DosFreak wrote:

Purpose of this thread is to provide ideas/software/fixes for a new version of VDMSound.....probably the final version of VDMSound....EVER!

What a coincidence...I have already been putting together a series of fixes to address many of those issues. From a marketing perspective I was looking at a "new" product launch to bridge the gap between the performance of the current DOSBOX emulation on Win32 PCs as compared to the higher speed native emulation of the Win32-NTVDM for the ever popular late-era DOS protected mode games on lesser hardware.

I was going to approach the VOGONs crew about this matter in another month or so, but since you broached the subject - send me an email (in my profile) and we can discuss off-line. I think that the two products, DOSBOX and the fixed NTVDM emulator could complement each other over the next few years. The DOSBOX product is the future for much faster 64-bit based PC workstations, but the 32-bit Win32 base will be where most of the market will remain until the future standard is a (for lack of a better benchmark) roughly a 64-bit 11 GHz processor.

My curiosity has been raised as I have scanned the various websites pertaining to the exectution of older DOS applications and games on the WinNT/2K/XP platform. Looking at the Microsoft code it became apparent that most of the problems enountered were created by marketing decisions made to encourge the migration to the Win32/64 platform. The greatest technical accomplishments necessary for the NTVDM product have already been made in the guise of VDMSound and the DOS/32A DPMI extender. Outside of VCPI based (or proprietary memory-mangement) games, or very badly coded DOS apps/games which break outside of x86 real mode there is no technical reason that say 97% of all DOS games cannot be used with the Win32-NT based operating systems with a combination of DoxBox and the re-launched NTVDM based product.

The remaining Win32-NT problems appear to be VESA video access, mouse problems, DPMI host problems, NTVDM errors, EMS page-frame problems, multi-processor problems - all the little details that Microsoft 'forgot' to finish over the years.

I can fix those problems.

The other major problem with the current VDMSound/LaunchPad is that too many variables are left in the hands of DOS novices. The object of the system is to let individuals play GAMES, not become semi-literate in arcane DOS knowledge. Too many batch files, TSRs, load order, nested loaders, switch configuration for the average user. This must stop if the NTVDM product is to be successful.

I think we can do even better...

Let me know,

dvwjr

Just changed my email address, I showed up as guest above.

Let's see if I am me again...

dvwjr

> Overwrites NT4 files (may also happen with Windows 2000)

Didn't happen to me when I was under Win2K SP4.

Possible addition: support for MIDI intelligent mode (Legend games...).

The graphical gliches in Launchpad only seem to occur with version 1.0.1.3 of LaunchPad.dll, though earlier versions can cause problems with LaunchPad. Another minor point, what if when you check the "Enable low-level CD-ROM support" in LaunchPad, that it used SAPUCDEX instead of MSCEXNT. It might also be nice if some of the other utilities that come with VDMS could be set by checking an option in LaunchPad. These might make it easier to help noobs get some games going.