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Old 28-07-2008, 04:14 PM   #15
Japo
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Scatty View Post
First of all Pentium III is mostly ok, but 3 Ghz is way too fast
True, although I think architecture would be more important than clock rate. I'd (uneducately) guess that clock rate would be the least of your concerns, and slowdown programs such as Moslo would solve it many times. I never got a game running too fast in my P3, true it was 450 MHz, but that's still 20 times as much as the rates those games were intended for. There are some few core features that are kept for compatibility, but each processor series has tons of individual specs. Of course a 3 GHz Pentium IV is not a 3 GHz Pentium III with only a different name.

Even 64 bits processors have a compatibility mode for 32 bits, I would know since my current machine has a 64 bits Pentium D and a 32 bits Windows XP (it's an out of the box Dell desktop!) and works perfectly. But I'd bet I wouldn't get good results turning it into a DOS machine, even if I hacked off the cards without DOS support and installed old ones in slots that the computer doesn't have.

Quote:
More than 128 MB RAM is also not recommended, 64 is even better and safer.
I agree with Horseman here, games that crash catastrophically at startup with much RAM, then work just fine with less. Keep in mind that under DOS, programs have to address physical memory themselves. I've seen this in DOSBox, and I know I know, but still I wouldn't be surprised if tests on a real machine confirmed it, nor the bit about Pentium III-IV and DOS.

For 3D and such DOS games that need much RAM, keep in mind that they may run fine AND natively in Windows 9x. What in turn runs perfectly fine inside Virtual PC in a XP or Vista host. (Again they may not, like Tomb Raider in Win98SE for me--but it runs perfect in DOSBox.)

Quote:
Windows 95 and Ms-Dos 7 it uses is also perfect for all old Dos and Windows games, I didn't encounter any problems with it compared to Ms-Dos 6.22 whatsoever. Windows 98SE is also good. But Freedos might be worse in terms of compatibility.
And drop Windows XP, you're much better off to use a better computer only for Windows XP and internet and that Pentium III for old Windows95 / Dos games only. That Pentium III is not optimal for it anyway, and you also are forced to have more RAM than old games support without a problem.
I've said this before, but my experience does say that quite some games run in 6.x but don't in Win9x (at least Win98SE), not even "rebooting in DOS mode" (DOS 7.1)--in the same physical machine. (It might also work the other way around, LOL.)
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