I've pinned your comment because I am eager to hear what you find! 800 Games, that's amazing 😀

My main two issues I run into with games is CPU speed and also memory. I created this MS-DOS Starter Pack with a boot menu that lets you select memory types. For older DOS games disabling CPU Cache gets many games going. Selecting PC Speaker instead of Sound Blaster gets some games working on fast machines because of this.

@@philscomputerlab CPU speed is definitely a common problem and some games such as Ultima VII are VERY difficult to get running at the right speed since they don't allow cache disabling to slow down the CPU but that's why my retro setup consists of a 486 DX2 66 and a Pentium II 333. There's still some games that don't feel right (Origin released a lot of games that were speed-sensitive). With FreeDOS specifically, the memory managers are by far the biggest problem I had in the past. Some games absolutely need the real HIMEM and EMM386 and even specific versions of them at times - the 7.10 versions will not always work so a boot disk running DOS 6.22 or even DOS 5.0 is needed but then you run into the FAT32 wall. Ah the fun of DOS game compatibility ...

@@redavatar Would you give an example of what games are problematic with the native FreeDOS memory managers?

@@magnum333 If I can find my notes I'll post them here. I usually write down all the problems I experience in a little book so I can avoid making the same "mistakes" in the future.

Y😀es it is a great project and they are making progress. Looking forward to testing version 1.4

I would try ReactOS because I have a scanner for WIndows XP. It of course isn't supported by any newer versions of Windows and the manufacturer no longer is in business. It is a Memorex Mem 48U. There are a couple other scanners that are the same thing but they also have no more driver support. It was also a TWAIN scanner. Why Microsoft no longer supports that is a mystery. I refuse to buy an all in one (scanner, printer and fax) because they will often refuse to function when ink is low even if you are only trying to scan something. That just has to stop, it is 100% fully inexcusable and there should have been massive class action lawsuits every single to such a horrendous pile of junk is made!!

@@charleshines1553 I wonder if you'd be better off using some VM USB passthrough or an air gapped XP box

API set LOL. ReactOS is NT. it is a way more complex operating system than DOS.

@@charleshines1553 Agreed. HP was banned from selling ink for a while, due to the shady, time-to-kill ink cartridges, that would lie and tell you the ink was low without even using it (sometimes straight out of the package). Of course it didn't get reported much but the printer companies take a loss on their printers because ink is their bread and butter. They charge outrageous prices for colored dirt. I have a Brother printer that takes three color cartridge and a black cartridge. I rarely print anything but when I do, I always have to replace a cartridge. Never ran one empty but the printers says it's always catastrophically low on one or the other.

If you need a Windows NT system then go and use a Windows NT system like Win2K, WinXP, Win7. ReactOS will have to go another 30 years. It's nowhere close to replace WinXP. At least not at that development speed. If you want to speed that up, then learn programming and improve it.

get a pentuim 4

Anything with AGP and classic PCI slots is great for Windows 98.

Yes it takes just one or two things that don't work and you want to stick with MS-DOS. For me it is that old computers have enough issues, so I don't need another variable thrown into the mix 😅

XT-IDE (or XUB) is maybe a better option for something that old, though that may require some added hardware.

386 BIOS support up to 540MB. There are other overlay programs ,but they use a tiny memory and this can be issue for older games that depends on the first 640KB to run

@@simeonjohnston5941 Xt-ide can make it work, but it is quite slow and expensive. It cannot be used in laptops too.

I read the bug report on SourceForge. It's fairer to say that they didn't have the resources to look into the bug, rather than "we don't care". I have a Compaq Portable II with Disk Manager and MS-DOS 5.0 booting from a 512 MB SD card. It would be nice if FreeDOS worked, but not super important. The good thing about FreeDOS is most of the software that comes with it will also run under MS-DOS.

But why not just use MS DOS?

@@vardekpetrovic9716 It works fine on all my retro systems. The use case is for what, DOSBOX?

Thank you! 😃

Any releases there now of your adventure?

@@AncapDude unfortunately, licencing issues have meant that I couldn't release it. The game has been completed and works flawlessly on FreeDOS

@@shdon 😥

Yea time just flies.

780 Ti for XP 😅 A 750 Ti will do the trick, you could build a nice Vista / DX 10 Retro build with the 780?

@@philscomputerlab i'll save Vista for a spare Sandybridge board i have second hand or should i dig out my Q9450 i have gotten for free a few years back? hmmmm

You will need to capture the monitor signal if you want profit from the 22 bit postfilter of the Voodoo cards.

Yea I also don't remember running into an issue with MS-DOS 7.1...

The only issue on MS-DOS 7.1 is that it requeres 286 to run . The 8088 can run up to DOS 6.22 . But freeDOS works on 8088 and supports FAT32 like 7.1

Back in the day I used DOS 7.x over 6.x because it more aggressively freed conventional memory which helped in a few situations. I don't recall running into any issues. EDIT: except FAT32 defragging.

Screamer 2? Yea it's a good game but I found it hard to beat.

YES!!!!!!!

@@philscomputerlab Steering wheel and pedals help tremendously in that game.

I remember using some DOS version where it was also really easy but don't remember if it was FreeDOS or MS-DOS 7.x from Windows 95. Don't think that it was PC DOS as they only seem to come as XDF images and a CD "Upgrade" release. Thing is, with my DOS 6.22 setup I'm never running into issues with too little conventional memory. 617K with mouse, CD-Rom and sound card drivers loaded.

Well, Windows 3.x enhanced mode (386 mode) support is still missing. Only Windows 3.x standard mode (286) runs in FreeDOS.

Hmm I know there is a speed related bug with the setup menu. On some machines I had to disable CPU Cache to run setup. But game works fine at full speed. Maybe this is what you're observing?

@@philscomputerlab Nah, it crashes/locks up while in game after a few minutes.

It should work with all Sound Cards, just need to install the drivers and you're good to go!

Awesome, let us know how you go!

@@philscomputerlab First update: Test Drive 2 - The Duel works, had to remove TDS2HISC.DAT and .BAK (should be config files as the date is newer than the rest of the files) and started it via the DUEL.EXE. CF is partitioned and formatted to 2GB FAT16, but don't know if this was also a problem as the game got stuck at a black screen without sound, freezing the whole system, before removing these two files. Short update. Now after rebooting is doesn't work anymore, even with no new TDs2HISC files. Need to test longer, if there is another cause for it not starting. Had the PC running for more than an hour, while on the phone and suddenly the game worked (after removing the files). Update 2, on how I really got it working. Before, I used edit to look into the TDS2HISC, before removing it and then ran the game. Now I moved the files back, loaded the editior and closed it again and suddenly the game is running. So try running the FreeDOS editor before starting the game. Wonder if this works with other games too. Update 3: GP Circuit also works with this trick. Both games from Accolade (same engine?) so can't really say anything about other games. Also tried running the game from Norton Commander, using the NC editior and also running and closing NC before starting the games but this always resulted in a system hang. So far only running the normale FreeDOS edit beforehand worked. Tomb Raider 1 with 3Dfx (using the Voodoo 2 workaround, which works fine under 6.22) freezes after the Core Design intro (STRG+ALT+Delete still works unlike the TD2 freeze) even if set to no sound card. Orphinit (Orpheus I sound driver) works fine and so does the DOS USB driver. Update on TR1 3Dfx: Seems to be a JEMMX problem. Booting Option 3 with JEMM386 helps. Stonekeep has problems installing from CD, no matter the boot and install options used. Works fine under 6.22. Tried CD-Rom drivers and MSCDEX from 6.22, which are working but installation of the game still has the same problem. Stops at copying the GROUP files from the DATA folder.

Well, should work. I think the Freedos guy Jim Hall has played it on the FreeDos channel under it. But that was under 1.2 i think.

there are currently supported tools like unisound for PNP ISA cards. LGR installed freedos on a Ryzen. In fact i think dell actually still sells pc's with freedos as an option. Theres nothing for AC97, unless the sound card has the sblink. I run a Athlon Tbird with an audigy 2 zs and it can run dos drivers. I also think the 9200 would be fine for ega, but some of the newer cards dont do all EGA fully correct (keen 4 scrolling)

If the machine has PCI slots there are options for DOS compatible sound cards. Also there are printer port sound devices.

​@@Pickle136 thanks for the reply. will check the LGR video. As I have tried, I think my Ac97 doesn't have the sblink, so I will try something different. Do you know if an ensoniq card will be good to try? Or maybe a sound blaster live?

@@philscomputerlab thanks for the reply, Phill!! I think I'll try to get another soundcard for it. Do you know if an Ensoniq card will work, or maybe a sound blaster live? I don't want to spend much on this, and don't know if these cards work good enough with DOS/Windows 9x games.

@@marcelofrau8818 yeah for dos support live 5.1 is just as good, they basically all use the same emulation. The audigy driver can also be made to work on the live its somewhere on vogons.

I think 3 or 4?

I never understood why - just use DOS 6.22, it's era correct and it does everything you need.

I believe this is Scramer 2.

Just give it a try and let us know of any issues.

I think I got dud models, they are quite slow, feels like a USB flash drive more than a SSD. I would pick another brand, but it is possible I got fake ones.

​@@philscomputerlab That's a bummer. I'm partial to the HyperDisk disk-on-modules that plug directly into the motherboard, but the chip shortages are making those difficult to get now so I've been looking for alternatives, and Kingspec is one of the few companies making IDE drives (and the more reputable companies that make them, they're quite a bit more expensive). I'd be wary too of that SATA to IDE converter. I may experiment with some industrial CF cards since at least those are natively IDE.

@@retro-computing-gaming Just use a larger SSD with SATA to IDE adapter. Limit capacity by entering IDE values manually into BIOS. I want to do a video on this actually...

@@retro-computing-gaming CF cards work very well. For DOS a half decent brand / model will work wonderfully. Also check out IDE to SD card adapters. These use a converter chip, but work also very well with old computers.

@@philscomputerlab A video on all the various "solid state" options for retro PC's would be great. Because there's a ton of options, and each one has its own caveats. I've never tried the SD card route only out of concern for the longevity of the read-write cycles. I've played with CF cards before but only the industrial variety allow for more than 1 partition, and any OS newer than Windows 98 will detect a non-industrial variety it as a removable device if the TrueIDE bit can't be flipped. If you only need 1 partition and won't be installing anything newer than 98, regular CF cards seem to work great.

Hmm not sure what you mean. There are versions of DOSBox with those features...

you should check out pcem (x86 emulator with sb and voodoo 2/3 emulation)

@@vardekpetrovic9716 deadlink for edrdos

For modern hardware use pcem or DOSBox-X (not classic DOSBox)

Yes it does! Created a single 32 GB partition through fdisk.

I haven't tried. Note that it needs FAT16.

Windows für Workgroups 3.11 does require enhanced mode which doesn't work in FreeDOS. But Windows 3.1 does run in standard mode in FreeDOS.

Hoping they make their way to GOG...

@@philscomputerlab unfortunately I don’t think it’ll happen. Papyrus folded after the release of NASCAR Racing 2003 and re-formed as iRacing.com a few years later. The rights to their old games are up in the air and they’re pretty much abandonware at this point. It’s a shame too, they’re some of the most realistic racing simulators for DOS. but you can still find physical copies on eBay occasionally.

@@skraegorn7317 Don't forget Grand Prix Legends too xD

@@paulgraves1392 oh of course, I was just naming their DOS titles. They also did NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Racing, NASCAR Legends, and SODA off road racing for Windows 9X, they apparently did the Windows port of Road Rash too.

I think there is no point in getting old Indycar Racying to run on DOS. Reason: You will find much better racing games today and these old racing games do have nothing special which make them unique. The story is different for games where you do not find a modern replacement.

Use MS-DOS, problem solved!

@@philscomputerlab Thanks. I tried but it's the same issue. Might be the game, might be QEMU. It's playable on Dosbox, crashes on Windows 3.11 if the mouse pointer reaches the edges. Tricky game.

@@leandroperalta Yea stick with MS-DOS, HIMEM and EMM386. Best compatibility with old games.

Try MS-DOS

@@philscomputerlab Yes, of course, the game works on MS-DOS. But I would like to know if it works for you on FreeDOS,

@@manuelalfayatecorchete1806 Well it seems it doesn't work. Just use MS-DOS man, it's more compatible and what I would recommend.

@@philscomputerlab Ook, thanks. I won't use anything with the MicroSoft name on it, but well, thanks for the recommendation.

Try it, it should boot from USB.

80 TB in MS-DOS? 😉

@@philscomputerlab Actually we got 20 TB drives now and a 10 bay NAS. So...

😮

What do you mean? Make sure it has ISA slots and get a half decent sound card and you're set.

Windows 3.11 doesn't work on FreeDOS?

@@philscomputerlab looks like i need to try it again and quick search shows it working for some. I thought there was an issue with 386 enhanced mode, but maybe this isnt the case anymore

Just FYI, I found the best way to run Windows 3.1 on modern PCs was under OS/2. Particularly eComStation or ArcaOS.

Getting Windows 3.1x working under FreeDOS was considered not worth the bother until recently, I think... but late in the 1.3 cycle they managed to get it more or less down.

@Dmetsys 1. It is still illegal to use MS-DOS without a license. 2. FreeDOS does get better along with big partitions and more RAM. And the tools shipped with it are usually better.

You can run Windows 3.x in standard mode (286 mode) on FreeDOS 1.3 but sadly not in enhanced mode (386 mode).

@@OpenGL4ever ah so it has improved! Because, according to something I read (I haven't tried myself) while windows 3.1 was able to run on standard mode, windows 3.0 was only able to run on real mode. So now windows 3.0 is functional on standard mode as well?

@@chrll I don't know. I thought there is no big difference between Windows 3.0 and 3.1 in standard mode. You might need to try it.

Funny you should ask... ReactOS is still in alpha though.

@@Caseytify ReactOS isn't a remake of Windows 95, it is a remake of Windows NT.

I have the exact same doubt! Why? - does it include utilities for play speed sensitive games? Does it have a one for all solution for sound compatibility? What is the benefits? Why?

@@DhinCardoso It's open source. That's more than enough reason for some people.

@@DhinCardoso You can install it on as many machines as you have. For MS-DOS you still need a license for every machine you want to install it on. I do have a couple of old machines, but only one license from MS-DOS 6.2 and another one from DR DOS 3.3.

None what so ever. But if you are trying to sell old DOS software to run on a modern system then it does offer a legal way of packaging up a ready to run package without having to worry about MS licencing.

It's mostly intended for embedded systems, or replacing old industrial computers that can no longer be repaired, but are still a vital to controlling machinery. Hence the fact it works on modern hardware. It's also free and doesn't require licensing to be used in a commercial setting. So no benefit to someone with a retro gaming PC but could be useful in those settings.

I haven't observed much if a difference if I recall ...

Made my own MS-Dos 7.1 spin that i originally based off that but its evolved so far past it its really its own thing now. Can send it to you if you like.

Proper usb support is one of them.

@@EvilTurkeySlices fat32 (but you can also get this with DOS 7 (win 98)

Payment-free option to bundle with modern software that works with DOS, like bootdisks and hard drive scanners. Works on more modern platforms so it helps keep old systems alive like industrial systems designed in the 1980s, or so I've heard at least.

Have you tested with MS-DOS? Happy to test it, just ZIP up the game and send me the link :)

@@philscomputerlab can't paste link on youtube, does not allow. what's the best way to reach you?

@@koeihiroko3622 philscomputerlab at gmail dot com

No hits searching for Monkey Island Ubertalk. What's that version supposed to be?

@@armorgeddon I think it's called Ultimate Talkie Edition.