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Reply 41 of 164, by archsan

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Well, I've used the reboot trick to avoid getting my loss recorded in Death Rally before... 😜

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."—Arthur C. Clarke
"No way. Installing the drivers on these things always gives me a headache."—Guybrush Threepwood (on cutting-edge voodoo technology)

Reply 42 of 164, by PhilsComputerLab

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archsan wrote:

Well, I've used the reboot trick to avoid getting my loss recorded in Death Rally before... 😜

Haha, nice 🤣

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Reply 43 of 164, by clueless1

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Actually, in Ultimas 1-5, rebooting was the *documented* way to quit the game. 😀 The 'Q' key stands for "quit and save" but it only actually saves your game. The quit part you have to implement with a CTRL-ALT-DEL. This harkens back to "booter" gaming, which these games were a part of. By Ultima 5, (1988) it was becoming more common to install to hard drive, but they still didn't implement a "Quit to DOS" command. 🤣. edit: I believe this was in part due to the fact that Ultimas 1-5 were made first for the Apple II platform, which had no "quit to prompt" option. Since every program loaded from floppy, each game/program needed a reboot to load. Ultima 6 was the first Ultima to not have an Apple II version (it was no longer powerful enough to handle the tech advances), and since the PC was the new primary platform, with hard disks being common by 1990, quitting to DOS was the new standard.

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Reply 44 of 164, by clueless1

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Added a couple more the other day. Colonization is interesting. You can just copy the game folder and it will work fine in DOS. Or, you can burn the bin/cue and make yourself a combination DOS/Windows installation disk. The Windows version has CD Audio music and sound effects. The DOS version is in the sub-folder COL_DOS, with it's own install.exe. 😀

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Reply 45 of 164, by PhilsComputerLab

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Added Wolfenstein 3D and Spear Of Destiny. Perfect releases. Spear of Destiny also included the two mission packs.

EDIT: Added Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games. Score: B

Burn ISO, but it's not an installation CD. Also need the game folder copied to the hard drive, but otherwise everything works great 😀

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Reply 46 of 164, by clueless1

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Added Might and Magics 1-3 and The Dig. The Dig runs from burned CD. The only files that go on your DOS PC are for sound configuration, otherwise The Dig runs entirely from CD.

I've been trying to figure out Might and Magic 4/5 (World of Xeen), but it's weird. If you copy the files over, it plays fine but without digitized speech. There are two bin/cue sets with the .wav speech files and I can make the CDs, but I can't figure out how to complete the install to recognize the disks and play the speech off the CDs. If it is possible, it would have to prompt you to change CDs at times (unless you combine them onto a DVD).

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Reply 47 of 164, by PhilsComputerLab

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Not sure, haven't worked with a multi CD game yet. Sounds like it falls under the "to hard" category...

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Reply 48 of 164, by jesolo

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clueless1 wrote:

Added Might and Magics 1-3 and The Dig. The Dig runs from burned CD. The only files that go on your DOS PC are for sound configuration, otherwise The Dig runs entirely from CD.

Would love to see a high resolution version of The Dig, like they've done recently with some of the Monkey Island games and Day of the Tentacle.

Reply 49 of 164, by PhilsComputerLab

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Added Space Quest 6. Gave it a C. Sound option changes require editing RESOURCE.CFG and to launch the game a parameter is needed, but best to create a batch file.

But maybe B is more appropriate as the game works fully, no content missing?

EDIT: Added Police Quest 4. A release, full installation CD, nice!

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Reply 50 of 164, by clueless1

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Added Strife and Eradicator.

Strife is a Doom-engine FPS shooter with RPG elements. The GOG release is actually an enhanced version, but within the GOG game directory is a strife-dos.zip file. I think you can take it from there. 😉

Eradicator is a FPS from Accolade (!) that looks like it uses the Duke Nukem 3D engine. It is a very decent-looking game. You make an install disc from bin/cue files, and it is nice enough to let you play without the CD unless you choose Redbook CD Audio music from the Options menu. It also has support for AWE32/64 "hi-res 3D sound". It includes a 512k sound bank and 2meg sound bank. I don't have one of these cards so I don't know what this "3d sound" is like.

Both games are easy to set up on your DOS PC, so they each get an A.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
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Reply 51 of 164, by clueless1

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FYI, here is a list of GOG games that I think will work, but I cannot check because they are >700MB so I can't transfer them to my DOS PC. If anyone else has a CF system or DVD drive and wants to test, go for it 😀
D - The Game
Lands of Lore 2
The Last Express
Privateer 2

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Reply 52 of 164, by PhilsComputerLab

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I think I have Privateer 2, haven't tried it yet though.

EDIT: Added Police Quest 1, 2 and 3.

None of the games have INSTALL.EXE, so editing of RESOURCE.CFG is needed to change sound.

Nice that GOG also included the AGI and SCI version of the first game!

Will continue working my down my purchase list 😀

EDIT: Added Alone in the Dark 3!

Full installation CD, but the CD Audio tracks are compressed (OGG), so a few steps required to create the CD in the first place. Corrupt font in the installation menu, 8x14 font fixer is needed: http://www.bttr-software.de/products/fix8x14/

Requires EMS memory also.

Gave it a C because creating the disc is quite some effort.

EDIT: Also setup CDBeQuiet driver to set the speed to 4x. Nice and quite now playing CD games.

EDIT EDIT: Added Alone in the Dark 1 and 2. Just burn the BIN / CUE image and you got a full installation CD. Also 8x14 font fixer needed. Gave it an A, perfect release.

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Reply 53 of 164, by clueless1

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Just added Dragonsphere. This used to be free on GOG, but I see now it is $5.99. Very nice graphic adventure from Microprose with lots of sound support, including MT32 and General MIDI. You can make an install CD from BIN/CUE files without any extra steps. Disc is required for gameplay. One nice thing is, unlike a lot of graphic adventures from LucasArts and Sierra, this one plays fine (including MIDI music) at fast Pentium speeds, but only requires a 386 to play.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
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DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 54 of 164, by PhilsComputerLab

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clueless1 wrote:

D - The Game

That game was on sale so I grabbed it with a few others.

Everything seems fine, but when launching it is asking to insert Disk 1 😒

EDIT:

Delete DS.DAT and the game will run!

Getting wrong colours for the videos on my FX5200, there is UVCONFIG (SciTech tool) in the game folder, that might help in some cases.

EDIT: What can we do to get you more storage in your retro PC?

EDIT: Added Broken Sword: ScummVM only 🙁

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Reply 55 of 164, by clueless1

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Added Quest for Glory 1-4. Quest for Glory 5 is win32 native.

All of them are simple "copy game folder to DOS" type with full functionality. QFG4 is quite large-over 500MB, so keep that in mind if playing with 2GB partition limitation.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
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DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 57 of 164, by clueless1

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gdjacobs wrote:

Sounds like QFG4 is the talky version. Have you tried creating an install CD?

I don't know, is it possible to recreate an install CD from an already-installed directory? That would be cool if it were possible. Most of the game is the RESOURCE.AUD file:

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The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 58 of 164, by clueless1

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Added Commander Keen Complete Pack Episodes 1-5 from Steam. Went on sale recently so I picked it up for $2.50. Runs perfectly with no fuss. I'm amazed this game runs exactly the same from 286 speeds all the way up to Pentium 200 (probably faster, but that's as fast as I tried). id were ahead of their time with accounting for CPU speed sensitivity.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 59 of 164, by clueless1

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Added Darklands, Pirates! and Pirates! Gold. All are easy to get working on a real DOS machine. 😀

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks