VOGONS


First post, by Omarkoman

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hi gurus

I have acquired a nice laptop for my collection - Dell Inspiron 9300 , 17" 1920x1200, M 760 CPU, 2GB RAM and Go 6800 256MB GPU running Windows XP 32bit. I put in an SSD and it flies. Love it.

Question, is it possible to get some DOS games working on it with sound ? the sound HW is SigmaTel STAC 975X AC97

Thanks in advance!

Reply 1 of 8, by Omarkoman

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bump ... anyone ?

Reply 2 of 8, by DosFreak

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Use DOSBox
Use VDMSound w/NTVDM for some of the 1993+ protected mode games that may run slow on that CPU with DOSBox.
ScummVM for the games that support it.
Possibly dual-boot with DOS and use SBEMU
Use VPC/Vmware for protected mode DOS games that are too slow in DOSBox if you've exhaused the above.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 3 of 8, by Omarkoman

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thanks, yes was thinking DOSBox but was hoping I can use some sound drivers that will work natively in DOS under Windows XP with the soundcard.

Reply 5 of 8, by Omarkoman

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oh sorry, somehow I thought there was as you can run command prompt.

So what if I boot into DOS natively, is it possible to make this particular onboard sound card emulate Soundblaster and basic FM synthesis?

Reply 6 of 8, by wierd_w

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The command prompt is a virtualized environment, called NTVDM (Or, NT Virtual Dos Machine).

VDMSound is a package that extends the functionality of this subsystem, giving it virtual soundblaster, and VESA graphics support, among other things.

For the latter question-- Faking a soundblaster, when no hardware to handle interrupts, and no hardware DSPs exist, is kinda what SBEMU is for, but it is a dirty hack, on top of a dirty hack. 😜

Compatibility is aimed mostly for AC'97 and other onboard sound chips, but recent GIT commits have given it support for some crystal labs PCI based sound cards as well.

Reply 7 of 8, by Omarkoman

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thanks, giving SBEMU a go now, will report back

Reply 8 of 8, by VivienM

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wierd_w wrote on 2024-02-04, 20:56:

The command prompt is a virtualized environment, called NTVDM (Or, NT Virtual Dos Machine).

Technically, the command prompt in an NT OS (or at least the ones I've used) is a native Win32/64 command interpreter called cmd.exe. And then it will run DOS things (possibly including command.com but I don't have an XP machine readily accessible to check... too many vintage machines, too few power cords...) in NTVDM...

Very different from 9x, actually, which didn't have a native command interpreter that I can remember...