I used also OAKCDROM.SYS. It is good and classic.
Also used VIDE-CDD.SYS. But i prefer OAKCDROM.SYS

My 2 cents:

I've been using Jack Ellis's excellent XDVD2 driver. It takes only 144 bytes of upper memory and the rest i let it load on HMA. I recommend you RTFM. For CDROM extensions i use a couple: i use Helix Software licensed MSCDEX extensions with cloaking. It allows me to just spend 2.5kb upper memory for MSCDEX and 1kb for the Cloaking API. The bulk of MSCDEX is loaded into XMS. For Mouse driver i also use a licensed Logitech driver that just takes 1kb of upper memory while the cloaking API takes the rest to XMS. All these 3 drivers take a "whopping" less than 5kb from upper memory.

The i also use SHSUCDHD and SHSUCDX to mount ISO files as a CD drive. That allows me to play a lot of DOS games without original CD's. The latest SHSUCDX seems to have improved. At least games with audio tracks i tried (Loom, Alone in the Dark) worked great. Need for Speed now works with SHSUCDX. Good times.

For SCSI CD or DVD drives it's Iomega's SCSICD.SYS: Takes ~8 KByte . Can be found in "Iomega DOS Tools v5.51" on vogonsdrivers.com

red_avatar wrote on 2021-12-31, 13:13:

I've done a LOT of testing on many different systems over the past two years using a mix of original & replacement drivers and I […]
Show full quote

I've done a LOT of testing on many different systems over the past two years using a mix of original & replacement drivers and I found the following:

- CTMOUSE is not worth it - way too many games have issues with it:
* games not detecting the mouse
* game speed being wrong or X/Y axis having different speeds
* weird jittery movement in some games
* weird acceleration in some games
* some games straight out go bonkers where the mouse flies to the edge of the screen (Delphine games mostly - Cruise for a Corpse, Stealth Affair, etc.)
* games straight up crashing on start

AGREED. I had recently (well, over the past month or two) built a really nice 486 DX-4 100MHz machine and everything was working fine EXCEPT every once in a while in various games (DOOM, ROTT, Wolf3D) my game controller would go nuts. It was like it would just become uncalibrated randomly. Sometimes in game....sometimes when launching the game. Stuff like down or right would not work or would work very slowly out of nowhere....all sorts of strange things.

I though it was the game controller. Tried others, nope. Thought it was the soundcard game port, so I switched to (enabled) the game port on my controller card and disabled the sound card port. Nope...same.

Then I thought, could cutemouse be causing these issues? The answer is YES. I moved to a different mouse driver and all issues are gone. Damn you CTmouse....not "cute" at all!

I know cutemouse is popular, but I can't recommend it. It caused me a few days of frustration and it is now forever deleted!

eightbit wrote on 2022-04-09, 04:39:

I though it was the game controller. Tried others, nope. Thought it was the soundcard game port, so I switched to (enabled) the game port on my controller card and disabled the sound card port. Nope...same.

Then I thought, could cutemouse be causing these issues? The answer is YES. I moved to a different mouse driver and all issues are gone. Damn you CTmouse....not "cute" at all!

I know cutemouse is popular, but I can't recommend it. It caused me a few days of frustration and it is now forever deleted!

This is hilarious. I briefly tried a game controller many years ago, and had issues with it. Don't remember exactly what. Didn't care much, because to me a keyboard is best anyways, but now I have to wonder if/how many of those problems were due to CuteMouse... 😜

You know that this thread was about CD drivers for DOS?

1541 wrote on 2022-04-09, 08:18:

You know that this thread was about CD drivers for DOS?

Certainly....but it got boring.

Just kidding....go ahead and carry on.....sorry to veer off. 😉

I've literally never had a problem with cute mouse been using it for like 10 years almost

Are those of you having troubles with it using serial or ps/2?

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-04-09, 14:19:

I've literally never had a problem with cute mouse been using it for like 10 years almost

Are those of you having troubles with it using serial or ps/2?

I stopped using it due to having a problem at least with one game called Shattered Steel where in most cases it stays on a black screen doing nothing at all, plus I didn't like how the mouse sensitivity was handled with that driver.

The black screen problem as on a PS/2 mouse, I don't know if that happens with a serial mouse.

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-04-09, 14:19:

I've literally never had a problem with cute mouse been using it for like 10 years almost

Are those of you having troubles with it using serial or ps/2?

Mine is using serial.

carlostex wrote on 2022-01-24, 21:47:

The i also use SHSUCDHD and SHSUCDX to mount ISO files as a CD drive. That allows me to play a lot of DOS games without original CD's. The latest SHSUCDX seems to have improved. At least games with audio tracks i tried (Loom, Alone in the Dark) worked great. Need for Speed now works with SHSUCDX. Good times.

Hello,

What kind of PC Computer do you have ?
I was told that SHSUCDHD and SHSUCDX are slow with ISO files as CD drive. I try to play Loom CD as my computer is too slow with scummVM Win98.

Do you really play audio tracks from ISO with SHSUCDX ? I thought it was not possible. If it is, it's great news for me. I was looking for such a CD less play for a long time.

DataPro wrote on 2022-04-11, 12:13:

Hello, […]
Show full quote

carlostex wrote on 2022-01-24, 21:47:

The i also use SHSUCDHD and SHSUCDX to mount ISO files as a CD drive. That allows me to play a lot of DOS games without original CD's. The latest SHSUCDX seems to have improved. At least games with audio tracks i tried (Loom, Alone in the Dark) worked great. Need for Speed now works with SHSUCDX. Good times.

Hello,

What kind of PC Computer do you have ?
I was told that SHSUCDHD and SHSUCDX are slow with ISO files as CD drive. I try to play Loom CD as my computer is too slow with scummVM Win98.

Do you really play audio tracks from ISO with SHSUCDX ? I thought it was not possible. If it is, it's great news for me. I was looking for such a CD less play for a long time.

My system is a Pentium MMX 233, which is most of the time downclocked to 100.

Never had any slowdown issues whatsoever with these drivers.

CD Audio tracks are not supported. Keep in mind i said i can play a lot of DOS games without the CD, but i didn't say i could play them all.

With regards to audio tracks working well, i was referring to SHSUCDX driver only which in the past had issues with games with CD audio tracks. Mounting ISO's with SHSUCDHD will not play Audio CD tracks for obvious reasons, whether you are using SHSUCDX or MSCDEX.

Well if you care for CPU Utilisation go for SCSI CD-ROM and Controller with DMA Support ?
There was a Reason, why SCSI was more expensive 😉

carlostex wrote on 2022-04-12, 11:21:

My system is a Pentium MMX 233, which is most of the time downclocked to 100. […]
Show full quote

My system is a Pentium MMX 233, which is most of the time downclocked to 100.

Never had any slowdown issues whatsoever with these drivers.

CD Audio tracks are not supported. Keep in mind i said i can play a lot of DOS games without the CD, but i didn't say i could play them all.

With regards to audio tracks working well, i was referring to SHSUCDX driver only which in the past had issues with games with CD audio tracks. Mounting ISO's with SHSUCDHD will not play Audio CD tracks for obvious reasons, whether you are using SHSUCDX or MSCDEX.

I have very similar configuration that i've just recently launched after almost 20 years of standing in the closet. It launched in Win XP within 4-5 minutes, but i didn't have patience to run hwinfo.. looking at Vogon community I will certainly post later. Probably somebody will point me at some interesting piece of HW inside my old PC-buddy..

I load an image of the cdrom into ram drive and roll with it that way.

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-04-09, 14:19:

I've literally never had a problem with cute mouse been using it for like 10 years almost

Are those of you having troubles with it using serial or ps/2?

It didnt want to run my serial mouses very well in Dos so i got back to original Micrisoft Driver for the mouse 8kb or 10kb...
MS Mousedriver V6.10

SHSUCDX (6k?) and Mitsumi drivers (11K) - much better than MSCDEX (35K) and BTCCDROM (16-17K)

For pure DOS 6.22 build, I've tried multiple drivers/TSRs on my P200 build for a while now. I have my UMB space up to 91K and it fits everything but 'SYSTEM' (could never get it under 20k conventional), HIMEM and EMM386 (have tried alternates for both, they weren't as stable. Plain old HIMEM/EMM386 is the only combo that I've found that works the best).

VIDE-CDD.SYS was the smallest footprint driver that I could find that worked with everything I threw at it.
SHSUCDX works pretty well, they've continuously updated it a lot.
NANSI from freedos is a great small footprint ANSI.SYS replacement
CDMOUSE is a mouse.com replacement that just about everyone uses.
DOSKEY has a drop in replacement called 'enhanced doskey' that works pretty well.

Network drivers I keep in a batch file 'net.bat' and only load when I actually need the internet. I could probably load them all the time as I have the UMB space but eh.

CTMOUSE is great, but I ran into problems loading Overlord with it.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/overlord-

It seems that most of these efficient drivers (mouse, CD...) are great for 99% of the cases, but there do exist oddballs which are incompatible in various ways.
Oh well, that is why boot menu config options exist. 😀