dosbox.sourceforge.net
It emulates a "generic" x86 with VGA/EGA/CGA/Tandy and Adlib/Sound Blaster/Tandy sound. You can dial the cycles per second so you can adjust the speed of the emulation exactly. You can even take perfect screenshots and dump sound to .wav files.
And the scary thing is: It works. I mean, it works REALLY well. Even timing-dependant games that output digitized sound through the PC speaker work (and you can dump it to a .wav!). Everything is loaded high except the interrupt table, so you get 637K free DOS RAM (that is not a typo). And you can dial the speed of the emulation using hotkeys while the game is running to make fine adjustments. For slower machines, you can skip video frames to free up CPU time. I can get most older games running on a 333MHz machine by setting the frameskip to 4 (~17fps) or 5 (14fps), which is the speed most games ran at on an 8086 anyway. If you have a VERY fast machine (2.5GHz-like speeds or higher) you can emulate a 486/66.
Places needing improvement:
- MT-32 is emulated, but only by passing MIDI commands to Windows, so it sounds a bit off. No custom instruments.
- Creative Music System ("Game Blaster") sound appears to not work in 0.60. Not a big deal if the game also supports Adlib.
- The Adlib emulation is very good, but not perfect.
- 386 games requiring protected mode sometimes work, sometimes doesn't.
Stuff already in CVS (upcoming releases):
- Better 386 emulation (goal is to get all DOS4GW games working like Duke Nukem)
- Gravis Ultrasound emulation (already 99% finished)
Specific uses for this particular group:
- Run your old collectable games again, under Windows!
- Hear sound and see graphics you've never seen before (IBM PCjr/Tandy graphics and sound, like King's Quest 1-3, etc.)
- Hear Sound Blaster sound you may have not heard before due to poor compatibility (Rise of the Dragon, Stellar 7, Tongue of the Fatman)
- Run games that simply do not work properly on anything fast (Mean Streets, Dark Castle, It Came From The Desert, Moebius, Windwalker, Sorcerian)
- Take screenshots of your favorite games for personal webpages
- Record your favorite Adlib and Tandy game tunes to .WAV (be sure to set the Adlib emulation to 44100Hz output for best fidelity)
I am not associated with the project, but I love the product. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project: http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene: http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to
the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect'
Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
