Old Computer Appreciation Thread

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly You mean the Dos commands for Fallout and Daggerfall? I suppose they could work as bat files. I've tried using .bat and .sh files as described by Adam but I get booted back to ES. Not sure why. Thanks though.

I've actually only tried Dark Forces with lr-dosbox and it was horribly slow, the game wouldn't get past the first loading screen either. So I can't really say as of yet.

5 moths ago I managed to get about 10 games working. Indeed some fail. But when they work, if I remember correctly, they work like a treat. I think not many people are trying the lr-dosbox so there is still very little information available on how this works.
We can consider us as pioneers !

I got these working, back then :
'3D Lemmings Winterland (1995)'
'Castlevania (1990)'
'Cool Ball (1990)'
'Luigi and Spaghetti (1992)'
'Metal Gear (1990)'
'OutRun (1989)'
'Pac 2000 (1996)'
'Pac PC II (1995)'
'Rayman (1995)'
'Super Boulder Dash (1986)'
'Test Drive (1987)'

Zering

@folly Metal Gear and Castlevania were on DOS? O_o

I'll look into lr-dosbox more then. Were you aware there is also a lr-dosbox-svn? Not sure what the difference is.

I think I installed it using RetroPie-Extra

Folly

@Zering

Perhaps it a good idea to rename my IPS repository to a Retropie-share repository.
Then I can put more different files on it like :

.ips
.bat
.m3u
.cmd

Good idea ?

Zering

@folly Definitely.
In the meantime I'll keep updating my first post.

Speaking of, I tried generating m3us yesterday using your commands, but I'm getting syntax errors. Any chance you could share a screenshot of how you're doing it?

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@adambegood Ah well that's good to hear!

Speaking of recommendations, what games would you recommend for DOS? Outside of the obvious.

Hard to know which ones aren't obvious, I'll try these but I know Little Big Adventure went to Playstation also.

Bioforge
Dune
Ecstatica is weird and I like it
Little Big Adventure
Terminal Velocity

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly Metal Gear and Castlevania were on DOS? O_o

I'll look into lr-dosbox more then. Were you aware there is also a lr-dosbox-svn? Not sure what the difference is.

I think I installed it using RetroPie-Extra

I don't actually know.

Seems that this is something you can fiddle with, for perfomance issues. (in core options)

dosbox_cpu_cycles = "9"

Zering

@adambegood Terminal Velocity looks AWESOME.
What's Ecstatica like?

@Folly that seems absurdly low. Don't the cycles need to be in the thousands for games to run at even a decent speed?

I'll try dark forces again on lr-dosbox tonight.

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly Definitely.
In the meantime I'll keep updating my first post.

Speaking of, I tried generating m3us yesterday using your commands, but I'm getting syntax errors. Any chance you could share a screenshot of how you're doing it?

Is it the bulk commandline ?

It displays errors when it does not find appropriate files. That should be normal.

Zering

@folly Not the bulk one. The single m3u one. I've already put it in the first post, at the very bottom under miscellaneous.

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly Not the bulk one. The single m3u one. I've already put it in the first post, at the very bottom under miscellaneous.

Did you do this ? :

ls *.d88 -w1 > Wibarm.m3u

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@adambegood Terminal Velocity looks AWESOME.
What's Ecstatica like?

@Folly that seems absurdly low. Don't the cycles need to be in the thousands for games to run at even a decent speed?

I'll try dark forces again on lr-dosbox tonight.

Ecstatica is like Alone in the Dark or Resident Evil in that it is fixed camera angles. I just like its harshness, you get the sh1t kicked out of you a lot early on. It's got quite a good atmosphere considering the graphics are ellipsoid weirdness. Yeah, Terminal Velocity is great. SlipStream 5000 is a fun flying racer as well.

Ps. the Descent games are better on PC as well, I think. Nicer with a mouse and keyboard.

Folly

@adambegood said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@adambegood Terminal Velocity looks AWESOME.
What's Ecstatica like?

@Folly that seems absurdly low. Don't the cycles need to be in the thousands for games to run at even a decent speed?

Well could be, that is something to fiddle with indeed !
9 worked for my P2000 emulator.

Zering

@Folly I don't think I understand how the command is supposed to work. If I could just see a screenshot of you doing it I think I can figure out what I'm doing wrong. If that's okay of course.

@adambegood Ecstatica sounds interesting. Didn't you have issues getting that one running?

There are ports in RetroPie for Descent 1 and 2, I'm pretty sure that's the best way to play them on the pi. They look tough as nails.

Edit : Is Slipstream 5000 on the PC98? It rings a bell.

Folly

@Zering
Go to the directory and use quotes, if there are spaces in the path ! :
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cd '/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc88/Wibarm (Arsys)'
Do the command :
pi@raspberrypi:~/RetroPie/roms/pc88/Wibarm (Arsys) $ ls *.d88 -w1 > Wibarm.m3u

This is the normal command (running the command from within the directory !) :
ls *.d88 -w1

Output :
Wibarm.d88
'Wibarm (User disk).d88'

The bulk command is runned from here :
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc88

Zering

@folly Okay so I'm an idiot.

I didn't place the d88 files in a separate directory.

I'm a complete tool.

Thanks @Folly, I'll try again tonight.

Folly

Here some lr-dosbox pictures :
Castlevania ( I had a joystick calibrate issue, keyboard works )

Metal gear :

Luigi and Spaghetti :

Rayman / Boulderdash :

Zering

@folly Metal Gear DOS looks like it's based on the atrocious NES adaptation, rather than the MSX. Am I wrong?

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly Metal Gear DOS looks like it's based on the atrocious NES adaptation, rather than the MSX. Am I wrong?

Yes indeed. Looks more like the nes edition.

I know there should also be a solid snake on pc but i think it was on windows.
It should be lying around somewhere here.

Zering

@folly Well on my end I can confirm that Fallout, Daggerfall and Command and Conquer work pretty much flawlessly on standalone dosbox.
Fallout in particular is very impressive graphically.

I'm wondering if I can find any DOS games that can push the Pi more.

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly Well on my end I can confirm that Fallout, Daggerfall and Command and Conquer work pretty much flawlessly on standalone dosbox.
Fallout in particular is very impressive graphically.

I'm wondering if I can find any DOS games that can push the Pi more.

Terminal Velocity is maybe as much as you will get through DOSBox. The problem is that PC games moved to being Windows-based before they got more powerful than the Pi can cope with, so there are a lot of games we can't try because of that.

Half-Life, Quake 1-3 as Ports are probably the best easy (ie. well documented) options for PC games that push the Pi.

Edit: Oh, and as stated I couldn't recommend the old-school Lucasarts games enough. ScummVM is best for those, although I guess they would work on DOSBox also.

Monkey Island 2 (and the others)
Day of the Tentacle
Sam and Max
Indy and the Fate of Atlantis
Full Throttle
The Dig
Grim Fandango (which will work on ScummVM soon)

They still look pretty good now, they hold up well I think.