VOGONS


First post, by Mike

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I'd love to run older games like Odium, and such, but I am unsure if there is a way to emulate Windows 95 with 3D acceleration to get it to work. I'm thinking about purchasing a copy of Windows 95, and am unsure of which version of VMware to purchase along with that. Any help will be greatly appreciated!! Thank you!

Reply 1 of 18, by DosFreak

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There is no 3D acceleration for guests below Windows 2000 in a VM in either Vmware Player\Workstation or Virtualbox.

If you want 3D Acceleration in a VM for 9x you'll have to use pcem or an unofficial build of DOSBox but more than likely the game will work fine on Windows 2000 or above.

Most old Windows games work fine on Windows 2000 and above so best to try them before making assumptions that they won't work.

As for Odium I only have the demo but the last time I tested it years ago it worked fine on Windows 7 64bit with an Intel video card but I had to disable DEP.

Just like most 9x games you can probably switch between gdi,ddraw,d3d anyway and most of the time it didn't make much of a difference and you also have the option of using the D3D wrapper in dgvoodoo2.

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Reply 2 of 18, by keenmaster486

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Hmm, if it's a game which positively only works in Windows 9x then my instinct is to run Windows 98 in pcem... Or Windows 95 in DOSBox - wasn't there an unofficial build somewhere with Voodoo support?

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Reply 3 of 18, by Jorpho

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Odium is better known as Gorky 17, and is still available on GOG and Steam. There is surely a way of getting it running on Windows 10 without elaborate emulation.

Mike wrote:

I'm thinking about purchasing a copy of Windows 95, and am unsure of which version of VMware to purchase along with that.

Generally there is little reason to use Windows 95 instead of Windows 98 SE in situations where that is a good idea. There is also generally little reason not to stick with VMware Player, which is free.

Reply 4 of 18, by Mike

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Jorpho wrote:

Odium is better known as Gorky 17, and is still available on GOG and Steam. There is surely a way of getting it running on Windows 10 without elaborate emulation.

Mike wrote:

I'm thinking about purchasing a copy of Windows 95, and am unsure of which version of VMware to purchase along with that.

Generally there is little reason to use Windows 95 instead of Windows 98 SE in situations where that is a good idea. There is also generally little reason not to stick with VMware Player, which is free.

Just found it on GOG, but I see that it is only compatible with Windows XP and Vista, which I have neither of. Any suggestions will be appreciated, as I really do want to play this game, and also my copy of Diablo 2 without trouble. Thanks.

Reply 6 of 18, by Mike

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Jorpho wrote:

Since it's on GOG, have you tried looking at the forums there?

The Steam version might also be slightly different.

Yeah, I just had a glimpse of the forums there, and the most commonly cited problem is what I have with my physical copy of the game, which are graphical glitches.
I just want to get rid of the graphical glitches and be able to play the game.

Reply 8 of 18, by Aideka

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People on GoG forums also suggest using software mode and disabling the games Windows 95 compatibility settings. Apparently the menu is laggy then, but the game itself works fine.

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Reply 9 of 18, by Mike

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Aideka wrote:

People on GoG forums also suggest using software mode and disabling the games Windows 95 compatibility settings. Apparently the menu is laggy then, but the game itself works fine.

Okay, I'm going to try this again later today, and disable 3D acceleration, and not run it in compatibility mode, and see if that works. If I come across anything new, I'll let you guys know, thanks for your patience in helping me with this matter.

Reply 10 of 18, by ZellSF

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Gorky17 works fine with dgVoodoo2 and that's what I recommend. Though I seem to recall getting it to run fine with DxWnd too.

Emulation and virtualization are both pretty bad options that you should stay away from unless you have no other choice. It might seem simpler on the surface but it's really not, between terrible 3D acceleration support (virtualization) and terrible performance (emulation) you're in for a really bad experience a lot of the time.

Reply 12 of 18, by Joey_sw

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most problem usually came from DRM-drivers (yuck) & DirectDraw API, which sometimes works differently between Win 9x vs NT.
for directdraw issues most of them can be solved by using Aqrit's DDWrapper.

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Reply 13 of 18, by Sammy

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I am unsing Windows95 in Dosbox and Windows 98SE in 86box and PCem.

Dosbox is much faster than X86.
I can emulate near a Pentium 166 with a Core2Quad 9550S.

With 86box i only can only emulate to the Speed of a Pentium75.

If i set 86box to emulate a Pentium 90/100 then Sound stutters /replays Fragments during Playing. (NFS2SE for example)

On the other Side PCem/86box is much more stable than (unsupported WIN95/dosbox-Combination)

BTW: When 86box can not emulate at 100% Speed (look at Titlebar) Sound begins to stutter, but on HostCPU only 25% are used, 75% idle... Why?

Reply 14 of 18, by vladstamate

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Because you have a 4 core machine and 86box is not multithreaded?

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Reply 16 of 18, by vladstamate

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Sammy wrote:

None of the cores is at 100%, all 4 are between 20-30%

The only other thing I can think of (from personal experience with writing emulators) is just a lot of locks/waits which when used at higher frequencies, they show more and more and become a bottleneck. But it is just a guess, I could be wrong. I am not familiar with 86Box code enough.

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Reply 17 of 18, by tyrell

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Without any doubts, PCEm.

This is the *best* possible solution for DOS/Win9x emulation on modern platforms.
It even comes bundled with 3dfx software emulation !
Config is more complicated because you have to start from scratch (dos installation, drivers install, edit config.sys & autoexec.bat files ...)
But once this is done, this is just the best platform ever for dos (and win9x) revival !

DosBox is a lot easier to run, that's a fact.

Reply 18 of 18, by Sammy

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I am searching for a Guide how to get the best speed out of PCem or 86box, when emulating a pc for Win95/98 with 3dfx.

What cpu and mainboard to emulate?

Host system is a core2quad 9550s with win7 64 bit