The only way to play old stuff

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Hi

I figured that the only way I could play privateer satisfyingly is by running it in dos am i right?

If so can u guys help me out on this:

I am planning to play this via p4 256 ddr laptop. If I boot it in dos, how am I supposed to get the games to recgonise my usb mouse. Is using an usb mouse even remotely possible?

Secondly, I understand that in order for me to have dos in my winxp laptop, I will need part of my hdd formatted in fat or fat32 right?

Do I format it to fat or fat32?

Is there an easy way to add a fat partition to my current hdd without reinstalling winxp or losing any files?

I believe my inbuild sbcard is not what it used to be right? am I suppose to configure them the way i use to do it ages ago? config sys and autoexec settings? is there a generic sb drive that could suppose most modern soundcard to run in do?


Thank you so muchh!!! :)
 
Hmm. I can play WC Privateer perfect via DOSBox 0.61, but pure DOS should work, too. - If you have DOS Sound drivers that work with privateer. If not, DOSBox/Myjemm etc. would be better.
To the formating: For DOS 6.22 I needed FAT-16 as my FAT-32 drive was not recognized. But with DOS 7.0 (which comes with Windows) Or plugins or so, FAT 32 should work.
And yes, there is an easy way: You need a rpoggy like Partition Magic (Don't know if it's freeware, though. IT came with my Mainboard) That'll do it.
To the SB stuff: Sorry, I've only set up an ISA SB under pure DOS :( - So can't help you there.
 
I just got Privateer up and running on my P3 500 machine that I had sitting in a closet for the past 2 years since I got my P4 PCs. I always felt like I should hold onto it since it ran Win98 so well and there might be a need for me to do it. I knew that some games, like Master of Magic, Interstate 76, Magic: The Gathering, and any of the Star Wars space simulators would not run well on modern computers.

The best thing to do is get an old PC and set it up specifically for DOS and/or Windows98. Here are the specs that I used:

P3 500 Mhz @ 100Mhz FSB
512MB PC100 Ram
WD 7200 RPM 9GB IDE Hard Drive (for the OS)
WD 7200 RPM 18GB IDE Hard Drive (for all my games)
ATI Rage Fury AGP 4x w/ 32MB Ram
3dfx Voodoo2 PCI w/ 12MB Ram
Sound Blaster AWE64 ISA w/ Joystick port

It is an ideal setup for older games so long as they are not speed dependant, like WC1 and WC2 (non-Kilrathi Saga versions). You can then use MoSlo or just run them in DosBox when you boot to Windows. I even made a Dos boot disk that I built menus for specific games to optimize either Xpanded or Xtended ram and enable or disable CD. Doing so, I can get anywhere from around 605Kb to 615kb of free DOS memory.

So if you are looking to play the games of yore, there is nothing better than a computer from that same time period. USB is a real challenge to get running in DOS. Good luck to you. Post your successes (and failures) so that others will be aware.

NoMention
 
Privateer/MSDos/Built in sound chip/USB mouse
I have an Esstech sound chip and use a Win95 sound driver to get MSDos compatibility. (Esstech do not have an "official" MSDos driver).
As far as I know, MSDos and USB each speak a "language" that is totally incomprehensible to the other party.
 
Farzone said:
Privateer/MSDos/Built in sound chip/USB mouse
I have an Esstech sound chip and use a Win95 sound driver to get MSDos compatibility. (Esstech do not have an "official" MSDos driver).
As far as I know, MSDos and USB each speak a "language" that is totally incomprehensible to the other party.
Click to expand...

Correct - your mouse will not be recognized by DOS, as USB was never designed to run on DOS. A quick fix would be to use a ps/2 adapter for your mouse (if it has one) then use a generic ps/2 mouse driver. Or you could pick up a cheap generic ps/2 mouse.

For Privateer and the rest of the WC games on my WC machine, I went with a SB16. Excellent sound, good solid DOS drivers. Works great on the Windows-based stuff too.
 
Of course dosbox will use USB peripherals too. I was pretty psyched when I got my Logitech FF joystick to work with WC1/2 in dosbox on my XP machine.
 
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