dr.zeissler wrote on 2020-07-30, 18:06:

- JimPower

Both are diffucult to get them working, even when using old machines. I play them on my PowerMac 6100/66
with the built-in houdini-card that is equipped with 486/66+CT512K Vga and a later SB-Chip (Vibra) with a real! OPL3!

Jim Power is on Steam these days in a fancy bundle with a bunch of alternative versions.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/370270/Jim … Lost_Dimension/

It might be good-looking, but it also looks excruciatingly frustrating and painful to play.

Not a 486 game but the EGA version of LOOM looks incredible imho, a superb demonstration of what can be achieved with a limited color palette.

Turbular worlds has also very nice gfx a stutterfree-scrolling. nice!

I have to admit, that my JimPower-Game as only 2 seconds music and then no more sounds.
It seems that it has problems with my soundblaster....I need to fix this, but can't find a patch.

Tube looks great.
NFS runs nice in low res mode with hi detail or hi-res with low detail.

Probably the 486-playable 3d games with the shiny water. Comanche expansions (voxels+reflects) and Terra Nova Strike Force Centauri come to mind.

If that's not the ideal, there's the Brainbug DOS adaptations of a couple console games which are in the same tier as the Turrican 2 port with regards to beautifully redrawn art for VGA (Earthworm JIm 1 + 2 and the cancelled Super Star Wars game). They're also more playable than Jim Power 😜

https://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/dos/brain-bug/

These two?

Little Big Advanture, Screamer, The Need For Speed

I always thought Albion looked nice (art style is a bit Amiga-ish), both the 2D and 3D scenes, and I think it ran okay on a 486.

Archimedean Dynasty had impressive 3D and according to the specs you can run it on a 486 DX4 but I never did. Same with SU-27 Flanker and EF 2000.

Flight Unlimited also looked impressive but in different way because it had "photo realistic" textures, not because of the cool pixel art.

Lastly, you can run Quake on 486 at about 12 FPS, as long as nobody is shooting.

SimCopter is Win95. This is a DOS thread. also simcopter is infamous for its speed issues (it needs to run slowly to be playable) and is far from being a beautiful game anyway.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2020-07-31, 15:08:

These two?

More specifically:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/earthworm-jim- … ole-can-o-worms

It's ported by Rainbow Arts, but definitely has Brainbug involved.

Fate of Atlantis, Sam and Max and Day of The Tentacle are superb looking games..

I guess Jazz Jackrabbit is way too obvious to mention? Consider it mentioned. Someone in my recent thread about gamepad games for DOS put me onto Vinyl Goddess, which is a very nicely presented platformer.

One of my favourites for art & music direction (particularly if you have an MT-32) is the original Dune, although it doesn't match OP's requirements for gameplay style.

I'm going to give the Earthworm Jim games a run on my 386 and see how they go 😀

Settlers II

Pierre32 wrote on 2020-08-01, 08:14:

One of my favourites for art & music direction (particularly if you have an MT-32) is the original Dune, although it doesn't match OP's requirements for gameplay style.

I think the original Dune (as well as the other Dune, ie DUNE II) sound much better in OPL3 than MT-32.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2020-07-30, 20:27:

Turbular worlds has also very nice gfx a stutterfree-scrolling. nice!

It's a great game, been enjoying it since I found the demo on a coverdisc in 94...
Tried the Mac version today on my 6100, because why not play both versions at the same time!

If you like Breakout clones, try Krypton Egg

https://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/krypton-egg/

And another great Dongleware title, Bolo:

The 3 levels demo is a bit large (for 1995), I extracted it from a coverdisc: http://dl.free.fr/rZp4v4eKH

"Monster Attack" looks promising! Turbular Worlds does not scroll so nice on Mac as on PC due to the upscaling of the 320x200 to 640x400. Same goes for JazzJackRabbit2 on Mac with no hardwarescrolling.

---edit: Monster Attack is Krypton Egg ?

dr.zeissler wrote on 2020-08-01, 20:35:

"Monster Attack" looks promising! Turbular Worlds does not scroll so nice on Mac as on PC due to the upscaling of the 320x200 to 640x400. Same goes for JazzJackRabbit2 on Mac with no hardwarescrolling.

---edit: Monster Attack is Krypton Egg ?

Every tenth level in Krypton Egg is a special level, either a Hordes Attack or a Monster Attack

You're right about the scrolling, I must say the music in the Mac version of Tubular Worlds is pretty nice, I might even like it more than the PC version.
Haven't tested the Amiga version yet...

dr.zeissler wrote on 2020-08-01, 20:35:

Tubular Worlds does not scroll so nice on Mac as on PC due to the upscaling of the 320x200 to 640x400. Same goes for JazzJackRabbit2 on Mac with no hardwarescrolling.

That'd be a slowdown from the lowly '601 CPU on your PPC6100; on faster PPC Macs Tubular Worlds and Jazz 2 look wonderfully smooth

Tyrian's quite beautiful. Disregard the "2000" version and its ugly changes though