Thread 12073936

The last thread got pushed out by the spam, so I thought I'd make another. In case you missed it and don't know what this is, this is a pre-configured, fully working 86Box/PCem Windows 98 machine full of nostalgic games. The download is here:
https://gofile.io/d/1tuxMB
For more information and discussion about the pack, what games and applications are in it, how it's configured, etc., see the last thread: >>12051419

Also, while it's not ready yet, I am also working on an accompanying DOS games pack that will seamlessly work on this same machine, and I may even make a DOSBox version of it for those who only want the DOS stuff. I know we already have a /vr/ DOS games pack, but I feel it's rather outdated and is missing some crucial things (most importantly Setup/Install executables necessary to choose sound options and such), so this will be something of an update. It will use the LaunchBox frontend, which makes launching and configuring games quite easy and convenient.

So far I've added many of the usual all-time classics you'd expect in a pack like this, but I want more stuff that's less talked about to round things out and cover as many genres as possible so there's something for everyone to bite into. Recommendations are welcome, though I will say in advance I will not be including games that are extremely speed sensitive (i.e. require a very specific CPU speed to work properly), games that use Redbook audio with no MIDI or Sound Blaster music option, or titles that have an unavoidable CD check with no available crack. This unfortunately leaves out some great games, but I feel it's for the best.

>>12073936 (OP)
have a bump

>>12073304
I actually was planning on testing to see what games could benefit from using the faster V20, which ones were a disaster with anything besides the original 4.77Mhz 8088, and which ones don't really care what speed the CPU is, or don't matter like turn-based games. I also plan on figuring out exactly what video mode is best for which games. Of course, this is still a long way off. I'm still on step 1, making a list of all games that are Monochrome or CGA compatible. Step 2 will be actually hunting down a copy of all the games. Then step 3 will be the testing.
I just wish I could get my hands on a more recent Total DOS Collection than the ones on internet archive which are years out of date.

>>12073936 (OP)
>The last thread got pushed out with the rest of the spam

>>12074284
you never heard of exoDos ?

>>12073936 (OP)
Based, thanks OP

>>12074451
You would know, if you bothered to follow the previous thread I was linking back to.

>>12074451
>exobloat

>>12074516
you have no obligation to download the whole thing retard,you can select the games you want from the list.

>>12074537
You have to download "Lite" for that, and Lite still takes several GB.

>>12074593
no dumbass in pretty much any torrent program you can see the files list and pick which one you want downloaded,tech illiterate retard.

>>12074516
Yeah so what? Might as well have the whole fucking thing. Grab a 4 TB drive, slap eXoDOS and all of his other releases plus TOS releases and have a grand fucking time.

People would have killed for this kind of option. Goddamn. Bitches complaining about bloat but not thankful it exists in the first place.

One step further for this same retard, you could opt for the Total DOS Collection on real hardware but have to sift through a ton of release variants that may or may not be cracked.

eXo had the right idea to just get games working for the average person.

I wish people like you were never born into this world since you can't appreciate what others have done for you.

>>12074658
People actually use eXoDOS this way?

>>12074678
You can if you want to. The Lite edition lets you download things in chunks and not all at once.

>>12073936 (OP)
does it have doom

>>12074678
>>12074685
>>12074593
fucking zoomer are so incompetent.

>>12074685
>>12074678
>>12074593
wow,so hard.

>>12074480
>You would know, if you bothered to follow
18+

bump

i remember those 200+ games disks that were mostly crap card and maze games. some games were alright though

>>12073936 (OP)
imagine using 86Box/PCem when qemu exists

>>12073936 (OP)
High quality work anon, not sure why the last thread died so quick. As someone who has spent thousands of hours in his youth curating software libraries by system, trying all sorts of obscure software compatibility patches and specialized emulators, and tweaking innumerable placebo settings in pursuit of the so-called "perfect" retro gaming experience, I've come to appreciate with age the value of these curated repacks that allow someone to sample a system's potential without getting too lost in the weeds.

Anons like >>12074676 are completely missing the point; sure any retard can download a complete set and run games through an emulator, but why waste all that bandwidth if you just want a quick nostalgia hit or are trying to experience that system for the first time. eXoDOS is a nice project but what the fuck is anyone going to do with 8000 games? Especially for people that aren't intimately familiar with PC gaming trying to choose what to play can be overwhelming since the gem-to-shit ratio is so tiny.

Anyway, cool that OP threw in some applications to fuck around with too, adds a lot to the experience when you can select games within the target OS instead of having to use some bloated LaunchBox shit. I've tried a couple other packs for other retro computers I wanna mention if other anons are interested:
>Sharp X68000 (https://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=7231.0): 4 virtual hard discs full of the best retail and doujin games, as well as some multimedia and desktop environments to play with. Navigates using a fully English and shockingly intuitive file commander from within the emulated system.
>Amiga (https://archive.org/details/amigavision-2024): hard disc image filled with converted floppy games and a launcher within the emulated system that has lots of "best games" filters to sort through the eurojank. Runs a version of Workbench too with pro paint/music apps from the era
Any other packs I missed? Infinitemac is unfortunately web-based.

>>12075665
C64 dreams, same idea as the exo projects with a launchbox front

>>12075665
I will say eXoDOS has one big thing going for it, and that is the fact that it makes playing CD-based games MUCH easier, as it automates the entire process. Not that it's exactly hard to do, of course, but finding a good CD image, installing it, and then having to mount it before playing can be tedious to some, and eXoDOS (or rather, DOSBox itself) makes it so you don't have to do any of that.

>>12073936 (OP)
>but I feel it's rather outdated and is missing some crucial things
The only thing missing is your actual understanding of basic computing.

>>12074678
That is literally how people use it. Get game and gamedata and you are set. The bloat is only for retards that download everything.
Now let's talk about tds. Download torrent,have to scan the multiple version of what you want to actually get to the game since tds is tosec's retarded cousin.
And once you downloaded it, you have to manually search for game because it sorts by year for some fucking reason. No words.
And of course you also have to download manuals as well for most games, something exo covers.

>>12075845
Audio man, audio. Most roland stuff i completely broken out of the box and exo automates fixing that.
To this day most people play might and magic xeen games with broken audio because they fall for the exobloat meme.

>>12075628
Take your WINE and shove it up your ugly ass.

>>12076031
Yeah, that's unfortunate. Getting good, proper audio out of DOS games is definitely a noob trap, since they're not likely to know or be able to distinguish between the various options or that there even are options.

since we're on the subject, do any of these support midi soundfont emulators?

>>12076607
86Box uses FluidSynth for custom soundfont support, if that's what you're asking.

>>12073936 (OP)
i'd like to recommend Oregon Trail 2 anniversary edition

>>12076664
Already in, together with the first one.

Probably for the best if the OP lists what's actually included in the pack so folks don't ask for shit that's already on there.

>>12076714
>For more information and discussion about the pack, what games and applications are in it, how it's configured, etc., see the last thread: >>12051419

>>12076608
yup, midi support beyond ears bleeding general midi

>>12076768
Then yeah, and I believe DOSBox-X (and maybe Staging) does as well. They also support external MIDI, so if you have something like Sound Canvas VA or Nuked-SC55 set up, you can hook those up also.

>>12075665
I though amigavision sounded like MegaAGS but it is MegaAGS just rebranded. what gives

>>12076607
Not sure what the right synth would be for this era of machine, but as a test I had MUNT already installed for MT-32 emulation on X68000 and I found was pretty trivial to pipe the Win98's midi calls to my host machine's software synth in 86box. Go in sound settings and change the MIDI Out device to "System MIDI" then hit configure and select your soundfront emulator from the dropdown.

I think I have a better "boulder dash" clone than this one in the pack. More accurate too.

https://www.artsoft.org/rocksndiamonds/levels/martijnmooij/2015-12-09/www.bd-fans.com/Files/FreewareClones/Windows/BoulderRush_v0.1.0.9084.zip

>>12073936 (OP)
Please add Deer Hunter, Trophy Bass, Trophy Bass 2 and maybe some of the Magic the School Bus games.

>>12077125
I'll check those out for the next version of the pack provided they don't require the CD. I'm always looking to add variety.

>>12075665
You can literally filter by year or genre or titles within eXoDOS you mongoloid.

Even for the so-called informed DOS era gamer, you would know what era or types of games you would like.

Whatever you want though. I respect a good PCEm and 86Box setup and love OP's as well.

But to think eXoDOS sucks for the average user is absolutely retarded. It's the golden ticket to entry. It makes everything retardly easy in comparison.

t. used a few GUI frontends back in the day too in addition to the real thing.

What we have nowadays is a godsend. People would have killed for something like this back then.

>>12075665
C64 Dreams
eXoDOS
eXoWIN
Amiga Game Selector

>>12077125
>>12077598
Isn't Deer Hunter 1 notable for being like 25 or 50MB and not requiring the CD to play?

>>12077672
If that's so, then it's definitely going in for the next one.

>>12073936 (OP)
Can you put every single Encarta and Groiler release in this pack please?

Got everything 1982 cataloged and downloaded, but there are more than few titles I didn't see. If anyone can link me to the following 1982 DOS/IBM PC games, I'd appreciate it.
>Battlefield!!!
>Blingsplatz!
>Bridge Master
>Cyberchess
>Mensa Master
>Mouskattack
>Operation: Sabotage
>Quotrix
>Rhymes and Riddles
>Sfinks
>States N Caps
>Tic Tac Show
>Trilogy
>Typing Strategy

>>12077742
I would be open to including a Grolier encyclopedia, but every single release of both would be massively redundant and would take up a lot of space that I'd rather use toward more games or unique fun applications.
>>12077794
Just wanted to tell you I'm glad you're doing the work others don't bother doing. If you find any games from this early period that would be a good fit for the DOS pack, please let me know.

bumpo

>>12077637
>he's still at it.
Still not using your bloat, Exo.

>>12076349
what wine you retard?

>>12078859
Having task scheduler enabled should lead to a public execution.

>>12079030
kek, cope

>>12078838
eXo is a Discord faggot. He would never be caught dead on 4chan you absolute retard.

>>12078859
I bet that plays like complete shylin comparison to 86Box or PCEm.

Qemu is terrible for games

>>12079670
SHIT

I meant shit

>>12079670
kek, it literally plays everything at 100%, go on, ask me for any game you can't run on your Pcem shitbox

>>12079670
bro PCem or 86box literally cannot run any of these games, even with a fucking threadripper

OP here, I don't see the need to shitfling between PCem and QEMU or whatever. Truthfully, I've yet to try the latter, as it seems quite cumbersome to set up from what I've read, but I'm willing to give it a go if I ever get the time. I am indeed curious, as it appears to use CPU virtualization and GPU passthrough for hardware acceleration, which would indeed be the ticket toward attaining the speed necessary to run much newer and complex games than PCem and forks feasibly can on most PCs. To the anon who brought it up, I'd like to hear more about how to set it all up, if you're up for it.

>>12075628
>>12078859
Still can't figure out how to set anything up in qemu to install an OS

>>12079728
sure, what exactly would you like to know?

>>12079743
For starters, are you using this fork?
https://github.com/kjliew/qemu-3dfx
This is the one that promises GPU passthrough, but if I'm reading correctly, you must build everything yourself, unless you donate 90bux in exchange for a build with everything you'd need. Seems kinda scummy, when other emulators provide nearly everything free of charge. Given time, I'm sure I could set a build environment up (I've done so before), but the lack of accessibility is a bit striking.

Aside from that, did you encounter any roadblocks, say, with drivers, sound, graphics, etc.? I can deal with that, but I'd just like to know what I'm likely to have to troubleshoot after installing the OS.

>>12079758
Yes, this is what I'm using, it offers both CPU and GPU passthrough exactly as advertised, and the performance is ridiculous on every relatively modern system. I'm using VBOX mini, STAC97 for the drivers, the compilation is indeed a bit of a hassle but I can guarantee that every OpenGL and Glide game can run flawlessly through OpenGlide, the only thing you're missing by not giving shekels to him is DirectX support, because he does not provide instructions on how to compile his modified dlls.
I'm also using PATCHER9x on my Win98 installation which is required on modern systems, otherwise Win98 gives you a million rundll errors
Personally, I find this extremely valuable so I have donated, there's simply no comparison between qemu and PCem or its forks. Yes the author is a jerk, but I don't really care, I simply want to run my Win9x games on a proper environment, but to each his own.
I can help you set it up, share my Qemu invocation for either windows 11 or linux, or even test whichever game you desire so you can see for yourself the difference in performance

>>12079829
In all honesty, while I said I could probably set things up myself, I do not currently have the time to do so (just putting together my pack took months and months of just fucking around, trying out Windows installations, installing all kinds of drivers, testing games, setting up the DOS environment, optimizing for performance, etc., and this when I could find the time for it - it's why the DOS pack I'm building is taking so long and will take some time still). If you are willing to share whatever you have to expedite the process so I and others can try it out and so have ready access to a Win9x environment that works and opens the door to even more games, it would be incredibly awesome.

>>12079854
I can share with you the drivers and my win98 floppy which contains PATCHER9x, and an msf file for unattended installation
I can also share all of my DOS/QEMU arguments required to set it up
are you on windows or linux?

>>12079858
Windows.
Would you be providing a prebuilt QEMU binary as well, or will that need to be compiled?

>>12079861
I'll give you everything you need, give me like 8 hours

>>12079897
No rush, anon. I appreciate your cordiality thus far. We need a lot more of this these days, when so much of the dialogue on this board and 4chan as a whole is assholes trying to win interbutt arguments, as if that did anyone any good.

>>12079897
>I'll give you everything you need, give me like 8 hours
>I appreciate your cordiality
jfc is everyone in this thread glowing?

>>12079903
no problem OP :)
>>12079907
I'm at work, you imbecile

>>12079907
No need for hostility. If he doesn't come through, then that will be enough to indict his word. I prefer to withhold judgment 'till then. And even so, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, and maybe eventually check out this QEMU thing by myself and see if it's worth making a new games pack with it, no skin off my back.

I don't know, maybe I'm just getting too old for this cycle of endlessly spewing out vitriol on others here. Were it not for the fact that everywhere else absolutely sucks for honest, unfiltered discussion, I'd have left years ago.

>>12079917
I use gofile, as it doesn't require setting up an account and has very high file size limits, but the downside is it is likely to delete your upload if it sees no downloads after a certain amount of time. Alternatively, there's catbox, which I don't think deletes your uploads and is also anonymous, though it has a 200MB limit, but if, as you say, the files are small, that shouldn't be an issue.

>>12079719
Why the hell would I want to run those games on an emulator when they still run fine on native windows?

huh, so apparently, my previous two posts were deleted by the jannies, I don't understand, did I break a rule or something? should I even post the gofile link? lol
>>12080267
it's not an emulator, it's virtualization, and good for you, I'm on linux so I can't play any of this natively, apart from Half Life which has a native linux port, and even if you can play them on windows, THIS is the OS they were supposed to run on, no compatibility modes, no fixes and patches, they simply run out of the box
they just werk
also with that kind of question, you kinda defeat the entire point of this thread, the very reason people flock to PCem or 86box

>>12080287
>I'm on linux
kys

>>12080287
>I'm on linux
kek that explains EVERYTHING

>>12080373
>zoomer furiously tearing at xer broccoli, unable to understand anything that isn't memphis corporate flat icons

>>12077794
Had enough time last night to catalog 1983 up to the B's. Unlike 1981 and 1982 that was almost 50/50 monochrome and CGA, the majority of releases so far for 1983 are CGA. Well, except the IPCO game releases, those are all still monochrome. Either way it looks like 1983 was the year developers said "Why not just make a CGA game and give it a monochrome mode for people still on B&W?" Even text-only games are using CGA just for colored text.
Battle for Normandy is looking badass, looking forward to play-testing it.

>>12079915
https://gofile.io/d/4ePldZ
aah fuck it, so here you go, OP. I don't know how familiar you are with QEMU, but basically, the entire thing runs from a shell. When I was still in Windows I used MSYS2, but afaik PowerShell is fine as well. If you are not comfortable with shell environments, I'm afraid I don't know how to make qemu-gui or anything similar work with qemu3dfx, so if you must use a graphical interface, stay away.
now, before you do anything, you have to enable virtualization in your motherboard BIOS. The setting name changes depending on the motherboard. On mine (MSI) it's called SVM. After doing that, you have to enable Windows Hypervisor (whpx) in order to have acceleration inside your Win98 virtual machine
if you still want to do this, unpack the folder "qemu" from the zip, and put the floppy.ima inside, your Windows98se iso, and you might wanna grab this as well
>https://archive.org/details/SecurityCD_2004. That floppy image contains all the drivers you'll need, along with an .inf file which points to the driver path, so everything will be automatically set up for you. I tried to streamline the process and make it as painless as possible. You can also shut down and restart the VM from DOS, since I have added some .COM commands for convenience.
from the shell environment of your choice, you have to navigate to the qemu folder eg:
>cd C:\users\you\Downloads\qemu
then, you have to create a virtual disk drive with qemu-img
>./qemu-img create -f qcow2 w98.qcw 40960M ("qcow2" is just the virtual disk format that QEMU uses)
then, copy and paste this in your shell
>./qemu-system-i386 -nodefaults -rtc base=localtime -display sdl -audio pipewire, -m 512 \-L pc-bios -M pc,accel=whpx,hpet=off,kernel-irqchip=off,usb=off \-device VGA -device lsi -device ac97 \-netdev user,id=net0 -device pcnet,rombar=0,netdev=net0 \-drive if=floppy,format=raw,file=floppy.ima \-drive id=win98,if=none,file=w98.qcw -device scsi-hd,drive=win98 \-cdrom Windows98SE.iso -boot a

>>12080382
>using troonix
>using it for games
Why has your life gone so horribly wrong? Even if you're the poorest nigger in the world you know you can just pirate windows and games too, right? You probably masturbate with broken glass.

>>12080397
Once you boot from the floppy, you can pretty much follow his guide
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okFco8OSLn8

>fdisk
>format c: /s
>sys c:
>type config.sys
>mscdex /d:MSCD001
>xcopy32 /s /e d:\win98 c:\mycd
>patch9x c:\mycd -y -no-backup
now shutdown your VM and reboot it with the following invocation
>./qemu-system-i386 -nodefaults -rtc base=localtime -display sdl, -m 512 \ -L pc-bios -M pc,accel=whpx,hpet=off,kernel-irqchip=off,usb=off \ -device VGA -device lsi -device ac97 \ -netdev user,id=net0 -device pcnet,rombar=0,netdev=net0 \ -drive if=floppy,format=raw,file=floppy.ima \ -drive id=win98,if=none,file=w98.qcw -device scsi-hd,drive=win98 \ -drive id=scd04,if=none,media=cdrom,file=Security9_enu_15.iso -device scsi-cd,drive=scd04

>cd\mycd
>setup /nm /pj
and that's pretty much it, I have also provided with Daemon Tools so you can mount your games for installation. Drop the opengl32.dll and glide.dll files in to each game you want to play, and you should be set

>>12080397
>>12080414
Thank you, anon. When I have time (probably later this week), I'll see about trying this out. And a good thing, too - figuring all of this out and setting this all up does look like it would have taken me a solid month lol

bump

>>12080397
I got a command for you too:
rm -rf *

>>12079758
You're the qemu YouTube faggot that goes around Reddit denouncing anyone who doesn't think Qemu is God tier.

Get fucked faggot, Qemu ain't that great.

Just because your autistic ass prefers it, most people in here would do just fine with PCEm, 86Box, or fucking eXoDOS

>>12081298
>You're the qemu YouTube faggot that goes around Reddit
>that goes around Reddit
hmm, and how would you know that

>>12081302
I lurk like every other faggot on this board. You can pretend you don't, but some do.

If you're that faggot on YouTube, I genuinely think you need to reassess your shit in your life and stop fucking provoking people.

It's the faggot that used to shit up all the PCEm threads on Reddit with QEMU garbage.

>reddit
>reddit
>reddit
You need to go back, faggot

>>12081310
Agreed, qemu fag needs to go back

>first thread was nothing but joy and praise over OP's pack
>Second thread is little more than autistic shitflinging over which emulators are better
lolwut

>>12081486
>The last thread got pushed out by the spam
He called them out and they got mad.

>>12081306
I'm not that faggot sweety, I'm another faggot who likes his work and tried to help out OP, cause you know, he asked for this
that Youtube faggot would never help out anyone because he wants donations
don't worry, I won't post again itt, unless OP asks me to

yknow i remember a time when linux was just the "super ultra nerd" distro for neckbeards that the 4chan neckbeards made fun of to feel less like a neckbeard, and now its all "troonix" shit, you just keep randomly assigning things to linux to make you feel better about being angry about it

>>12081486
Yeah, really weird

>>12081291
that doesn't work on windows, what now?

>>12080387
And this is why I enjoy digging around old stuff. Here's one of the games Nasir worked on before he was hired by Square to do Final Fantasy.

>>12081758
What year did PC booters stop being a thing, anyway?

>>12081761
1988 was the last year there were major releases on PC Booters, but there was still about 5-6 in 1989, and one in 1990. Sir-Tech was one of the last major devs still using them with Wizardry 4 and Wizardry 5.

>>12081783
Wow, that's a lot later than I thought. I ought to check more of them out sometime, though I know a number of them got DOS conversions, like Alley Cat.

I think Trophy Bass requires the CD sadly, i hope OP can find a crack for it or something. I'd really really like to play that game again.

>>12082542
Some older Windows games don't seem to have cracks. I tried looking for one for the Windows version of Caesar II, and I couldn't find one anywhere. The DOS version may be possible to have working without the CD, though.

>>12082569
is it not posible to just have a bunch of ISO files permanently mounted in the VN?

>>12082573
Perhaps with Daemon Tools. The thought hadn't crossed my mind, to be honest. I'll have to see how well it works.

>>12082573
iirc there were "iso stubs" or "mini images" which were just images of CDs without the actual content (hence tiny file size), can be mounted to daemon tools, and works to bypass those kind of protection.

>>12082746
I would be shocked if someone hadn't already figured out a format to neatly zip CDs for archival on hard disc and decompress them into memory for use by a VM or other application at runtime. The max 700 MB per CD image is a drop in the bucket when most people are rocking 16-32GB of RAM at a minimum these days, and for larger collections I'd argue any savings to disc space would greatly outweigh some small hit to CPU/RAM performance as the information is being retrieved.

>>12082573
It's possible but only viable for limited cases. First, you'd be limited by drive letters. Second you'd be limited by the ability of games to deal with that. Not every game assumes the player has dozens of CD drives and provides a way to deal with that.
>>12083173
Yes. Several such solutions exist.

>>12083173
One interesting thing I found out I could do is copy all the contents of a game CD onto a folder, leave in strictly only what the game needs to work (so out goes all the installers, demos, anything already installed to the hard drive, etc), then load that folder on 86Box as a CD, and it will work. Doesn't work for games with Redbook audio, of course.

it's sounding more and more like i will be able to play Trophy Bass 1 and 2 again soon. excellent.

>>12083235
Doesn't work for any other things either.

>>12083173
>>12083215
>>12083235
I don't understand, why can't you keep the CD mounted and play the game, why do you need a crack for?

>>12084352
Because:
>"MUH HARD DRIVE SPACE"

>>12084352
>I don't understand
Clearly. You've gone from having "a bunch of ISO files permanently mounted" to "keep the CD mounted", so you obviously have problems understanding simple concepts of numbers that most people grasp within the first few years of their life.

>>12085510
i posted the original question but i'm not this >>12084352 anon, i don't do mass replies

In addition to the X68000 and Amiga packs from above, I've also identified a couple additional high-quality hard disk images pre-installed with OS, games, and software for the Apple II (archive.org/details/TotalReplay) and MacOS (archive.org/details/macpack). I also found disk images for the MSX2 and Atari Mega STE floating around on the web, but I struggled with the respective emulators so I'll give an update on those when I have more time.

>>12075845
>>12077637
I can appreciate all the effort that's gone into eXoDOS for getting these games working on modern systems with minimal effort but I think treating each game as a completely self-contained package like a console game isn't the right approach for the PC. Software doesn't exist in a vacuum, its operation depends directly on the underlying hardware as well as the state of the OS and filesystem.

And unlike a lot of 8-bit micros that just boot to BASIC and have few distinct upgrades, in the IBM PC world there are innumerable variants on the system architecture and OS configuration that each make the software experience distinct, even if it's all technically "x86" and "MS-DOS." Sure could easily compare Test Drive from 1987 and Need for Speed from 1995 side-by-side on your modern desktop but you'd be missing way too much context; to fully appreciate retro software you need to feel how it performs on a common configuration for the time (e.g, 286 vs Pentium), what the other choices for games were at the time, and maybe even toy with some productivity software of the era.

With advancements in proper x86 emulation with software and FPGAs the idea of Dosbox repacks is starting to feel a bit antiquated. In the future the standard for computer emulation will switch to people distributing distinct of disk images with a selection of period accurate software for the common hardware configurations of each year (1981 DOS, 1991 MS-DOS 5.0, 1996 Win95, etc.) which I think OP and >>12074284 are on the right track with.

What's wrong with using Dosbox?

>>12086507
they dont even know how to select files in a torrent anon.
>>12074751
>>12074748

>>12086507
>>12086513
they can't even fucking mount a CD

>>12086516
They can't even find the power button on their PC.

>>12073936 (OP)
Pretty cool, you should add a list of games to the download link next to the .7z so we can see what's on there before downloading the whole thing and booting it up

>>12086352
>I think treating each game as a completely self-contained package like a console game isn't the right approach for the PC

Depends on the game. Some games are small and install all of themselves on HDD and they are playable that way. Some games have their CD stuffed with data and thus read most of their data from CD. Back then HDD space was still pretty expensive.

>>12087098
I think it's more to do with the hardware issues pre-XP that makes people want to treat games in that way, like eXoDOS does. If you only grew up with PC games post-XP it's hard to understand just how much work went into just getting games to run on some machines when your particular set of CPU, motherboard, memory, 3D accelerator or sound chip wasn't in the developer's purview, and how much impact that could have - particularly by 1998. I still remember bricking our family PC when I installed the Sega Rally Championship demo because it changed some of our system video settings in a way that needed an expert to fix, spending hours working out how to do an Ultima VIII boot disk so I could get sound, and having to wait for PC magazines to get patches.

I've yet to download OP's pack, but I plan to - I think though there are basically two approaches:

1. You do what OP appears to have done, and set a fairly decent system that's most likely to play what games it can, and do what you can with config files etc. on that virtual machine to make things run as smoothly as you can. Benefits are that it's less time consuming, and also gives you the feel of using a vintage PC, drawbacks are it's likely you'll still get problems running some things - particularly when you've also got 'how your PC interacts with the VM' as a factor too. OP's version is also a bit more customisable.

2. You do what eXoDOS did, and essentially set the 'perfect' virtual environment for each game to run. Benefits are it's more likely each game will work, each VM is essentially dedicated to making that game run - meaning you just contain more variables; drawbacks are that it's massively time consuming to set up, requires huge amounts of space and somewhat 'console-ifies' the experience. You're also very reliant on what eXo's choices were for the 'perfect' VM; it's more fiddly to change what he did - the bits around sound mentioned above were interesting to read.

>>12087262
>bricking our family PC
haha I remember doing the same when I was a kid. I installed some Super VESA drivers or something to do with the graphics card to play the game Total Mayhem, maybe you remember that. Anyway, after restarting the computer the desktop display was all fucked up and squashed into the top 10% of the screen and overlapping - there was no way to undo it but to boot into dos and reinstall windows. I got a good slap for that one, wew.

>>12086352
>and MacOS (archive.org/details/macpack)
Very incomplete and focused only on the old stuff.
The most interesting mac stuff is the pre 2000 ports from windows.Sim city 2 and might and magic 4-5 are the best examples.

Whew, finally finished downloading everything 1983. Got a longer list of can't-finds than 1982.
>10 Little Robots
>33 Adult Games in BASIC
>Arabian Nights
>Arex
>Around the World Adventure
>Atlantis
>Blackjack Coach
>Broadway
>Casino Master
>Charles Goren: Learning Bridge Made Easy
>Checkers 2.1
>Chess published by Parker Brothers
>Chess 7.0 published by Odessa
>Dunjonquest: Morloc's Tower
>Early Games:Matchmaker
>Escape From the Dungeon of the Gods
>Flip-It II
>Funbunch: Elementary Level
>Genesis
>High School Confidential
>Hopper
>It's About Time
>Jack the Ripper II
>Moptown Hotel
>Nightwalker
>Odin
con't in next post.

>>12087523
>Pits 'N Stones
>Poker Squares
>Prisoner II
>Quizagon
>Race Car 'Rithmatic
>Scepter of Goth
>Ships Ahoy
>Solitare(only know it's an 1983 program, no more details available)
>Spell-A-Graph
>Spellakazam
>Spellicopter
>Square Pairs
>Ten Little Indians
>The King's Rule
>The Wizard's Sword
>Trivia Trek
>Volcano Island Adventure
Next day I get off I'll start in on 1984. Will probably take much longer than 1983 did, since I will start having to account for EGA games in addition to PCjr/Tandy games, and the amount of DOS/IBM PC games released in 84 is more than 83. I'll also need to create lists for EGA games and VGA games, and pull those out of the CGA/Mono lists. This will be required since as far out as 1990, major publishers were STILL including fucking CGA modes in their VGA games.

>>12087546
i thought you were just going with greatest hits and requested games? if you start adding every game from each year you're going to make it way too large of a file.

>>12073936 (OP)
I'm at work so can't check but is civilization II and it's expansion in the pack?

For some reason it won't run on my windows 7 machine

>>12087645
I plan on making a Monochrome pack, a RGB CGA pack, and a composite CGA pack. Using DOS 3.32(I think it was), that should give me plenty of HDD space for all games, given how many are far less than 1MB. Worse case scenario, I'll split a pack up by genres.
Obviously EGA will need multiple packs.

>>12087645
Oh, and you might have me confused with OP, I'm not OP. I'm someone else working on a different project altogether. See >>12074284

>>12087663
you should consider using a name in this thread

>>12087648
I actually tried to include it at one point early on during the making of the pack, but ran into problems. I forgot what exactly happened there but I ended up just discarding it and moving onto getting other games working. It uses Redbook audio, anyway. Still might consider trying it again considering the original version plays without the CD, but we'll see.

>>12087661
>I plan on making a Monochrome pack, a RGB CGA pack, and a composite CGA pack. Using DOS 3.32(I think it was), that should give me plenty of HDD space for all games, given how many are far less than 1MB.
Good idea trying to split each pack by display type, but I think if you gotta split a pack (likely CGA) you should probably do it by year, probably with one cutoff around 1987 when the IBM PC AT came out. Then it's easier to make sure all games have access to an era-appropriate version of DOS and specify the right emulator configuration for the end user, since despite how backwards compatible the 286 is there are lots of 1981-1984 games that will run incorrectly on anything that isn't an 8088.

>>12081640
eat your hard drive I suppose

>>12088734
>u should use 8088
No kidding. Please read:
>>12074284

>>12074284
Doing God's work, anon.

Thank you for this. I didn't expect to do a full play through of Sim Ant again, but here I go.

>>12086507
As a very high-level emulator Dosbox is just way too inaccurate compared to other options. It relies on a lot of shortcuts and hacks to provide a fast "one size fits all" solution for MS-DOS gaming resulting in tons of classics like Wing Commander still being near unplayable due to timing issues. Which was acceptable 20 years ago when we didn't have access to better options, but now consumer hardware and software is at a point where proper x86 emulation is easily accessible with 86box, PCem, etc, not to mention MiSTer and the like. Hell even MAME has a better approach to MS-DOS emulation.

That means that lots of people end up wasting time creating repacks that work "for Dosbox" rather than for DOS emulators in general. Look at all the versions eXo has to manage (wiki.retro-exo.com/index.php/DOSBox), each with their own specific configurations to make sure it doesn't run like shit. And this effort will end up being completely wasted when Dosbox stops being maintained on newer OS's - are people really going to download an emulator to run an emulator?

That's why for retro computer systems distributing games packs as virtual hard drives is a more robust approach in the long run. Because the data is abstracted from the implementation you can easily run it on any future OS or processor architecture as long as somebody's written an accurate low-level emulator for the target system.

>>12091763
People aren't likely moving on to new windows OSs anyway so as long as it works for windows 10 and linux it's good to go. even the normies don't want to use pajeetslop OS

no

>>12073936 (OP)
OP, did you see that DOSBox Pure Unleashed is gonna come out soon too?

https://youtu.be/t4q8OMp15KA?si=2qR2tUPwwWt3Ysv7

Saw this the other day and thought of you. I still think your main packs kick ass, but figured this might a good side adjacent "Just Works" tool to use for anyone who doesn't want eXoDOS and just a single pack of 50 to 200+ games imo.

>>12086352
You got very good points.

The neat thing with eXoDOS is that you could adjust the CPU being emulated as well as the color modes presented (EGA, VGA, monochrome, etc).

I know what you mean that surface level, it offers the consolized approach. However you could fine tune games to run slower or faster if you wanted too.

Just putting this out there.

You're right though, there's something autstically amazing when you compare games between completely different configured systems with separate hardware. It's a fun debate that we used to always have in my local retro computer group as well, especially for graphics cards and actual CRT monitors for later Windows 98 games in terms of the overall color quality, and color tones that are produced.

>>12086682
Not OP, but I would probably just look at the OP's image of the desktop and assume that is all of them. One look at something like that and I was like "Fuck yeah, I'm in"

If you know you know.

>>12092656
Cool. I wonder how pc game emulation/preservation will look like in 40 years. We have decent tools now, but how will people choose to engage with these games once the generation nostalgic for them is buried.

>>12092951
probably mostly entirely forgotten like the Victorian era through WW2 era arcade machines are today.

>>12074284
Have you checked Myrient? Can't find a proper changelog but going by upload dates they're only about two weeks behind TDC's daily updates.

>>12092964
True but at least MAME isn't letting it die. It might never be one for one but I am still glad at least someone is trying to preserve stuff.

We might lose most of it too, but at least the attempt has been made.

>>12093264
I agree with this. I remember finding their DOS section and realizing how comprehensive it is even though it's goal is way more console based imo.

>>12093531
Brother this is exactly what i mean, MAME can't emulate the games i'm talking about, you don't even realize they exist cause they're so old and anybody who cared about them is long dead. I'm talking about games that didn't use any kind of computing. Penny arcades and even games predating the 1900s. Not you're later arcade machines running on chips

>>12093264
>>12093534
Myrient's TDC collection is the one I'm using as a source.
The current set is #23, which came out in "summer 2025". The Myrient TDC collection was uploaded after that if the upload date is truthful, but it's missing stuff the official TDC website says is in #23. So while I'm not entirely sure which revision they have, it's not current.
I'm just hoping the majority of missing's are just revisions of existing dumps and not something unique.

>>12094220
Does TDC include cracked versions of games or do they only use untouched, unmodified dumps? As cool as it is to preserve as many DOS titles as possible, copy protection is and always will be ass.

>>12094947
As per their naming conventions:
>Cracked games are the default for all games in TDC.

>>12095032
Nice. I'll be having a look, then.

I was looking at the Neo Kobe collection for the NEC PC-98, and found it kind of neat how for each game they included both the original media and a hard disk with the game pre-installed, so you could load it right into any emulator you wanted without having to configure the OS or drivers.

Just curious, would this be a viable approach for MS-DOS and Windows games as well? Would be nice to be able to pick and choose what games to download and play like you can with DOSBox repacks while also having the freedom to switch to another more accurate emulator like QEMU or PCem at will.

dead thread
anybody tried QEMU? cause all I see itt is screeching and insults by autists

>>12096574
I have, it's not worth it desu.

>>12096574
I've not tried it myself, but a couple of guys over at /emugen/ have been testing it out during the past couple of days. Once it's fully set up, it does appear to work, and it's VERY fast with 3D accelerated games, but it has a fair amount of jank. Games that use QuickTime appear to stutter a lot during cutscenes, and there's no way to change disc images mid-session unless you install DaemonTools, preferably with FTP set up so you can get access to your host PC's files. However, if you use it on Linux, you can pair it with a Qt frontend that makes it a lot more usable, but again, Linux-only.

>>12096582
>>12096574
Most cases I would say just use Virtualbox when trying out random operating systems.

In a case like this, and I am fairly certain the QEMU fag is the same retard that goes around Discord and Reddit provoking anyone who dares to speak ill will of a QEMI setup, I will say it does appear to come close.

However given the choices present, it is way fucking easier to grab OP's prepared image for 86Box or PCEm and get cracking.

That or use one of the multitude of 86Box configs from the official Discord as well.

Too many turn key just works solutions that makes me wonder why any motherfucker would go Dark Souls mode and attempt to use QEMU instead like someone is going to give them a trophy.

Trust me, no one cares. People just want to get it working.

>>12096585
>Games that use QuickTime appear to stutter a lot during cutscenes
what games do you speak of? I have QEMU and I want to test them
>FTP
there's absolutely no need for that, QEMU has snapshots, you designate one folder and the VM reads it normally

>>12096640
Oregon Trail 4 and Wheel of Time were mentioned as being choppy during QuickTime FMVs.

>>12092417
yes. yes one million times. banished to chip's challenge dungeon

>>12074593
fucking zoomers holy shit.

>>12096952
Agreed. Motherfuckers can't appreciate the depth that the eXoDOS project is dealing with.

Of course it's going to be gigs with all of the manuals and assets included.

>>12097727
>manuals
I love how even gog has doghsit manual scans compared to exo.And you have to pay money for gog stuff compared to exo being free.

Tried total dos from myrient.Searched for tomb raider. Have to go by year which is pure retardation.
Find 3 file. One is bad dump, one is the german version and the final one seems to be the normal non gold version.
This is the exo killer according to zoomies?

>>12097758
>This is the exo killer according to...
>ctrl+f "exo killer"
>1 result
You are the only person in the thread to make this claim.

>>12097758
You might as well just play the eXoDOS rip by converting it, I did this via Batocera and it worked great on my Steam Deck:
https://github.com/Voljega/ExoDOSConverter

Might be a good way to get what you need.

To be fair, I know some games are heavily tweaked to run a certain way as well.

Idk why I'm rambling though, just trying to give you options.

Thanks, OP. Loaded up a Backyard Baseball ISO and had a good time.

>>12098825
Not that anon, but...
>check link
>see a mention of something called Total DOS Launcher
>follow link
>program that .zip's up entire DOS games and then launches them from the .zip files inside of DOS on real hardware down to 4.77Mhz 8088's using MDA video
>author says the program is designed specifically for cramming as many DOS games on a DOS HDD as possible
And to think of all the time I've spent on making my own menus using .bat files. Gonna be using this on the MDA/CGA/Tandy/EGA packs.

Does anyone have advice on getting old windows games to run and install off a disc? I tried to play my copy of ff7 from back in the day and its just been a nightmare. I'm on windows 10

Thanks for this - I love getting to play Virtual Springfield again.

Any know-how on how to fix pic related? I get it every time I boot the machine. I can press F1 and then it boots into windows, but it's just odd that it always shows this. There isn't even a second drive in this virtual machine, I'm using all your setups settings.

>>12101153
Yes, that was my mistake. On my own setup, I have a secondary hard drive which I'm filling with DOS games, and since it's not ready yet I took it out for this pack, but I forgot to change the BIOS settings to NOT look for the secondary IDE drive. To get rid of that message, just press DEL to go into the BIOS, go to Standard CMOS Setup, and set Primary Slave to None, as seen in pic related. Then just exit saving all changes.

>>12101167
Thanks a lot!
Also, 'Night Shift' by LucasGames would be a great DOS game to include

>>12101167
I suggest that once you've got a pretty stable version of your pack, even if you still feel there are some games that could be added or features that could be optimized, you upload it to archive.org. Looks like lots of retro game repackers are uploading vhds to archive with zero issues, and it would suck if your effort disappeared into the aether again like your '95 pack.

>>12101871
I most likely will do just that. Not that the packs have actually disappeared, mind you - I still have them packed and archived locally and can always upload them again if need be, but yeah, archive.org sounds like a good way to give them some online permanence.

>>12099218
Yeah Total DOS Launcher is cool AF.

Not the same route completely but if you got a Mister or MisterPi, there's the 0MhZ collection which does the same exact thing too.

The options are great!

>>12100961
Use 86Box. Go on their Discord and look for a config for a late 90s PC era config with Windows 98, download it and use it.

Mount the CD within 86Box's menu and when it shows up in Windows 98, install it using the emulated CD drive.

>>12087310
could have edited c:\windows\system.ini and Progman.ini then set display.drv=vga.drv

>>12102012
Thank you

>>12099218
Huh, wonder if I should look into this. Would it work with the launcher program I'm using in my own pack? One way to find out, I guess.

Speaking of which, I'm working through a semi-curated pack of 80's DOS games to see if there's any that are suitable for the pack, and I've come across very few so far. The majority straight-up run too fast, as expected. Text adventures and some turn-based games and simulators do seem to work well, but only a few seem at all interesting, and some are way too tedious to even consider.

So far, I'm thinking of adding Rogue, the Zork series, Ys, and a few other titles like Wheel of Fortune just for shits and giggles. If you come across anything else from this time period that will work on a fast machine and is at least somewhat fun, I'll be happy to include it.

>>12103137
>I'm working through a semi-curated pack of 80's DOS games to see if there's any that are suitable for the pack, and I've come across very few so far. The majority straight-up run too fast, as expected.
Yeah no shit, that's why you need to get a period-accurate emulated machine set up like >>12074284 is doing. Running ancient IBM PC games through Windows 98's weird version of DOS was never anything more than marginal, even back in the day.

>>12102549
You're welcome my dude. Happy to help

>>12103881
Dude's got a point. There is a big difference between trying to run early to mid 80's DOS games than early to mid 90's game.

Sure the latter has hardware config hell with a million combinations but you can kind of justify just a few setups:
- 386 with DOS
- 486 with DOS and or Windows 95
- Pentium II with Windows 98

The former? Oh man. The amount of color changes for monochrome to EGA to VGA is nuts in a way. Very very sensitive to the nth degree and is mostly PC speaker driven (which is alright by me, but most people would hate it)

>>12103881
>>12103894
Indeed, I'm aware it's not at all an ideal environment for older games, but I figured I'd get a couple of the ones that do work in there just for variety's sake. For a more complete look at that era of PC gaming, I'm sure the other anon will be able to put together something much better suited to it.

>>12103982
Not sure if I got my point across but just wanna say I totally agree with you. Definitely era specific machines are ideal.

Shit is so finicky. It's neat too but idk if I have the patience desu.

bump, fuck the spammer

Somebody just release a pack already

>>12105284
>just like do days/weeks worth of work instantly!
What a worthless contribution to the thread.

>>12105383
God forbid i bump the thread with a random post rather than just saying "bump"

>>12075620
Galaxy of Games, right? They introduced me to Mordor Depths of Dejenol and the Exile (Spidersoft) series, both excellent CRPGs

I'm not sure if you are still taking suggestions for Windows games, but would you consider adding SimCopter and Streets of SimCity?

Bump

>>12106162
IIRC I did try out SimCopter and it worked fine, but it requires the CD, and the only crack I could find for it (SimCopterX) is geared toward making it work on modern Windows and will not work on Windows 98. So unless I find another, more contemporary crack, it won't be included. Also, for whatever reason I couldn't get the experimental Glide graphics mode enabled by the 1.02 patch to work. Could just be a driver issue, though. As for Streets of Sim City, I didn't try it simply because the minimum system requirements were a bit too steep for my machine, but it probably works well enough.

Ok, disregard that, I suck cocks. This one works.
Looks like I also need to copy some files over from the CD, including the radio.

Yup, everything works now, no CD required. This will certainly be in the next version of the pack. I do wish the Glide mode worked, though... I wonder what the issue with it is.

i often download isos from dos games over archive org
getting them to work in dosbox is usually so easy a simple templating script suffices

>>12107704
yeah no kidding these lost bastards can go fuck themselves

>>12074676
I did something like that, issue was I was trying to play Stunts and I think the copy protection was kicking in but mostly its pretty good

>>12073936 (OP)
I use Norton commander instead, I like to see the splash screens before and after the games as they can have some pretty good ascii art

>>12075620
I had 2 in particular that were packed with classic demos, they had stuff like Screamer and Transport Tycoon

I'm trying to get this game called Baryon running, its says out of memory. Its looks like a really cool shooter. I tried emm386 and himem but no difference.

>>12108612
>I'm trying to get this game called Baryon running, its says out of memory. Its looks like a really cool shooter. I tried emm386 and himem but no difference.
Wut? They aren't either/or, you usually use both. Post your mem /p /c screens, let's see what you are doing.

>>12108612
Yeah, NC will be included as well, it's too good not to. Options are good.

on the topic of windows dos games does anybody have some recommendations for some management type games? examples of ones i enjoy are Princess Maker 2, Gamedev story and Quibble Race from the UFO50 game collection. There's gotta be some for DOS right? it's an ideal genre for it because of it's lack of dependence on action or graphics. even some windows 95 or 98 recommendations would be nice.

>>12108612
>I use Norton commander instead, I like to see the splash screens before and after the games as they can have some pretty good ascii art
Yeah OP >>12073936 (OP) you're free to do whatever you want with your pack but I'm also of the opinion that it's both more accurate and more fun to have the option to load games through a file manager within the emulated OS rather than/in addition to using Launchbox. Some of the best VHD game packs I tried rely on Commander-like interfaces for selecting game, like LHES for X68000 and MultiMente for MSX I figured out how to get that MSX disk image working in emulation but probably won't be able to write a guide before this thread dies

Other options to consider are configuring game launchers to use within DOS, like the era appropriate Quikmenu-III or modern projects like https://github.com/marco-sacchi/RLoader. Or if you wanna DIY it you could throw together a quick batch script (https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1089780#p1089780) or even write your own launcher in QBasic or Turbo Pascal.

Anyway it's your pack and you have no obligations to /vr/ but to organize it in the way that gives you the most personal satisfaction. Just throwing out some ideas I came up with while thinking about how I would eventually lol put together my own pack to help it stand out from the other collections on archive.

>>12073936 (OP)
Have just the raw game files? I'd like to put a bunch of compiled DOS games directly onto an actual windows 98SE hard drive.

>>12109435
I see there's been a bit of confusion as to what I meant by using LaunchBox. The pack won't be using the fullblown LaunchBox app you'd use on Windows, but rather a DOS version that runs within the emulated OS. You can see it in action in the OP pic running within Windows 98, but it's primarily meant for use in DOS mode, and to access it, you run the shortcut titled DOS Expansion Pack, which launches you into DOS mode and starts the frontend automatically. For those who prefer a more traditional file manager interface, I'll also be including Norton Commander, which can be accessed by clicking on the Restart in MS-DOS Mode, though I haven't set it to load automatically.

>>12109538
Ah you mean this thing: https://forums.launchbox-app.com/files/file/934-launchbox-for-ms-dos-special-edition/

Good choice, keep doing what you're doing. My bad for skimming over the OP pic.

thanks OP

looking forward to the dos pack

thanks OP

looking forward to the dos pack

Welp, looks like this thread has reached auto-sage. I will wait until the DOS pack is ready before I make it again, and I'll likely have uploaded it to archive.org by then. Until then, I hope you all enjoy the pack as it currently stands.

>>12109819
eta?

>>12109837
When It's Done™

>>12109819
OP killing it