VOGONS


First post, by eliot_new

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Hello everybody

I m curious to discover how it feels to install FreeDOS on my K6-3 rig.
IIRC there were some advantages of a 2GB FAT 16 partition.

Do any DOS games exist, which analyzed disc space and refused to work if > 2GB FAT16?
I know, that some games refuse to work with RAM > 64 MB, but don't remember if this is the case with the 2GB?

I mean, I could install FreeDOS on a 4GB FAT32 partition and after that Win98SE on the same partion for a proper dual boot.
The remaining 28 GB of the sd-card would be for an installation of all games into the D:\games folder.

System:

AMD K6-3 / 400
Asus P5A Aladdin 5
64 MB RAM
32 GB sd-card with IDE 2 SD adapter
LG H24N with IDE 2 SATA adapter
AWE64 value ISA + onboard Solo-1 sound chip
Spea Mirage Trio64 PCI
3dfx V1

DOS:K6-3/400,192MB,P5A,Rendition v2200 AGP,Trio64 PCI,3dfx V1,AWE64,ESS1938,PicoGUS,32GB
w98SE:P3/450,768MB,QDI440BX,V3AGP,AWE64,PicoGUS,80GB
wXP:P3/1G,512MB,CUSL2-C,MSIFX5600,Audigy1,80GB

Reply 1 of 3, by rasteri

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Yeah I know some games don't like FAT32. None of the ones I wanna play it seems, though

Reply 2 of 3, by Harry Potter

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Try making the primary partition FAT16 and the rest FAT32.

Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter
Working magic in the computer community

Reply 3 of 3, by eliot_new

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Hello Harry Potter, hello rasteri

thx 4 your comments!

I have now succeeded in installing MS-DOS 6.22 along with Win98SE on 32GB sd-card:

1. primary partition 1.90 GB FAT16 => MSDOS 6.22
2. external partition with the remaining 30GB:
3. logical partition 3.90 GB FAT32 => Win98SE
4. logical partition 26.10 GB FAT32 => some games

All partitions were made by the fdisk from the Win98SE cd-rom.
MSDOS 6.22 installed from a cd-rom, I prepaired with the ISO image you can find online "DOS622_Install_CD_by_Looka_Bootable_EX.iso"

Advantages:
1. I can use Phils tweaks for a MS-DOS boot menu with or without EMS, XMS, CDROM etc. => good for games like U7, Falcon 3.0, Wing Commander 1, Turrican 2 etc.
2. I can boot independently into Win98SE and play early 90s Windows games
3. I can boot from Win98SE into DOS 7.1 and play for instance Doom1, Quake1 if I feel the need to do so as DOS 6.22 is only for very old or speed sensitive games

Hardware:
Asus P5A
AMD K6-3 / 400
Spea Mirage V7 2MB Trio64 PCI
Canopus 3dfx 6MB V1 PCI
64 MB SDRAM
SD2IDE adapter along with 32GB sd-card
SATA2IDE adapter along with LG H24N DVD burner
Creative SB AWE64 value
Onboard Solo-1 sound chip
Cherry PS/2 keyboard
Mouse PS/2
Gravis GamePad
MS-DOS6.22 & Win98SE

What I appreciate is, that I can slow down the machine to 486 level using SetMul or disabling 1st and 2nd level cache in bios.

I will probably never install an AGP graphics card, as it wouldn’t be worth it, since I already have a second and a third retro PC, and the Trio64 chip is one of these with the best DOS compatibility.

DOS:K6-3/400,192MB,P5A,Rendition v2200 AGP,Trio64 PCI,3dfx V1,AWE64,ESS1938,PicoGUS,32GB
w98SE:P3/450,768MB,QDI440BX,V3AGP,AWE64,PicoGUS,80GB
wXP:P3/1G,512MB,CUSL2-C,MSIFX5600,Audigy1,80GB