Setting up a PC-FXGA

[elmer]

Looking around at the old threads here, it looks like this whole process used to be documented ...

The installation process is documented on Sabre's blog here: http://sabre470.wordpress.com/pc-fxga/

... but  that site doesn't exist anymore.

Does anyone have a copy/printout of that page that they could share, or know where to find it?

My PC-FXGA arrived, and after lots of messing around with the Japanese version of Win95, I've got it running and playing the latest Zeroigar CD and Team Innocent. 

I'd like to know if I'm missing anything, whether people ever got it running on Win98, and if there are any particular tricks that are needed to get the CD emulation working.

[SamIAm]

For what it's worth, I searched in Japanese, and it I could not find any accounts of people getting it to work with Windows 98. I found people asking about it and saying they were going to try it, but no success stories.

Granted, the vast majority of the info out there is about the PC-98 version anyway. Apparently, the PC-98 also not compatible with Windows 98, unlike Windows 95.

You've looked at this, right?
http://www.fenix.ne.jp/~fez/soft/fxga/win95.html

[SamIAm]

I also found this:
http://gom.skr.jp/fxga4win95.shtml

[elmer]

For what it's worth, I searched in Japanese, and it I could not find any accounts of people getting it to work with Windows 98. I found people asking about it and saying they were going to try it, but no success stories.

Granted, the vast majority of the info out there is about the PC-98 version anyway. Apparently, the PC-98 also not compatible with Windows 98, unlike Windows 95.

You've looked at this, right?
http://www.fenix.ne.jp/~fez/soft/fxga/win95.html

Haha ... it funny you should answer the question ... I've just been reading a bunch of your posts in the old  "Anyone care to comment in-depth on the PC-FX hardware design?" thread (http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=10536.0). 

Thanks for searching out those pages, I certainly hadn't seen the 2nd one. 

Perhaps I should be more specific ... I don't actually want to run the PC-FXGA within the Win98 GUI ... I suspect that that's never going to work.

Microsoft made a bunch of changes between Win95 and Win98 that screwed up it's ability to run old DOS drivers while within the GUI ... and since the PC-FX drivers are all DOS level, I don't hold out much hope (nor do I have much interest).

I've seen Fez's page before, but it's a pretty messy workaround to get the PC-FX to work in the Win95 GUI using SCSI drivers ... which I think was because the PC-98 was using a SCSI CDROM.

These days, the DOS machine that the PC-FXGA goes into is so slow that it's always going to be a secondary computer that can be dedicated to the PC-FXGA, while any real development work is done on a separate modern Win7 multi-core system.

The multitasking Windows GUI isn't really necessary, and the CD drive is going to be ATAPI, and not SCSI.

My goal right now is to try to get the PC-FXGA working in Win98's DOS 7.10 boot mode without using the Win98 GUI, and then update files over the network.

Since my earlier post, I've got the PC-FXGA playing CD games in DOS 7.10, so that's a good start.

Now it's back to Win95 to install the GMAKER and GMAKER PLUS files.

I was just hoping that someone had already documented doing something like this to save me some time.

[filler]

This might help. https://web.archive.org/web/20080409112152/http://sabre470.wordpress.com/pc-fxga/

[elmer]

This might help. https://web.archive.org/web/20080409112152/http://sabre470.wordpress.com/pc-fxga/

Thanks for the link, I had no idea that the web archive also stored wordpress blogs .... that's so cool! 

[EDIT]
Cool, but a bit of a disappointment.

It's a very nice English version of a Japanese web page that I'd already struggled through to get the PC-FXGA playing a CD game.

If sabre470 ever got further on from there, then it's lost in time. 

I've got GMAKER and GMAKER PLUS installed now ... so hopefully it won't be too bad to get the CD emulation actually working.

[Arkhan]

I don't think you're missing much, and will likely be underwhelmed/annoyed by the cables/nonsense very quickly, lol.

Much like how I felt about the MSX+Develo setup for PCE.

Its cute and fun for a little bit, but then you realize you can just do everything on your PC, burn a CD, and test it on the machine!

How much did you end up paying for yours?

[elmer]

I don't think you're missing much, and will likely be underwhelmed/annoyed by the cables/nonsense very quickly, lol.

Haha ... I have 5 computers and a NAS on my desk ... a 6th for the PC-FXGA isn't much to add.

I just need to get it running smoothly so that I can put the Voodoo2 SLI cards back in it.

Much like how I felt about the MSX+Develo setup for PCE.

Well, if you ever get tired of the PCE Develo box ... I might find a home for it.

Its cute and fun for a little bit, but then you realize you can just do everything on your PC, burn a CD, and test it on the machine!

Yep, 99% of everything will be done in Mednafen.

But when you do want to test on hardware ... it's nice (and a bit less wasteful) not to have to burn that CD, and just squirt it down to the PC-FXGA over a gigabit network connection.

Being able to attach a debugger to find out why something doesn't work on real hardware is useful, too.

We recent had our first Zeroigar crash on real hardware ... because I overlooked an unaligned memory access that Mednafen didn't complain about.

Also, I'm the kind of guy that would like to have a chance to play with the 3D chip ... and there's no other way to do that.

How much did you end up paying for yours?

About $110+shipping.

There have been a couple of PC-FXGA DOS/V ISA cards on Yahoo Japan recently. There was one without a box that went for something like $40.

BTW ... I'll eventually release some patches that switch the most important PC-FXGA utilities fully into English.

[Arkhan]

Yeah, it's fun to have it all hooked up.  It's a shame the 3D part was never put into the actual system, as that would've made a huge difference.

From what I recall, the DOS FXGA is cheaper .   The PC98 one goes for more, probably because it's cooler.



I probably won't get tired of the develo box, but it sort of doesn't serve as great of a purpose because of flash HuCards and stuff now.


I've been looking/thinking about getting another PC98 setup to mess around with the FXGA nonsense again.   I'm kind of too balls-deep into MSX computering for that at the moment, though.

[elmer]

From what I recall, the DOS FXGA is cheaper .   The PC98 one goes for more, probably because it's cooler.

Hahaha ... I think not!

I've been looking/thinking about getting another PC98 setup to mess around with the FXGA nonsense again.   I'm kind of too balls-deep into MSX computering for that at the moment, though.

Unless you're desperate to play with a PC98, surely it'd be cheaper just to get a DOS/V card and a cheap Pentium3 ISA PC, and sell on the PC98 PC-FXGA to some idiot on eBay?

BTW ... You got me curious enough about the MSX to buy one to see what the fuss is about.

It's a bit smaller than I remember them, though ... and I've still not found any MSX software worth a damn! 

[Arkhan]

Unless you're desperate to play with a PC98

Yeah, DOS stuff is cheaper and easier to get going today, but PC98 has the booby games, and a certain "yay" factor to it.

From what I do remember though, you could get the DOS card for usually 50-75$ less than the PC98 one, assuming you were digging around on Japanese sites.

If you were looking at stuff already purchased by the white devil, they will charge idiotic prices for it all.

BTW ... You got me curious enough about the MSX to buy one to see what the fuss is about.

It's a bit smaller than I remember them, though ... and I've still not found any MSX software worth a damn! 

Which one did you buy?  Depends what model you get in terms of how large the unit is.  I have a particular fondness for the Toshiba models.   

There's tons of good MSX software.    Lots of nice RPGs for MSX2, lots of fun actiony games.   Quirky MSX1 games.   

I wish it shared a processor type with the PCE so I could develop games at the same time.

Ah well.

[elmer]

Yeah, DOS stuff is cheaper and easier to get going today, but PC98 has the booby games, and a certain "yay" factor to it.

Yeah, sorry ... 800MHz Pentium3, Geforce 4, Voodoo2 SLI, gigabit ethernet and compatibility with the best DOS/Win95/Win98 games really works better for me.

I wouldn't want to actually compile on or try to transfer files to an old-and-slow 16MHz 80386 PC98 machine! Were there many faster ones?

Which one did you buy?  Depends what model you get in terms of how large the unit is.  I have a particular fondness for the Toshiba models.

That was a picture of it in my last post! 

Here's another with a PC-FX controller for size comparison.

http://caro.su/msx/ocm_de0.htm

[Necromancer]

Were there many faster ones?

I was curious, did some googlerins, and found that the last model released was a Celeron 433.

[elmer]

I was curious, did some googlerins, and found that the last model released was a Celeron 433.

Yeah, I saw that on Wikipedia.

Released 8 years after all the other machines, all by itself. Sounds like something that would be a really expensive collector's machine these days.

I don't know enough about the PC98 software library to know if there's anything spectacular on it.

I do know that there are a bunch of really great DOS/WIN95/WIN98 games that you can play on an affordable old IBM PC.

Not personally seeing much reason for anyone to hang on to a PC-FXGA PC98 at this point ... but what-the-heck do I know?

[Arkhan]

Oh, I didn't see the picture.   I see you got a terrorist onechip instead of a Sony/Toshiba/Sanyo/Panasonic!   I only buy the real deal MSX stuff.  It's literally setup next to me as if it were a current machine.   

The PC 98 has *very* f*cking awesome games.  Great RPGs, booby sims... all kinds of stuff.   

Don't get me wrong, I love DOS stuff too.   the late 80s/early 90s DOS RPG library is about the best thing ever.  I still play a lot of that stuff on DOS Box now.

As for PC98:

It just keeps going like that.   You essentially get the Japanese gaming experience with respect to action games... instead of the "we tried to mimic it, but suck at the games/just watched a VHS tape of the game, so we really ballsed up making it" versions on USA home computers.




You mostly get the PC98 PCFX stuff if you're semi-retarded like me and enjoy setting up Japanese machines that are as old as you, so you can pretend you didn't miss the boat.   When I got it, I already had the stuff to attach it to, and it was cheaper, so I was like YEAH! .  In hindsight, I should've maybe got the DOS one.

I was working on getting one anyways, but this store called Rising Stuff turned into Falling Junk because the one dude there was a total moron, and he fell through on that.

I dumped the actual 98 hardware in favor of just tinkering around in emulators with the games, because I wanted to focus more on MSX.   One PC98 turned into enough money to buy 2 MSXes and a ton of games.