path="200MB.img",          cylinders=406, heads=16, spt=63
34          ata0-slave:  type=cdrom, model="CD-ROM ISO image", path="M:\DANW95B_USB.iso", status=inserted
35
36                 sb16: midimode=1, wavemode=1, log=bochs_sb16.log, loglevel=3, dmatimer=600000

MiniMax wrote:

@mirekluza - It has been months since I installed Bochs + W95. AFAICR I did not do anything special... Just popped in the CD and it installed?

Oh, it's so clear now. Sorry, the learning time is still worth more to me than the cost of Virtual PC.

If you put a Windows95 disk in your computer the default action will not be to install under Bochs. Obviously there is more to it then you remember.

I remember trying W98SE in BOCHS some time ago and it froze during installation. May be if I tried it again, it would be better, bit I was just fed up with Bochs (I periodically try to use it and periodically give up in disgust after hitting some bugs).

Mirek

A huge listing of what runs on Virtual PC:

http://vpc.visualwin.com/

I don't know about the other games, but Pod Gold runs fine on my PIV.

I really wish there was a Win98 emulator as some later Win9x games won't work in XP and I don't want to partition my hard drive. […]
Show full quote

I really wish there was a Win98 emulator as some later Win9x games won't work in XP and I don't want to partition my hard drive...

Examples:

Pro Rally 2001
Williams F1 Team Driver
Extreme-G2
Pod Gold (more a Pentium4 problem apparently)

Pod Gold now works thanks to Dege's fine patches. Williams F1 Team Driver works now sometimes(!).

The other two still remain firmly dead. Also dead is Jetboat SuperChamps (and Hot Chix n Gear Stix / SuperChix76) though Jetboat SuperChamps 2 and Kayak Extreme work fine (evolutions of the same engine) however Real and Small Rockets (who distribute the games) no longer are in touch with the Russian company who made the games; hence no patches 😜

Ice