There is a wiki but it requires people to actually add content to it. That is the issue.

Take for instance me. I would be the perfect person to do so but spenting time on a wiki doesn't interest me.

That's fine, but where is it?

That might be part of the problem re: why people aren't adding info it. It's hard to find.

there is a compatibility list on dosbox's main www

That only pertains to DOSBox's own compatibility. I mean a wider view of fixes for PC games as an all-in-one reference for retro gamers to use.

As a couple of examples:

Arx Fatalis: there's a texture patch floating around that fixes the issue of missing textures on modern PCs. forcegdi=1 has to be set in the config file as well.

Deus Ex: a new renderer should be used to avoid problems with modern graphics cards.

Giants: Citizen Kabuto: there is a GeForce patch that also fixes problems on ATI cards. Community patches are also in development.

Metal Gear Solid 2: There's a more recent community ATI/GeForce fix that solves the issues with disappearing textures but is slightly difficult to find.

Here's the DOSBox one:

http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Main_Page

VOGONS itself doesn't have a Wiki.

It's been brought up many times before but as previously mentioned it requires people to actually maintain and add content to it.

My Compatibility List in Deep Thought includes the info you mention on an excel spreadsheet which obviously isn't ideal but is easier for me.

I know what you mean, I downloaded it, but what I mean is information on getting not only DOS titles but also older Windows titles running on modern PCs. I would even argue that DOS games these days are the easiest to get running. Chances are you can just chuck it into DOSBox and it'll run fine. There are plenty of Windows games however from the mid to late 90s that do not run or only run with great difficulty on modern systems - it's these that I'm primarily talking about, and the need to provide information on how to get these running. The Excel sheet, although useful, only shows if the game actually works.

I wish a resource like you're describing would exist. It's a pita finding fixes for certain games on the web (sites disappearing, weird wording in forum posts making searches impossible, etc.). I have a collection of bookmarks on the subject of running old Windows games, but i'm sure this is only a tiny fraction of the info that's available on the web. I'm sure there's lots and lots of info "hidden" inside VOGONS posts, too.

To be frank, i'm not a huge fan of Wikis. The "everyone can edit"-aspect is completely nullified by the fact that not many people actually care to spend time in order to share information. I'd rather start a database with info and use it as a basis for a dedicated website.

jamyskis, if you're interested in creating such a database (or discussing other solutions) and willing to actually invest time, PM me. I'm german, too, so it'll be easy to discuss the matter (; .

EDIT: if one would really go wild on the matter it'd be easily possible to combine DosFreak's Excel stuff with other info to create the basic data. DosFreak, we had a short conversation about databases in another thread, remember? I'm pretty sure you could switch your data "backend" to a db and still edit it with Access or maybe even Excel (not sure about Excel, i'd have to check that one out).

jamyskis wrote:

I know what you mean, I downloaded it, but what I mean is information on getting not only DOS titles but also older Windows titles running on modern PCs.

Mind you, the list contains Windows games like FIFA 2002 and X-Wing vs TIE Fighter. It seems what you mean is not only the solutions to run old games on modern O/S ("will Magic: The Gathering run on Vista?" Etc), but also the ones on wider context ("how to run Voodoo1-only games on Voodoo2?" or "why do I keep getting artifacts when running System Shock II on GeForce 9800 SLI?"), am I correct?

The wiki sounds interesting, and I actually have some SSTH3 environment variables to put. But like DOSFreak has pointed out, there might be only few people contributing. Is the extra bandwidth and hosting space worth it? I guess that's the question.

Nah, it's more like "who will do the work" IMO. Bandwith is irrelevant when there's no content and/or no one is adding anything. You won't need much hd space for a handful of content entries either (; .

This is certainly one of those things, along with a myriad of other forum updates and a properly good looking theme, that is on the list of things I’ve always wanted to do but never had enough time for. At the least, I have portions of a new design, but that’s not nearly as useful as a database. 😀

http://www.overclock.net/pc-games/654004-dpla … -win-7-x64.html

theres one for ya

Hehe, that's interesting! How about adding a subforum for now where we can collect info? We could collect links to other sites and to VOGONS posts there, so we'll have everything neatly in one place with a proper "index". I'm no expert with the search function on VOGONS, but i guess you can search in subforums, which would make searching for info on specific games much easier.

I'm a huge fan of the database approach. Thanks to ODBC it's very easy to add and edit data with Office apps, no matter what's running in the backend. That means you don't necessarily need a web frontend for data maintenance (which is pretty hard to code properly). And then there's the "content seperated from design" aspect, too.

ADDiCT does have a good idea I must say.

ADDiCT wrote:

I'm a huge fan of the database approach. Thanks to ODBC it's very easy to add and edit data with Office apps, no matter what's running in the backend.

Uhhh…

ADDiCT wrote:

That means you don't necessarily need a web frontend for data maintenance (which is pretty hard to code properly).

No it’s not. 😀

ADDiCT wrote:

And then there's the "content seperated from design" aspect, too.

That’s not something that occurs when you are using a database manager like Access to edit your data.

I’m not really sure how you think that Office is a good platform for distributed content management of the sort that is being aimed for (or database work in general, really), but whatever.

Deep Thought was already supposed to be subforum of the type you’re talking about; it just never was maintained properly.

Well i can easily edit data in any database by setting up an ODBC connection and throwing together a quick frontend in Access. It's easy and efficient, and i'm using this workflow for a number of small db apps i'm maintaining. Nothing professional though - i'm aware that purists frown at using Access, but on a small scale it's pretty efficient IMO. A web frontend with proper (!!!) security and data verification functionality (protection against SQL injects and as much verification of actual data as is possible etc.) is much, much harder to do. The content/design seperation is true when using Access, can't see why you're saying it doesn't occur when using a db manager. Mind you, i wasn't talking about running a full-blown db app with lots of editors based on Access, but about creating/editing the basic data, to make a start.

Anyway, lots of info seems to be in the "Deep Thought" subforum (and others on VOGONS), but as you say it's rather unorganized. Something like "one thread per game" would probably make searching for specifics much easier. You know, like a forum without much actual discussion but lots of info (; .

ADDiCT the purists can bugger off. Your idea is good. But some of the moderators should make the "database(s)" a sticky in Deep Thought then.

Yeah, fuck best practises. That shit’s for losers. Give me a Jet database, Visual Basic, and ON ERROR RESUME NEXT and I’ll make the most awesome thing in the world!!! It’ll be completely unmaintainable, incapable of more than 1 concurrent user, and 100% proprietary, but it’ll be awesome!

Hehehe i see where you're coming from, worked on enough software projects to understand what you're saying. Jet =! ODBC though.

The opposite side of the spectrum would sound something like: "Yeah, fuck efficient implementations! Give me Oracle, a farm of huge and overpriced server machines, 50 programmers, 20 project leaders and a 1.5 mio $ budget, and i'll create the most awesome thing in the world! It'll be way out of budget, way behind schedule and completely unmaintainable by anyone without multiple university degrees. It'll never be properly finished, and in addition will use up 100% of the server's CPU resources at any time and still run like molasses in winter. But it'll be awesome!" (;

Snover wrote:

ADDiCT wrote:

That means you don't necessarily need a web frontend for data maintenance (which is pretty hard to code properly).

No it’s not. 😀

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