Trashbytes wrote on 2024-01-21, 06:08:AGP banshee is just fine though, you can even set it up to run Glide DOS games, should run them better than a Voodoo1, I would personally just use the Banshee.
I was going to try Tomb Raider and Fatal Racing, and see how they perform. I'm especially curious to see if Fatal Racing works with the Banshee.
Shponglefan wrote on 2024-01-21, 06:14:Trashbytes wrote on 2024-01-21, 06:08:AGP banshee is just fine though, you can even set it up to run Glide DOS games, should run them better than a Voodoo1, I would personally just use the Banshee.
I was going to try Tomb Raider and Fatal Racing, and see how they perform. I'm especially curious to see if Fatal Racing works with the Banshee.
Not sure if you can just use the default Voodoo1 setting or if youll need to set it up via environment variables like a Voodoo2, IIRC the Banshee is a V2 with one TMU so likely itll need to be setup much like the V2.
Shponglefan wrote on 2024-01-21, 06:14:I was going to try Tomb Raider and Fatal Racing, and see how they perform. I'm especially curious to see if Fatal Racing works with the Banshee.
Not sure whether you can run the original 3DFX patch with the Banshee, or if you need to use the Voodoo Rush version. If it's the latter, you will lose Lara's shadow and the gamma values might be off.
BTW, if you have an ATi Rage XL, you can run Tomb Raider using the CIF renderer at 800x600 with 24-bit color depth at a nearly locked 30 FPS. Pretty amazing for that era of hardware.
I have an HP Z400 workstation that is running Windows 11 and MS DOS 6.22. The CPU is a Xeon W3690 3.46GHz six core. The GPUs are NVidia RTX 2080, and a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI. The sound card is YMF-744 PCI. The machine has a floppy drive (you choose either 5.25 or 3.5, but not both). IDE CD drive with CD audio. Main HDD is an M.2 NVMe drive connected via a PCIe card, along with a couple SATA SSDs on a RAID array.
Needless to say, all DOS games run silky smooth (e.g. Duke Nukem 3D at highest screen res). Speed-sensitive games fly @ 2000 FPS or so 😋. If you disable the caches with SetMul, you get a 386 DX 33Mhz machine speed.
The sound card has real OPL3, and SB Pro DOS compatibility. It runs on this machine via DSDMA, which plays about 95% of the games library.
The RTX 2080 accelerates ray-tracing in DOOM (haha, just kidding). It runs VGA and basic SVGA modes well, but fails at EGA and CGA, so you'll have to switch to the Voodoo 3.
DOS memory is 612KB free conventional, and is capped from 12GB to 16MB so games don't go crazy.
I also have Windows 3.11 and Windows 95 installed and running with sound and display drivers all working.
This is my daily-use computer. I can go to the DOS partition instead of Win11 simply by choosing the boot HDD in the BIOS, and voila.. back to 1990's 😀
The last generation to natively support PCI and hence guarantee DOS sound is LGA1366.
I have got sound working through a PCI to PCIe bridge in a modern system (xeon) with windows 3.1 but I couldn't get the pure DOS driver working for the Aureal Vortex at the time. (edit: It looks like I need to do DSDMA). I started to collect all the PCI soundcards to see if any would work but have been distracted by VGA projects.
The way I work it is to have the VMWare ESXi virtualize everything and PCI passthrough the video and sound.
I haven't got the video passed through fully because the video has to have the OPROM load, and I have got as far as caching the OPROM.
I/O in my homelab is normally done through passing through a USB controller so I would need to find a USB keyboard driver if I wanted to game on this.
wbahnassi wrote on 2024-01-21, 11:21:I have an HP Z400 workstation that is running Windows 11 and MS DOS 6.22. The CPU is a Xeon W3690 3.46GHz six core. The GPUs are […]
I have an HP Z400 workstation that is running Windows 11 and MS DOS 6.22. The CPU is a Xeon W3690 3.46GHz six core. The GPUs are NVidia RTX 2080, and a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI. The sound card is YMF-744 PCI. The machine has a floppy drive (you choose either 5.25 or 3.5, but not both). IDE CD drive with CD audio. Main HDD is an M.2 NVMe drive connected via a PCIe card, along with a couple SATA SSDs on a RAID array.
Needless to say, all DOS games run silky smooth (e.g. Duke Nukem 3D at highest screen res). Speed-sensitive games fly @ 2000 FPS or so 😋. If you disable the caches with SetMul, you get a 386 DX 33Mhz machine speed.
The sound card has real OPL3, and SB Pro DOS compatibility. It runs on this machine via DSDMA, which plays about 95% of the games library.
The RTX 2080 accelerates ray-tracing in DOOM (haha, just kidding). It runs VGA and basic SVGA modes well, but fails at EGA and CGA, so you'll have to switch to the Voodoo 3.
DOS memory is 612KB free conventional, and is capped from 12GB to 16MB so games don't go crazy.
I also have Windows 3.11 and Windows 95 installed and running with sound and display drivers all working.
This is my daily-use computer. I can go to the DOS partition instead of Win11 simply by choosing the boot HDD in the BIOS, and voila.. back to 1990's 😀
That sounds like an amazing setup, especially running DOS natively with PCI audio on such a system. It's so absurd to think of a system dual booting with Windows 11 and DOS 6.22. I love it. 😁
Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-01-21, 10:27:BTW, if you have an ATi Rage XL, you can run Tomb Raider using the CIF renderer at 800x600 with 24-bit color depth at a nearly locked 30 FPS. Pretty amazing for that era of hardware.
I don't have a Rage XL, but I do have a Rage 128. Would TR still work with that card?
Shponglefan wrote on 2024-01-21, 16:30:I don't have a Rage XL, but I do have a Rage 128. Would TR still work with that card?
I don't think the Rage 128 supports CIF, since it's based on a different architecture. In contrast, the Rage XL is basically a die shrink of the Rage Pro, so it can still run ATi CIF games. However, it appears that (so far) only the AGP version of the card can use drivers which are old enough to support that functionality. And I'm not sure if those newly manufactured Rage XL cards from China can do this either.
For reference, this is my card, and it runs Tomb Raider effortlessly. More info about ATi CIF can be found on Gona's website.
Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-01-21, 16:39:Shponglefan wrote on 2024-01-21, 16:30:I don't have a Rage XL, but I do have a Rage 128. Would TR still work with that card?
I don't think the Rage 128 supports CIF, since it's based on a different architecture. In contrast, the Rage XL is basically a die shrink of the Rage Pro, so it can still run ATi CIF games. However, it appears that (so far) only the AGP version of the card can use drivers which are old enough to support that functionality. And I'm not sure if those newly manufactured Rage XL cards from China can do this either.
For reference, this is my card, and it runs Tomb Raider effortlessly. More info about ATi CIF can be found on Gona's website.
That's good to know, thank you!
Looks like those cards aren't too expensive, so I might pick one up to test out.
Migrated this setup a Fractal Designs case. I may switch out this PSU for a modular PSU to reduce the cable clutter.
Speedsys benchmark results:
In doing some more testing I've started to run into some audio compatibility issues.
Blackthorne - General MIDI music works on the main title screen, but stops playing during the story intro or in-game. Digital audio works fine.
Dark Forces - FM music and digital audio work, but General MIDI music causes both the setup program and game to lock up.
Day of the Tentacle - Digital audio doesn't work. FM works but has some distortion. General MIDI music seems to work.
Interestingly Sam 'n Max seems to work perfectly (digital audio with General MIDI music). It's listed as a speed sensitive game, but I had no problems launching it and having it play through the intro sequence.
Games tested that work without audio issues:
I have always read here on vogons that the last compatible chipset was the 845 of the Pentium4. Can't a Pentium4 run any DOS game at full resolution perfectly?
AlessandroB wrote on 2024-01-21, 20:19:I have always read here on vogons that the last compatible chipset was the 845 of the Pentium4. Can't a Pentium4 run any DOS game at full resolution perfectly?
No, it cannot. Speed sensitive games are a problem, and PCI-audio is also a bit hit or miss as I am finding out.
Did some more testing, first with the ESS Solo-1 and then tried out a few Vortex 2 cards.
ESS Solo-1
For the ESS Solo-1, I experimented with CPUSPD to throttle the system.
If I set ODSM to 2/8, digital audio worked in Day of the Tentacle and in-level music would work in Blackthorne. The latter still has no music during the intro cutscene.
Also tested Simcity 2000. At normal system speed, General MIDI music worked but seemed off-pitch. Throttling the system with CPUSPD seemed to correct that issue.
Dark Forces still locks up regardless of any throttling settings I tried. I suspect this is a general incompatibility with the ESS Solo-1 driver.
Vortext 2
I then tried a few different Vortex 2 cards. First up was a Turtle Beach Montego II. However, I could not get the system to detect this card. I tried both the drivers from Phil's Computer Lab and a set of DOS drivers I copied from my Windows 98 machine. Neither worked.
Then I tried a couple Diamond MX300 cards. With the drivers I copied from my Win98 system, I was able to get the Diamond MX300 cards working.
While General MIDI playback was fine, digital audio was not good. It seemed like it was distorting or clipping, producing static effect on the sound samples. Using the DOS mixer helped a bit, but it still wasn't perfectly clear.
The MX300 cards were also picking up a lot of system noise/interference, compounding the problem. The ESS Solo-1 has much cleaner output.
I tried two different MX300 cards and both were exactly the same. One of the cards is from my Windows 98 where I have used it to play DOS games within Windows 98. In that setup it sounds decent. But under native DOS in this P4 system, it just sounds bad.
I have a Pentium 3 1ghz build, VIA chipset, AWE64, Riva 128, i use just for DOS+Win3.1, and for me this is more or less the fastest practical dos setup
Faster than 1ghz, i dont recommend, even doing the highest throttle is not possible to archive XT speed. With this 1ghz CPU, i can get exact 4.77mhz cpu speed
I found very nice a fast P3 for emulators, specially Fusion and raine, compile in DJGPP, and to watch videos in quickiew/mplayer, but really any Pentium 2 will be more or less same if not using this programs
theelf wrote on 2024-01-22, 00:15:Faster than 1ghz, i dont recommend, even doing the highest throttle is not possible to archive XT speed.
That's not my goal, though. I'm more interested in what is the upper limit of performance one can achieve in DOS while still retaining compatibility with non-speed sensitive games.
Shponglefan wrote on 2024-01-21, 05:29:MikeSG wrote on 2024-01-21, 05:17:Get a Geforce 2 mx for an inexpensive all-rounder. Should be able to run Half-Life, Quake 3, Carmageddon 1 & 2, GTA 1-3.
It should but not on this computer. DOS only. 😉
Geforce 2 mx's have good DOS compatibility. https://www.reddit.com/r/dosgaming/comments/g … _compatibility/
Shponglefan wrote on 2024-01-21, 23:59:Speed sensitive games are a problem, and PCI-audio is also a bit hit or miss as I am finding out.
Yeah, no PCI sound card has perfect DOS compatibility. Using SB-Link will get you 99% there, but motherboards which offer that functionality are rare, and usually have ISA slots as well, making the feature kinda redundant. The next best thing is DDMA support, which is a bit more common, and can usually be found on VIA and SIS chipsets. It's not quite as compatible as SB-Link though.
In addition to the aforementioned stuff, certain sound cards have fallback approaches like TDMA (Solo-1) or DSDMA (Yamaha YMF 7x4) which offer slightly reduced game compatibility, but can work on a wider assortment of chipsets. I have no idea what Creative or Aureal PCI sound cards use, but their compatibility was never 100% either.
In short, DOS compatibility of PCI sound cards can vary greatly depending on which chipset you pair them with.
Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-01-21, 16:39:Shponglefan wrote on 2024-01-21, 16:30:I don't have a Rage XL, but I do have a Rage 128. Would TR still work with that card?
I don't think the Rage 128 supports CIF, since it's based on a different architecture. In contrast, the Rage XL is basically a die shrink of the Rage Pro, so it can still run ATi CIF games. However, it appears that (so far) only the AGP version of the card can use drivers which are old enough to support that functionality. And I'm not sure if those newly manufactured Rage XL cards from China can do this either.
For reference, this is my card, and it runs Tomb Raider effortlessly. More info about ATi CIF can be found on Gona's website.
One sidenote and one question:
Sidenote: Tomb Raider on ATI CIF is Windows only.
Question: I have a Rage Pro Turbo PCI 8MB and Tomb Raider runs great on it. However, there are some bugs. The smaller one is Lara sometimes gets hanging in walk mode. When this happens most keys won't work anymore and you have to terminate the game and start over.
The bigger one is that the game instantly crashes to desktop as soon as you kill any centaur as well as the big enemy at the beginning of the very last level of the game (the big pyramid). While the centaurs can be worked around the enemy in the last level is imperative so there's no way to complete the game for me.
Is that a general problem of this patch or only specific to my system? As I have absolutely no clue about the cause I also cannot fix this. Very annoying.
My driver is 4.11.2611 with ATI3DCIF-DLL 4.11.2695.
ChrisK wrote on 2024-01-22, 10:04:Question: I have a Rage Pro Turbo PCI 8MB and Tomb Raider runs great on it. However, there are some bugs. The smaller one is Lara sometimes gets hanging in walk mode. When this happens most keys won't work anymore and you have to terminate the game and start over.
The bigger one is that the game instantly crashes to desktop as soon as you kill any centaur as well as the big enemy at the beginning of the very last level of the game (the big pyramid). While the centaurs can be worked around the enemy in the last level is imperative so there's no way to complete the game for me.
Is that a general problem of this patch or only specific to my system? As I have absolutely no clue about the cause I also cannot fix this. Very annoying.
Interesting, I only played a few levels using the CIF version of Tomb Raider, so I haven't encountered the issues that you describe, as those enemies appear later on. I'll be on the lookout for these problems the next time I test my Rage XL.
As for the drivers, I used the modified Rage XL pack which Gona hosts on his website, alongside a newer version of the Tomb Raider CIF patch, which he also mirrors there. The relevant file names are:
ATI_3D_CIF_compatible_Rage_XL_(AGP_only)_driver_for_Win9x-ME_r4.ziptombatiragepro.zip
You could use a modified savegame starting directly at the last level. If there's no problem killing the first enemy I'd guess there's also none during the rest of the game.
I'll check if the exe for tombati from Gona's website makes any difference. Not sure where I got mine from. Maybe I'm using that already.
Regarding the drivers I'm not sure if Rage XL drivers will work for a Rage Pro.
Another day another test session... 😉
