Shreddoc wrote on 2021-06-22, 06:55:

A significant proportion of PC games from the 80s and 90s will not natively run as intended on a late Windows 98 machine. I see you have denied the prevalence and importance of this, earlier in the topic, but regardless it stands as an important truth which many here will support. I suspect you would soon become very frustrated with the constant pushback, if you were persist in representing a Windows 98 machine as being capable of playing all games from the 80s 90s and early 2000s, because it simply isn't true, and to imply that the exceptions are trivial, is likewise not true.

I will never consider a hundred or so DOS games and the Win95 port of Red Alert to be "A significant proportion of PC games from the 80s and 90s", and you will probably never consider them "trivial". This is something that we're going to have to agree to disagree on.

DraxDomax wrote on 2021-06-22, 07:19:

If your mission is to help people play their games, I'd focus on a cloud service where everything is sorted out and you just log in and play.
That will be an emulation-based solution, BTW 😀

If you insist on being a hardware company, I'd go with cloning some of the motherboards that are clearly running out. It's kinda similar to what you suggest only that you focus on one, relatively low-tech part.

Those are some interesting possible routes as well. However, a key part of the retro "experience", in my opinion, is installing games from physical media. Another big part of many gaming experiences, retro or not, is modding the games, using trainers, using specific older versions/patches (like Moo2 version 1.2 or Diablo II version 1.09), and generally bending and breaking game rules in any way you desire, which generally requires the altered files to be on your hard drive, not on a server halfway around the world. Ergo, your proposed cloud service would need to either directly access the executables and data files on the clients' hard drives, or store a separate copy of every game for every client and allow the clients to directly access "their" personal copies of the files on the servers' hard drives. I don't know how much of a security risk those routes are or if Windows 10 and Linux would even allow them. Your service would also require the computer to be online all the time to play games, and probably eat huge amounts of bandwidth (though not much more so than streaming hi-def movies on Netflix). That's a hard sell for what were originally single-player, offline games. And if such a service charged a subscription, then it would be making people pay a second time for games they already own, which is one of the problems that my version was trying to solve/avoid. Advertisements might be a better route than a subscription model. Or users could pay a subscription to get rid of the ads.

A third way to go might involve wrapping the client-side executables in something that allows normal access to the data files on the client's hard drive while sending their mouse and keyboard inputs to the cloud, and wrapping the server-side executables in something that takes input from the client, sends game "events" back, and dumps audio and video output... but this would require creating two new pieces of software for every single game, and might not even be possible for every game. Or any game, for that matter.

And of course all of this would require a LOT more programming work than just writing some drivers to allow Win98 to run on a VIA EPIA-P910.

As for motherboards, it's not too absurd an idea, but to be financially viable, it would require making the motherboards much more cheaply than they currently cost on eBay/Newegg or what modern boards cost. That in turn requires die-shrinking and integration, which in turn requires a level of hardware engineering not too far off from just die-shrinking the Athlon K8, Radeon 9800 XT, and SB400 southbridge down to 7 nm and putting them all on the same die and calling it a day. Again, not bad, but not much of an improvement over what has been proposed so far.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-06-22, 07:19:

There is stuff that isn't supported hardware-wise in the newer cards such as table fog and palletized textures.

You would need to emulate stuff that is no longer present in the current hardware.

Or those specific features could just go unsupported in the first versions of the product, and be added to later versions if the first version makes enough money.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 09:38:

Those are some interesting possible routes as well. However, a key part of the retro "experience", in my opinion, is installing games from physical media.

So you're against having to hunt for rare expensive parts, which is fair, but hunting rare expensive games is part of the retro experience ?

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 09:38:

And of course all of this would require a LOT more programming work than just writing some drivers to allow Win98 to run on a VIA EPIA-P910.

Taking software that already exists, configuring it and putting it on a server, with perhaps some custom web server, would require more programming work than writing lots of windows 98 drivers ?

Deksor wrote on 2021-06-22, 09:46:

So you're against having to hunt for rare expensive parts, which is fair, but hunting rare expensive games is part of the retro experience ?

1) Most people already have copies of the games that they are having difficulty running on modern systems. If they didn't, then how would they know that it has difficulty running on modern systems? If you want a service that people can use to discover and play old games they've never played before, without physical media, then that's cool but it already exists and it's called GOG.

2) Old games on physical media are neither rare nor expensive, unless you want something still factory-sealed in its original box.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 09:38:

Taking software that already exists, configuring it and putting it on a server, with perhaps some custom web server, would require more programming work than writing lots of windows 98 drivers ?

No, but creating the means for clients to access that software on that server would, especially if we're talking about thousands of games.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:02:

1) Most people already have copies of the games that they are having difficulty running on modern systems. If they didn't, then how would they know that it has difficulty running on modern systems?

Searching online ? (and let's face it, some also use piracy).

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:02:

2) Old games on physical media are neither rare nor expensive, unless you want something still factory-sealed in its original box.

Have you seen the price of a copy of Doom ? I'm not even talking about a new version, not even a boxed version, just the floppy disks (which could easily be faked, and also could easily suffer from bitrot by now).

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:02:

No, but creating the means for clients to access that software on that server would, especially if we're talking about thousands of games.

A web browser ?

Actually some abandonware websites are doing something like this (even archive.org does it) : they run a special version of dosbox made to run on your web browser and that's it.

Deksor wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:10:

Have you seen the price of a copy of Doom ? I'm not even talking about a new version, not even a boxed version, just the floppy disks (which could easily be faked, and also could easily suffer from bitrot by now).

Six dollars and ten cents according to this ebay listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/384231069948?epid=55 … aIAAOSwW6RgzgvL

And it comes with the box and manual, too!

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:02:

A web browser ?

Actually some abandonware websites are doing something like this (even archive.org does it) : they run a special version of dosbox made to run on your web browser and that's it.

Cute. Now explain how that translates into running Civilization II in a Virtualbox or VMware virtual machine and being able to edit the rules.txt, units.gif etc. files without screwing up those files for other users. Or running Diablo Hellfire with Raymond's Hellfire Trainer.

Don't use the start price of an item to prove your point. We could show you a lot of original boxes, opened that *sold* for hundreds of dollars.

You asked for our opinion and *no one* was able to say that this is feasible. And your arguments are beginning to go in circles.

Let's agree to disagree and you come back when you have something substantial.
This discussion is not going anywhere, in fact it's only going to become less rational (see the belittling "cute").
Let's end it before it becomes ugly.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:19:

Actually some abandonware websites are doing something like this (even archive.org does it) : they run a special version of dosbox made to run on your web browser and that's it.

Cute. Now explain how that translates into running Civilization II in a Virtualbox or VMware virtual machine and being able to edit the rules.txt, units.gif etc. files without screwing up those files for other users. Or running Diablo Hellfire with Raymond's Hellfire Trainer.

how about, instead of an SBC, a cloud service based on desktop virtulization, i.e. you log on into your session which is actually a bit like citrix, except for games. choose DOS, Win 9x, Win XP session and game away

I'm not convinced about that either, but its a possible way, it does feel more like the direction of travel following other 'services' like movies

meanwhile i'll repeat that the market for people who like editing text files etc in old games and so on is quite small, but the market for people who just want to play an old game is larger and currently well served by gog and steam

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:19:

Six dollars and ten cents according to this ebay listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/384231069948?epid=55 … aIAAOSwW6RgzgvL

And it comes with the box and manual, too!

It is an auction sale. It won't be 6 dollars anymore in 4 days I can tell you.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:19:

Cute. Now explain how that translates into running Civilization II in a Virtualbox or VMware virtual machine and being able to edit the rules.txt, units.gif etc. files without screwing up those files for other users. Or running Diablo Hellfire with Raymond's Hellfire Trainer.

Then tell me first how you're gonna write your drivers.

Either way, for the file problem, you can simply store pre-made images that would be read-only on the server, when someone is paying for the service, there's some space reserved for them, and so the images are copied to their space and run. If they modify anything, only their image is modified. If they completely mess it up they can reset it with the original image. Anyone else paying for your service would have their image copied from the read only images.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-21, 19:30:

A big part of the draw of a product like this would be that almost everything would install and play correctly from the original disks with no third-party hacks, workarounds, command-line parameters, typing arcane jibberish into consoles etc... there would be some exceptions of course, like the Win95 ports of C&C and Red Alert. I'm pretty sure those were already broken by the time DirectX 9 came out, so getting them to work "out of the box" would mean sacrificing DirectX 9 (and possibly earlier) games, which is far too high a price to pay. But, you know... it would be something.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:19:

Cute. Now explain how that translates into running Civilization II in a Virtualbox or VMware virtual machine and being able to edit the rules.txt, units.gif etc. files without screwing up those files for other users. Or running Diablo Hellfire with Raymond's Hellfire Trainer.

I smell a bit of self contradiction.
Besides, those that tamper with the game files pretty much have a way to play the game, in most cases an older PC (or a few), which you can grab for scrap prices.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 09:38:

Shreddoc wrote on 2021-06-22, 06:55:

A significant proportion of PC games from the 80s and 90s will not natively run as intended on a late Windows 98 machine. I see you have denied the prevalence and importance of this, earlier in the topic, but regardless it stands as an important truth which many here will support. I suspect you would soon become very frustrated with the constant pushback, if you were persist in representing a Windows 98 machine as being capable of playing all games from the 80s 90s and early 2000s, because it simply isn't true, and to imply that the exceptions are trivial, is likewise not true.

I will never consider a hundred or so DOS games and the Win95 port of Red Alert to be "A significant proportion of PC games from the 80s and 90s", and you will probably never consider them "trivial". This is something that we're going to have to agree to disagree on.

How many of the several hundreds of 80's and 90's DOS games have you tried to run on a Win 98 machine that is powerful enough to run the niche selection of games that you seem to be interested in?

How many of them run without error, but are also simultaneously far too fast to be playable?

You started off this thread talking about an optimised retro gaming system for DOS to Windows 98.... then when confronted with the fact that it is simply not possible to experience all of that range of games, with optimal performance (specific sound and video support, as well as at a playable speed and input) your retort is that this is only a minor fraction and you never intended to focus on DOS, but Windows 98 instead.

What exactly do you aim to achieve by canvassing a group of retro technology and retro gaming enthusiasts for a product which we all know is not feasible due to the cost and breadth of hardware features and speeds that it would need to offer? You then ignore us or say that the range of games that won't work optimally on your solution are not important or a just a minority. Each time we have pointed out a flaw in your design proposal you react by saying we are wrong, or that your solution would not be for that purpose.

You talk about an optimised retro gaming experience, but what you really mean is an optimised retro gaming experience for your personal range of games - not the general Vogons user.

Just going to thrown the question out there, to set the original question in perspective to what is possible.....

Anyone remember that "Dos-Mini" machine, that somebody announced a few years back? Like... How did that go, and is that really a product that you can buy today? Or did that just tank for some reason or another? Like that seems a bit what the original question was about, but I don't think the idea went into a product that you can buy. Seems like another waporware, designed to create some kind of hype that went nowere.

Dominus wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:29:

Don't use the start price of an item to prove your point. We could show you a lot of original boxes, opened that *sold* for hundreds of dollars.

Deksor wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:31:

It is an auction sale. It won't be 6 dollars anymore in 4 days I can tell you.

Okay then. Here's an Ultimate Doom CD that sold for a whopping eleven dollars: https://www.ebay.com/itm/164900973883?epid=55 … WQAAOSw6HdgmBSb

Twelve dollars: https://www.ebay.com/itm/184879332570?hash=it … 1wAAOSw0cBguYhM

Here's one that nobody was willing to buy for even two dollars: https://www.ebay.com/itm/265192123832?hash=it … q8AAOSw~CNgrs~R

gerry wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:29:

meanwhile i'll repeat that the market for people who like editing text files etc in old games and so on is quite small

It depends on the game. Quake 1, for example, owes almost all of its popularity to modding.

Deksor wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:31:

Either way, for the file problem, you can simply store pre-made images that would be read-only on the server, when someone is paying for the service, there's some space reserved for them, and so the images are copied to their space and run. If they modify anything, only their image is modified. If they completely mess it up they can reset it with the original image. Anyone else paying for your service would have their image copied from the read only images.

I already discussed that possibility, though in less detail. I wondered how much of a security risk it would be to allow users to install, modify, and run arbitrary files on the cloud servers, and whether Win10 and Linux would even allow such behavior.

computerguy08 wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:40:

I smell a bit of self contradiction.

Not really. There's a huge difference between allowing players to do whatever they want, especially in ways that are supported by the publisher and explained in the game's own documentation, and forcing players to spend hours Googling for third-party hacks and workarounds that may or may not work.

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:56:

How many of the several hundreds of 80's and 90's DOS games have you tried to run on a Win 98 machine that is powerful enough to run the niche selection of games that you seem to be interested in?

This conversation isn't about me. Don't derail it.

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:56:

You talk about an optimised retro gaming experience

Wrong. I said "compatible with Windows 98 and heavily optimized for parallel floating-point operations".

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-06-22, 10:56:

but what you really mean is an optimised retro gaming experience for your personal range of games

No, I mean the broadest possible range of old games.

Accusing me of saying things I never said and meaning things I didn't mean isn't going to get you anywhere. And again, this conversation isn't about me. Don't derail it.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 09:38:

Shreddoc wrote on 2021-06-22, 06:55:

A significant proportion of PC games from the 80s and 90s will not natively run as intended on a late Windows 98 machine. I see you have denied the prevalence and importance of this, earlier in the topic, but regardless it stands as an important truth which many here will support. I suspect you would soon become very frustrated with the constant pushback, if you were persist in representing a Windows 98 machine as being capable of playing all games from the 80s 90s and early 2000s, because it simply isn't true, and to imply that the exceptions are trivial, is likewise not true.

I will never consider a hundred or so DOS games and the Win95 port of Red Alert to be "A significant proportion of PC games from the 80s and 90s", and you will probably never consider them "trivial". This is something that we're going to have to agree to disagree on.

Fair enough, except that your "hundred or so DOS games" is a misunderstanding on your part, it's:

"the majority of the DOS games from the 80's*, PLUS a hundred or so DOS games from the 90's".

*see text underlined red, in image below:

Make of that what you will. I just hope nobody makes a product with the above exceptions, then misrepresents it in marketing as "runs all DOS games!" or "runs all 80's and 90's games", when it patently does not.

Just call it a Windows 98 machine and be done, ferchrissakes! 😀

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 12:01:

Wrong. I said hardware that was optimized for retro gaming, meaning "hardware that emphasizes massively parallel floating-point performance because that's what 3D games depend on, and DOS/Win98 compatibility because that's what is compatible with the broadest possible range of games".

Massively parallel? And what is that going to do what with the already compiled x86 machine code? Do you think that your Quake3.exe is going to magically take advantage of the additional registers in a amd_64 processor? Or SSE4.1 instructions?

For almost the entirety of the DOS era a floating point unit was not necessary. I'd be willing to make a substantial bet that less than 1% of all DOS games ever made required a FPU.

You keep saying the broadest possible range of games but you've already written off almost all of the DOS era.

Shreddoc wrote on 2021-06-22, 12:02:

your "hundred or so DOS games" is a misunderstanding on your part, it's: […]
Show full quote

your "hundred or so DOS games" is a misunderstanding on your part, it's:

"the majority of the DOS games from the 80's*, PLUS a hundred or so DOS games from the 90's".

*see text underlined red, in image below:80s.jpg

Make of that what you will. I just hope nobody makes a product with the above exceptions, then misrepresents it in marketing as "runs all DOS games!" or "runs all 80's and 90's games", when it patently does not.

Oh, you were talking about the clock speed issue, which we all agreed several pages ago was a good reason to include an unlocked multiplier that could throttle the clock speed down to 100 or 200 mhz?

Yes, we all agreed several pages ago on a proposed solution to the clock speed issue.

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-06-22, 12:08:

Do you think that your Quake3.exe is going to magically take advantage of the additional registers in a amd_64 processor? Or SSE4.1 instructions?

No but I'm pretty sure it benefits from 3D hardware acceleration.

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-06-22, 12:08:

You keep saying the broadest possible range of games but you've already written off almost all of the DOS era.

No I f**king haven't. STOP LYING ABOUT ME

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 12:10:

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-06-22, 12:08:

You keep saying the broadest possible range of games but you've already written off almost all of the DOS era.

No I f**king haven't. STOP LYING ABOUT ME

You don't believe ISA support is needed (you mention that why would anyone need it when we have 7.1 channel AC97 audio). It is.

You don't think scaling down to an XT or AT level of performance is needed (you mentioned "down to 100 or 200MHz" - both of which are orders of magnitude faster than many games will run correctly with). It is.

If your system can't do either of those, then you've written off a huge swathe of the DOS gaming catalogue.

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-06-22, 12:14:

You don't believe ISA support is needed (you mention that why would anyone need it when we have 7.1 channel AC97 audio). It is.

Name one DOS game that literally can't be completed without sound.

I've only come across one game that genuinely couldn't be completed without sound. It was Myst, and it was never ported to DOS.

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-06-22, 12:14:

You don't think scaling down to an XT or AT level of performance is needed (you mentioned "down to 100 or 200MHz" - both of which are orders of magnitude faster than many games will run correctly with). It is.

For games that specifically require a 4.77 mhz 8088 processor, sure. But that's not the majority of DOS games. Not by a long shot.

A modern equivalent of the Turbo button could certainly be included in future models if the first model proves successful, but the first model should not be burdened with features that are useless outside of a retro gaming context.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-21, 05:41:

...normal people aren't going to spend $500+ on a retro gaming PC...

You're right, "normal" people probably wouldn't, but then "normal" people also probably wouldn't join an enthusiast forum dedicated to said topic...

Would I buy a product that deprived me of my hobby? Nope.

Man, it makes me angry seeing so many people invest the time and energy to try and give constructive answers and explanations to someone who clearly does not deserve them.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-22, 12:10:

Shreddoc wrote on 2021-06-22, 12:02:

your "hundred or so DOS games" is a misunderstanding on your part, it's: […]
Show full quote

your "hundred or so DOS games" is a misunderstanding on your part, it's:

"the majority of the DOS games from the 80's*, PLUS a hundred or so DOS games from the 90's".

*see text underlined red, in image below:80s.jpg

Make of that what you will. I just hope nobody makes a product with the above exceptions, then misrepresents it in marketing as "runs all DOS games!" or "runs all 80's and 90's games", when it patently does not.

Oh, you were talking about the clock speed issue, which we all agreed several pages ago was a good reason to include an unlocked multiplier that could throttle the clock speed down to 100 or 200 mhz?

Yes, we all agreed several pages ago on a proposed solution to the clock speed issue.

You understand that 100 or 200 mhz is not 4.77 mhz or 16 mhz, right? And that the difference between those numbers is between six and forty-two(!!!) times??

So ok, with 200Mhz the list becomes the hundreds of games I referenced, minus eight. With 100Mhz the list becomes the hundreds of games I referenced, minus sixteen.

Great. So your proposal "solves" the clock speed issue by allowing for a mere few % of the games affected by it. That's a far cry from the "everyone agrees this issue is completely solved and no longer relevant" you've stated.