FreeDOS or MS-DOS for classic gaming?

[jwmollman]

I have an older computer which has FreeDOS on it, but I was wondering if I should go with MS-DOS for my classic DOS gaming or just stick with FreeDOS? I know FreeDOS is a more modern DOS and can run all MS-DOS programs and games (maybe), but why would any of you choose MS-DOS over FreeDOS? Do you think there's a difference in running MS-DOS over FreeDOS for classic gaming, or is it just a personal preference?

[BlastProcessing402]

So long as FreeDOS plays all the games you are trying to play, I wouldn't worry about it.

I've never used FreeDOS, but used to use DR DOS back in the day instead of MS DOS. It was fine until the CDROM era came about and I couldn't get my shiny new 1x CDROM (w/caddy!) to run in DR DOS and had to switch to MS DOS.

[duralisis]

After building several retro PC configurations primarily for DOS, I'd have to say use MS-DOS 7.xx (Win95/98) as a base. You can completely disable Windows from booting if needed; but it's generally the easiest to work with. Also Free-DOS occasionally has weird bugs with some benchmark tools and video utilities.

Ultimately you can still use FreeDOS utilities within a regular DOS system. DOS32A, HIMEMX, and it's version of EMM386 are much better versions of the same utilities used for most dos extended games. They take up less memory; and like DOS32A actually give you a speed boost.