Can anyone recommend a good DOS game machine?

[funksoulfather]

I'm thinking about playing some old dos games on an old PC because I hate using Dosbox (sound is out of sync and framerate is choppy on my pitiful computer) I'm wondering what kind of a system I would need to run games from about the early to latter 90s. Ex. Warcraft II, Beneath a Steel Sky, One Must Fall 2097, I Have No Mouth and I must Scream, and maybe Diablo and Dungeon Keeper etc.

Pentium 1 or 2?
What kind of Cd Rom drive would you recommend Double, Quad?
Amount of Ram? SVGA card?

Your thoughts will be appreciated.

[§ Gideon §]

It seems logical to find the highest-rated hardware configuration that supports a DOS-based OS. I don't really see a question, there...

However, I need to interject with something: You're in luck because--judging from your game list--the hardware you want isn't so old that it's extinct but is old enough that nobody wants it! Please understand that in most cases you would be doing someone a service by transporting their "trash". I'm just saying this because it sounds like you're getting geared up for a hunt. I'd say it's more like fishing: Make your cast and just wait for a while.

Anyway, my current DOS box runs Win95 on a P166 with 64 MB RAM, I believe. It gets the job done. Of your list, I might have a little trouble with Dungeon Keeper. However, if I could change anything, I'd want a bigger HD: It's less than 1 Gig.

[c0ldb33r]

Just find a used computer that's in good condition that is running Windows 95. Remove Windows 95 and install DOS - there, you're set :D

Very cheap and rewarding project IMHO!

[mezrabad]

I've got an old PII/400 that I've underclocked into a PII/200. It runs Win 98 SE and I've got it booting to dos most of the time. It works okay for some games, but for others its waaay too fast (Wing Commander for one).

Anyway, I think the fishing analogy was a good one. Few people want their old computer anymore. With a little patience you'll find something.

[blissfulnoise]

You can run a flavor of DOS on pretty much any hardware. You can even dual boot your own machine and save you the space and money in getting a new machine.

Check out FreeDOS for example: http://freedos.sourceforge.net

All those games you mentioned won't suffer speed issues from using new hardware so you should be in the clear.

If you're hard up towards getting a dedicated, older machine running DOS, just call around some computer places and you can probably get something for very little money or even free.

If you were going for old adventure games and old Apogee Shareware, I'd recommend a Pentium Pro/75mhz or even a 486DX/66 but since all of your games are a bit newer, a Pentium II/III with a CD-ROM and 64Mb of RAM should do just fine.

EDIT: Want to add that if you go for a new machine CD-ROM speed won't matter, the faster the better. Same for your hard drive, 7200 RPM, bigger the better. For a video card, theoretically anything will work as none of those games really feature any hardware acceleration or anything (Dungeon Keeper might). You may want to look at a TNT2 or even an S3 Verge. Very cheap cards and they'll do the trick.

[WanganRunner]

Go on craigslist.

You can almost certainly find a nice machine for DOS games for either nothing or nearly nothing.

I snag cool old computer goodies on there all the time.

[Dave Farquhar]

Most games were intended to be playable on an 8X-12X CD-ROM drive, but faster won't hurt you. I wouldn't mess with a 2X or 4X drive because some of those had proprietary interfaces, and tracking down the drivers can be difficult. It's nice to have a reasonably quick IDE drive that can use the standard, generic Oak CD-ROM driver that modern drives use.

Finding a suitable machine won't be difficult. If the place you work has a dedicated IT staff, ask around. Many IT people are computer junkies and have a large collection of parts or even whole computers that they won't use, but they hated to see go to waste. (I know I resemble that remark.) To be diplomatic, don't ask, "Hey, do you have an old computer in your basement you'd give me to run DOS on?" Start the conversation by saying you've got a hankering to play some old DOS games, then lead into asking if they know where to get something suitable for that. If he or she has something collecting dust, chances are he or she will offer.

Also, I see old computers all the time in the same places you're likely to find video games--thrifts, garage sales, etc.

[TheRedEye]

Here, read this, it's all you need to know:

http://www.spacequest.net/misc/customsqpc/

[davidbrit2]

DOSBox is a waste of time. Download VDMSound.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound/

I've gotten most early '90s games I've thrown at it running just fine in Windows 2003, complete with Sound Blaster audio and joystick control via USB controllers. Give this a try before you go building a whole new computer. After you install it, find the .exe, right click, choose Run With VDMSound (or whatever it says).

[funksoulfather]

I managed to find A Pentium 233 at a local computer repair shop for the can't be beat price of free! I asked the guy there if he had any old Pentium computers and he said the lowest specs they carry are Pentium 2 400mhz. Then when I said politely, thanks anyway and was about to leave he told me to hold on a second. He went out back for a few minutes and returned with a tower which he thrust into my hands and said Merry Christmas. He said they had a couple machines out back from California that used to be in a school. The computers all have Novell on them and he couldn't get them to work properly, not worth the effort he said.

I beg to differ, now I have my very own dedicated DOS machine, or will have, after I go pick up a power supply cord and an old 5 pin DIN keyboard. ;)

Now that I have the system anyone want to reccomend me some DOS games?

[funksoulfather]

Now that I have the system anyone want to reccomend me some DOS games?

Bump

[MarioMania]

[quote=funksoulfather]
Now that I have the system anyone want to reccomend me some DOS games?


Ultimate Doom
Doom 2
Quake

[Carey85]

Alien Carnage, Descent, Doom, Doom II, Rise of the Triad, Commander Keen Series, Carmageddon, etc...

As for myself, I use a Thinkpad 755C 486DX/75mhz laptop with a 2x hard drive and 8MB of RAM, doesn't sound like much but it cuts the mustard just fine both as a DOSbox as well as a hard disk for my C64.

[Ze_ro]

Now that I have the system anyone want to reccomend me some DOS games?
Dungeon Master
Dark Heart of Uukrul
Traffic Department 2192
Ultima Underworld
Wasteland
Ultima IV - VII
One Must Fall 2097
Shadow Warrior
Pharaoh's Tomb
ZZT
Pools of Darkness
There are a bunch of other games I would have added to the list, except most are already playably on modern computers through things like ScummVM, Z-Machine interpreters, and so forth.

My DOS machine is a Pentium, 133 MHz, with 64 MB of RAM. Anything more powerful is basically wasted. As long as you have a computer that can handle Quake, it'll run pretty much any other DOS game you'll ever want to play. Having boatloads of RAM won't help either, as DOS just can't use that much (Even 64MB of RAM in my system is useless, as QEMM and EMM386 are only able to allocate 16MB EMS and 16MB XMS, leaving 32MB completely untouched). Having exceptionally fast systems can also be tricky, as they're actually a bit harder to slow down to reasonable levels when necessary.

A couple of extra tips: Assuming you're running MS-DOS 6.22, you should know that MS left out a bunch of stuff from this release that they figured wasn't necessary as most of their customers were using Windows... the most notable omission was DOS Shell. However, if you look around, you should be able to find something that I think was called the "Extras disk" that includes all the stuff they left out. It's worthwhile getting this stuff for a DOS-only machine.

You would also do well to learn a lot about optimizing config.sys and autoexec.bat. By todays standards, this is rather deep wizardry, but some games are really finicky about memory, and might take a little work. It's possible to make boot menus that change the setup however you want. On my system, I have one setup that runs with EMM386, another that uses QEMM (gets me slightly more memory, but occaisional compatibility problems), and another that doesn't even run a memory manager (unfortunately necessary for Ultima 7). I'm still proud that I was able to optimize my setup so much that even with heaps of drivers loaded for a bunch of goofy extra hardware, I still have 634k conventional ram free :)

--Zero

[slip81]

Duke Nukem 3D and Neuromancer (if I'm thinking of the right game) are also pretty fun.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Neuromancer was an adventure game that had you seraching the "internet" for clues so you could advance through the story and solve the puzzles. Like I said I think it was Neuromancer, but I could be wrong, whatever game it was though, it was fun, kinda like a cyberpunk Where in the World is Carmen San Diego.

You already got a computer, so it's really moot now, but vdmsound is a nice app that runs things smoothly, used to play Beneath a Steal Sky with it.

[cyberfluxor]

Descent (1 & 2)
Kings Quest (all)
Space Quest (all)
Warcraft (1 & 2/exp)
Mech Warrior
Diablo (1 & Hellfire)
Cyberia


There's a few really good turn base war strategy games out there that I can't think of but look around, or I'm sure some others will post about them.

Oh ya, and you may want to fall back on this older thread too:
Recommend me some DOS/Win95/98 games! (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=80576&start=0)

I will also say a great source site is still up for games you can't really find anymore:
http://nahoo.net/

[unbroken]

I thought about buildilng a dos machine just for Crusader: No Remorse. One of the best games of all time, and it barely works on any pc.

[scorch56]

Terra Nova
System Shock (the 1st one)
Ultrabots
Earthsiege (a real challenge to run on any DOS machine)
Bloodnet
Noctropolis

[funksoulfather]

So far I've tracked down the following games via abandonware sites and shareware releases

Alien Trilogy
Blood
Commander Keen 1 - 6
Death Rally
Doom
Doom 2
Duke Nukem
Duke Nukem 2
Halloween Harry (Alien Carnage)
Hocus Pocus
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
Jazz Jackrabbit
Leisure Suit Larry
One Must Fall 2097
Shadow Warrior
Sim City
Teenagent
Warcraft
Warcraft 2 + expansion

Thanks guys for all the recommendations so far.

[Vigilante]

I fished a p3 450 out of a junk pile to build as a dedicated DOS box. Only issue I had was with the onboard sound. I slapped in a soundblaster card and it's been fine.

[Porkchop]

I fished a p3 450 out of a junk pile to build as a dedicated DOS box. Only issue I had was with the onboard sound. I slapped in a soundblaster card and it's been fine.

Good point. Make sure you get a SoundBlaster card if you plan on playing older DOS games. Many of the old games only work with a small number of sound cards.

[cyberfluxor]

Soundblaster FTW! I have a handful of those cards that still work. :)

Also, if you want to go with a built system, go IBM.

[Blitzwing256]

if you like dungeon crawlers i'd say pick up stonekeep, it was fun to play had a good story and was challenging, plus it had an automap feature that you could actually write notes on the map very nice game.

[dougman999]

I've heard Micropose's Master of Magic is a very good game, but I couldn't get it to run on my 900mhz Athlon.

[Ze_ro]

Good point. Make sure you get a SoundBlaster card if you plan on playing older DOS games. Many of the old games only work with a small number of sound cards.
I've always wanted to stick a Gravis UltraSound or a Roland MT-32 in my DOS machine. My brother managed to pick up a GUS a while back, but he says it takes up TWO IRQ's, which is a bit rough... I'm also low on ISA ports as it is.

--Zero

[cyberfluxor]

Decided to toss in some pics of mine:

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c196/cyberfluxor/cpu.jpg

System:
Phoenix BIOS 4.0 Release 6.0
Pentium II 400Mhz
128 MB SDRAM
8GB Hard drive

Cards:
ATI 3D Rage Pro
Creative Labs Audio PCI 8MB
3Com PCI 10/100 Network Card

Drives:
IBM 5 1/4" Floppy
IBM 3 1/2" Floppy
Toshiba CD-ROM XM-6202B (32x)
Iomega 250 Zip

Total cost for computer: $10
I might pick up a tape drive later on at one of the pawn shops, still debating. :)

[Niku-Sama]

damnit i was hoping to unload a pentium i got from boeing a few years ago...i have alot of old parts.

any one got a voltage regulator for a socket 8 motherboard?

woo 600 posts...i noticed an even number, had to celebrate

[VicViper]

Now that I have the system anyone want to reccomend me some DOS games?

Scorched Earth.

The official web site can be found here (http://scorch.classicgaming.gamespy.com/), however the downloads listed there require a FilePlanet account. (I shake my fist at thee, FilePlanet!) A copy of version 1.5 can also be found here (http://www.funet.fi/pub/msdos/games/arcade/scorch15.zip).

[Jorpho]

any one got a voltage regulator for a socket 8 motherboard?

Socket 8? Isn't that Pentium Pro? Good luck with that.

(I didn't even know there were motherboards with non-integrated votlage regulators.)


DOSBox is a waste of time. Download VDMSound.

Pff. Go to the official VDMSound forums, and they'll tell you VDMSound is a waste of time now that its code has been integrated into DOSBox. :P

[gdement]

any one got a voltage regulator for a socket 8 motherboard?


I don't have any extras, but they're easy to find on ebay by searching "VRM". The 8.1 spec is adequate for a PPro, but I think 8.4 is compatible.