Win98 on "real hardware"

[BigusSchmuck]

You can use old computers on Lcd, don't need a CRT for that. I use them on my Toshiba all the time. Per telling the difference, I can right away when I hear the games audio. This is a problem anyone running VM, Dosbox, or even GOG re-releases face when trying to play the classics on Xp-Win 7 machines, etc, who grew up with and know by heart how the original stuff sounded on the old soundcards.

This is even a problem for many people who prefer SB16/Pro for some games and something like the Gravis Ultrasound for other specific titles, so they run multiple sound cards in their classic machine. I guess this is the difference though between someone who knows and expects higher quality (a classic pc gaming enthusiast with hundreds of titles in their library), versus someone who doesn't care and is just happy being able to, on a whim, run whatever specific game they just downloaded on a whim, at totally minimal effort (f*ck all if it actually looks or sounds right, let alone plays at the right speed).

This just sounds lazy and stupid to me. Thanks, but no thanks. You're basically making the same argument the emulator die hards make. All I can do is say meh, to each their own. But no one leaning on the lazy side can damn well sit there and try to say it looks and sounds perfect, because it damn well doesn't and never will. And to me, if you are going to be this lazy, if there are any available, you might as well just buy or steal the GOG releases at that point.

And to note, it is all downhill from there.

Also, where did XP come into the discussion?

Have  you even tried vmware or are you just basing it on the fact its no better than emulation? Seriously.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Yes, I have. Its worse sounding then Dosbox emulation, and Dosbox already doesn't sound that hot to begin with. Given I've been doing this for 12 years now, you really want to question my knowledge on the subject?

[HercTNT]

I was trying to help a friend of mine get into dos gaming. He saw my project computer and wanted the same thing, but without having to build the machine himself. I suggested vmware, not because i thought it was better, because he did not have a dos machine.  So we set it up. It did not take long for him to realize that alot of games i could run, he could not. The games that did run, did not sound good at all. I'm not trying to discredit anyone. I can only tell you,  I have a windows 98 dos machine, and I have used vmware. Is it true you can play games on vmware yes, do they compete with proper hardware, NO!

[wildfruit]

Sim farm sounds better on a real soundblaster vs dos box that much i can say so does a train.

[ClodBuster]

I loved A-Train, even if I totally sucked at it and preferred Sim City 2000 instead. SC2K is still my favorite city sim.

My first own PC was a 486DX2 running at awesome 66MHz. But the 4MB RAM made it very slow on some Win3.11 applications like Corel Photopaint, and IBM OS/2 would liked to have more RAM, too. Thankfully the graphics adaptor came with a driver disk to support up to 65k of simultaneous colors under both OS.

But for DOS gaming, this was a fine machine. Even if I had a half assed non-soundblaster card, I was able to get good sound out of many games, but the real thing would have been better I think.

I'd love to get into the good old times again with Rex Nebular, Leisure Suit Larry, Doom, Duke3D and so on. But the machine died one day, and I wasn't able to revive it. Oh well, some of the old games haven't aged that well anyway.

[BlueBMW]

I grew up running a sb16/awe32 for most games so that is the sound I always get nostalgic for.  Recently I started trying some of the Roland MIDI modules on my DOS machine.  Some games sound great (Master of Orion and Hyperspeed) others not so much (Dune2)

I agree original hardware is best but it may not be an option for everyone.  GoG is good for the most part and I appreciate what they offer for purchase.

[geise]

I always will want to game on real hardware rather than emulation, but something like VMWare is virtualizaion, not emulation.  Yeah it's using generic virtual drivers for some things, but it's more than enough to run anyting DOS related.  I don't need two desktops anymore.  I just run Win7 then VMWare for anything below XP.  Currently I have it for Windows 2k and a DOS partition.  All this is while I'm still running windows 7.  I switch between them with the touch of a button.  Makes life so much easier.

[HercTNT]

My only beef with VM for classic gaming is that some games use the CPU clock rather than system timer, so a game that plays correctly @ 25 MHz will have a teensy weensy bit of extra challenge @ 4,000 MHz.

   So true. Its bad enough i have to use a cpu throttle program on my k6-3 450 as it is. Warcraft 2 is just one of the games that runs to fast.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Yeah the cpu thing affects a lot of games, both Dos and Windows 95/98 related. Both Twisted Metal titles, Toshenden, Resident Evil 1, Wipeout XL etc. List goes on and on.

[BigusSchmuck]

I always will want to game on real hardware rather than emulation, but something like VMWare is virtualizaion, not emulation.  Yeah it's using generic virtual drivers for some things, but it's more than enough to run anyting DOS related.  I don't need two desktops anymore.  I just run Win7 then VMWare for anything below XP.  Currently I have it for Windows 2k and a DOS partition.  All this is while I'm still running windows 7.  I switch between them with the touch of a button.  Makes life so much easier.

Thank you.  Now I know I don't sound crazy. When all else fails just create another vm for XP as XP mode sucks for classic gaming.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

I always will want to game on real hardware rather than emulation, but something like VMWare is virtualizaion, not emulation.  Yeah it's using generic virtual drivers for some things, but it's more than enough to run anyting DOS related.  I don't need two desktops anymore.  I just run Win7 then VMWare for anything below XP.  Currently I have it for Windows 2k and a DOS partition.  All this is while I'm still running windows 7.  I switch between them with the touch of a button.  Makes life so much easier.

Thank you.  Now I know I don't sound crazy. When all else fails just create another vm for XP as XP mode sucks for classic gaming.

You may be running the older operating system in "virtualizaion" inside a modern OS, but Virtual PC and VMware are both emulating Creative Soundblaster technology along with other hardware, similar to Dosbox. That's how they achieve audio and other abilities. Concerning OPL/SB16 emulation, Dosbox just does it better.

At any rate, you cant just make that Realtek HD chips and the like do things they were not designed to do and make them do it 100 percent correctly and sound 100 percent correct, let alone do it without emulation involved. I'm not sure why you'd think your current sound chip was doing all the work, let alone why you'd think it sounded legit....

Realtek themselves no longer support anything legacy Soundblaster wise, and has not in quite some time (and back when they did during the AC97 days they didn't do it very well). And this holds true for most any other modern sound chip maker since the DirectX9 era came to be. That's life.

If you really need a developer from Vmware themselves to confirm they are emulating legacy Soundblaster hardware, here, go read this stuff:

https://communities.vmware.com/thread/469388

https://communities.vmware.com/thread/448544

https://communities.vmware.com/message/481419



Also, for Virtual Pc:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Virtual_PC#Emulated_environment


If this is great for you, or you are in a position where you have no choice and this is all you can do, cool, whatever. But please don't be telling people it looks and sounds as good as the real thing, because it does not and is not, and probably never will be for that matter.

And for that matter, there is tons, and I mean tons of Socket 7 micro atx motherboards out there. If space really is a issue you can put one of them in a micro atx case with a DOM, a cd drive, a Awe64, and a S3 Trio, Matrox Mystique, pci Voodoo 3 or Banshee and be done with it. You could even run a Micro AtX Socket 370 Celeron board with a Intel 810 onboard gpu and just pair the thing with a Aureal Vortex, SB Live, or Ensoniq AudioPci if you want more cpu speed. This would hardly take up any space at all and run less then 130-150 watts peak on average depending on what cpu you use. You don't need a giant Pentium 3 or Athlon tower to do legacy pc gaming.

[geise]

Yes, you are right though.  When it comes to certain games (especially ones that need 3dfx) there is no substitute but real hardware.

I just run a lot of games that don't require any 3d acceleration, so I am fine with the generic display driver in VMWare.