Author Topic: Win98 on "real hardware"  (Read 933 times)

ProfessorProfessorson

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #15 on: April 10, 2014, 09:03:28 PM »
I have my Win 95 and 98 machines here. The 95 machine uses a S3 grafx card, AWE 64 sound and a Pentium 100 or whatever. The 98 machine uses a Slot A Athlon 900, Geforce FX 5950, and Aureal Vortex 2. The 98 machine is currently connected to my tv via svideo. Running everything that way just looks awesome for the Dos stuff. A lot of Dos and Win 98 games that were ports of console titles just really benefit from a SDTV, and the Vortex 2 has excellent SB Pro compatibility even in pure Dos mode.

Arjak

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #16 on: April 11, 2014, 09:02:31 AM »
I don't, but I'd love to.  So many good games from that era.  I really loved the space exploration games like Frontier/Elite & Nomad and the pixel-hunt adventures such as Monkey Islands...  Also, like you, I have productivity software licenses that are idle for lack of supported OS on any of my current systems.  I know DOS Box could probably help with the games at least, but I've just not had time to mess with it.

If you want to run old point-and-click adventure games on a modern computer without fiddling around in DosBox, I highly recommend that you look into ScummVM. It's an amazing piece of software that emulates adventure game engines, and is very easy to use. :)
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esadajr

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #17 on: April 11, 2014, 09:08:09 AM »
If you want to run old point-and-click adventure games on a modern computer without fiddling around in DosBox, I highly recommend that you look into ScummVM. It's an amazing piece of software that emulates adventure game engines, and is very easy to use. :)

Scummvm is awesome, couple of years ago on my (then) W7 laptop I had a blast replaying Full Throttle, that's how a point and click make is done
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wildfruit

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #18 on: April 11, 2014, 10:19:19 AM »
Scummvm is great on pc. Bit patchy on psp

Arjak

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #19 on: April 11, 2014, 12:02:26 PM »
Oh, and by the way, Nullity, it's not just for LucasArts SCUMM games anymore! It runs lots of games from many different companies, including LucasArts' competitor, Sierra.
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BigusSchmuck

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #20 on: April 12, 2014, 03:46:40 AM »
You guys are making this more difficult than it should be. Just fire up a vm and install windows 98 on it and viola! Windows 98 machine on modern hardware!

ClodBuster

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #21 on: April 12, 2014, 05:50:19 AM »
Will such a VM setup be compatible with graphics hardware acceleration, sound drivers and memory management of DOS games and Win95/98/ME games?

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ProfessorProfessorson

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #22 on: April 12, 2014, 06:43:07 AM »
You guys are making this more difficult than it should be. Just fire up a vm and install windows 98 on it and viola! Windows 98 machine on modern hardware!


I don't care to fake it.

geise

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #23 on: April 12, 2014, 06:45:59 AM »
I still have a dual boot windows 98/windows nt 4.0 rig.  It's a dual pentium II 400 mhz machine with 512 megs ram and a 32 meg Oxygen VX1 vid card.  I had win98 for the emulators and games at the time and winnt for all my 3D software.

BigusSchmuck

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #24 on: April 12, 2014, 08:23:59 AM »
You guys are making this more difficult than it should be. Just fire up a vm and install windows 98 on it and viola! Windows 98 machine on modern hardware!


I don't care to fake it.
Its not emulating it, its the real deal.
Will such a VM setup be compatible with graphics hardware acceleration, sound drivers and memory management of DOS games and Win95/98/ME games?
As far as I know yes. I spun up a Windows 3.11 vm relatively easy through VMware at work. Windows 98 was a sinch as well. All you really need to do is have a pc that has multiple cores and you can dedicate that core for a VM. Much easier than dragging out a 486 setup and watch it eat up your electricity.



ProfessorProfessorson

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #25 on: April 12, 2014, 10:16:28 AM »
You guys are making this more difficult than it should be. Just fire up a vm and install windows 98 on it and viola! Windows 98 machine on modern hardware!


I don't care to fake it.
Its not emulating it, its the real deal.
Will such a VM setup be compatible with graphics hardware acceleration, sound drivers and memory management of DOS games and Win95/98/ME games?
As far as I know yes. I spun up a Windows 3.11 vm relatively easy through VMware at work. Windows 98 was a sinch as well. All you really need to do is have a pc that has multiple cores and you can dedicate that core for a VM. Much easier than dragging out a 486 setup and watch it eat up your electricity.




It's not the real deal. You are not using real OPL, Gravis, or AWE related hardware, or hardware related to Aureal, let alone 3DFX or other hardware from that time period that games were made specifically for. Saying it's the real deal is like saying Magic Engine or Fusion is. It's clearly not. The only thing you are getting that is the same is the OS. Thats it. Nothing else.

Also, a 486, let alone any machine from the 90's, will have way less an impact on your utility bill then a modern system. The modern gaming graphics cards and cpus use way way more wattage then anything from back then....
« Last Edit: April 12, 2014, 10:18:22 AM by ProfessorProfessorson »

ClodBuster

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #26 on: April 12, 2014, 12:29:42 PM »
Ah well, that's too bad.

On another side note, I saw DOS-Box struggling with some hardware acceleration intense DOS games on modern computers. Even the sound support and some XMS/EMS ram management dependant effects weren't trivial to achieve.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2014, 12:31:45 PM by ClodBuster »

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BigusSchmuck

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #27 on: April 12, 2014, 05:31:23 PM »
You guys are making this more difficult than it should be. Just fire up a vm and install windows 98 on it and viola! Windows 98 machine on modern hardware!


I don't care to fake it.
Its not emulating it, its the real deal.
Will such a VM setup be compatible with graphics hardware acceleration, sound drivers and memory management of DOS games and Win95/98/ME games?
As far as I know yes. I spun up a Windows 3.11 vm relatively easy through VMware at work. Windows 98 was a sinch as well. All you really need to do is have a pc that has multiple cores and you can dedicate that core for a VM. Much easier than dragging out a 486 setup and watch it eat up your electricity.




It's not the real deal. You are not using real OPL, Gravis, or AWE related hardware, or hardware related to Aureal, let alone 3DFX or other hardware from that time period that games were made specifically for. Saying it's the real deal is like saying Magic Engine or Fusion is. It's clearly not. The only thing you are getting that is the same is the OS. Thats it. Nothing else.

Also, a 486, let alone any machine from the 90's, will have way less an impact on your utility bill then a modern system. The modern gaming graphics cards and cpus use way way more wattage then anything from back then....
CRT monitors. Enough said. Vms and emulation are completely different. It's easier and less of a hassle to setup a vm than getting the actual hardware. Although you would be hard pressed to find the difference between a vm and a old 486 at least functionality wise. Btw windows xp mode doesn't count lol...

ProfessorProfessorson

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #28 on: April 12, 2014, 05:52:59 PM »
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?
« Last Edit: April 12, 2014, 06:08:38 PM by ProfessorProfessorson »

HercTNT

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Re: Win98 on "real hardware"
« Reply #29 on: April 12, 2014, 06:09:03 PM »
I currently own an Amd k6-3 450 on a dfi super socket motherboard, 256mb of ram, awe32 sound card, voodoo3 3000 agp, and 8gb disk on module ssd.

I have to thank the professor for helping me on this one. I have setup plenty of dos and early windows machines, but there is always something to learn. the voodoo 3 is one of the few cards i have used that will render damn near every dos game correctly. The DFi motherboard he provided me has been rock solid as well, no problems so far.
I chose the awe32 due to is hardware processing. It may not be as good as the awe64 or vortex, but on older machines it needs less cpu power.
Some of you might laugh at the idea of using such a small hard drive. Honestly, I have windows 98se and about 40 games installed with plenty of room to spare. The DOM is pricey, but extremely fast, and very reliable as there is not much to break down on it.
Having the right hardware means everything, way to many variables in games to half ass it. I tried that to many times with generic sound cards, or good enough vid cards. always came back to bite me.
wanna thank the Professor for the help on my system, it would not be what it is today otherwise.