DOS Games Discussion

Lately I've been putting plans together to buy a WinXp laptop. Currently I am using a bulky 486 PC running Win95 OSR2. It is very unstable and crashes often, but it does pretty good with dos games. But WinXp has a disadvantage too. No dos. DOSbox to the rescue. But still, some games aren't compatible or they have problems with Xp. So, what do you think? Stay with 95, or switch to Xp?

Xp is the most stable (win) OS you can get now.
Learn how to use dosbox correctly and it runs 90 % of the dosgames.
Another 5 % can use ports.
The other 5 %: VPC ( but have to say you can play all the games on VPC,as you can use it to run all dos OS, win3.11,win95,win98 and even win ME)
If you want a easy going XP best has a 1024Mb ram on it.....

@#$%^&*

GameMaster.EXE wrote:Is VPC hard to use?
(Don't post another image. It makes this section look retarded.)
And you if run regular dos under WinXp, will they conflict with each other?

Don't ask such idiotic questions, it prouves you are really retarded and doesn't has even the basic knowledge.

Look who's talking

Since you have an old 486 based laptop, stick with 95 as it seems to run fine on that machine, albeit, with the occasional lockups and all

Myself, I wouldn't even place 95 on it, instead, I'd turn it into an old Dos5/6-Win3.xx machine just to run old DOS and Win16 games on

I guess I didn't explain clearly at first.......

I DON'T have a laptop, I'm PLANNING to get one.

My W95 is on a regular PC

*sigh*

Sorry about that, yes I didn't read it too well

I've now had some coffee to help out, so then, the question remains. Are you getting a current type notebook ?!?

Even one that's only a 2~3 years old has features and devices that you need a more up to date OS, say Win 2000/XP installed on to use all the devices.

In this case the idea of using VPC or Dosbox makes more sense, unless you want to partition the HD and install say 95/98 on one and XP on the other.

Thanks. You were very helpful.

Unlike someone that also posted here I know...........

Have both.

lol...... yeah good idea

I have xp and no problems yet.. * knocks on wood*

dosraider wrote:Xp is the most stable (win) OS you can get now.

Please, stop saying that. Thats your opinion. However, Windows 2000 and 2003 are both more stable than XP. And next time, dont be a jerk. When he said retarded, he meant it stretched the screen. Next time, its a warning.

GameMaster.EXE: VPC is easy. You just follow a wizard and you can install just as if it was an empty computer running inside windows. I used to have Debian Linux installed in VPC so I could use both 2000 and Linux at the same time. Its quite easy, give it a try.

Thanks.

Couldn't you just buy a WinXP lappy but keep using the old computer for DOS games? Windows 95 itself is very stable, you probably just need to format and reinstall windows 95 (too much junk on hard drive?).

Windows 95 stable.. Bwahahahahaha

Windows 95 is more stable than the first releases of XP and ME. It ran slow, but it was just fine for the programs of its time.

Sovi3t wrote:Couldn't you just buy a WinXP lappy but keep using the old computer for DOS games? Windows 95 itself is very stable, you probably just need to format and reinstall windows 95 (too much junk on hard drive?).

Really depends on how much work you want to put into maintaining an old computer. Myself, since 2000 I've been taking care of a very nice Win 98SE system, which I've been gradually upgrading over the years. I'm currently in the process of adding a 120 GB HDD and dual booting with XP... running 98SE and all my DOS and early Windows games off of the 40 Gig HDD/98SE, while I use the XP and the large HDD for internet, photo editing, video editing (I'm a movie director, but I still have to use a friend's computer currently, which is a bit embarressing), and large, new, and XP only games. (Like, say... Doom III? =D)

Ultimately, I'm going to get to the point where my motherboard and processor will no longer support my old software. This has already started to happen. For instance, my new motherboard (added after my old one got friend in 2004) no longer has a PC speaker hookup, which I miss a lot when playing old games. When I'm no longer able to run both on the same machine, I'll probably split them and dedicate a second PC soley to retro gaming. (Though I hope very much that, by that point, I'll be very, very rich)

And hey, welcome to the board! Always great to see new members.

Dogbreath wrote:Ultimately, I'm going to get to the point where my motherboard and processor will no longer support my old software. This has already started to happen. For instance, my new motherboard (added after my old one got friend in 2004) no longer has a PC speaker hookup, which I miss a lot when playing old games. When I'm no longer able to run both on the same machine, I'll probably split them and dedicate a second PC soley to retro gaming. (Though I hope very much that, by that point, I'll be very, very rich)

I wonder if in a few years we'll see name-brand retro PCs start being sold ... ie, you buy a PC with pure DOS installed and tweaked for playing old games ... ? There would probably be a market for such a thing but the problem of course would be getting parts ... also, I suppose FreeDOS or something would have to be used instead of MS-DOS due to all the licensing issues ...

emmzee wrote:I wonder if in a few years we'll see name-brand retro PCs start being sold ... ie, you buy a PC with pure DOS installed and tweaked for playing old games ... ? There would probably be a market for such a thing but the problem of course would be getting parts ... also, I suppose FreeDOS or something would have to be used instead of MS-DOS due to all the licensing issues ...

It would be kickin rad if they could do something like this, although I really doubt they would. However, I predict that within the next 5 years they will be able to get close to 100% compatibility for DOS emulators such as DOSBox.