Why do people use XP for DOS games?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 12:47 pm

I don't mean this as a flame or anything, but when you can buy a DOS capable computer on ebay for 20 bucks or less......why would you want to fool around with getting a DOS game to work on XP?

I am really curious as to why people do this...again, not a flame, just an honest question.

It seems that it would be easier to get a computer that you can play DOS games on for very cheap, than to fool with some super charged system that has win xp and possibly limits some features of some DOS games like sound or whatever.

Roger · Post by **Roger** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:01 pm

4 Years ago, when I got my first P4, at first I tried DOS Games on XP (with VDM Sound), but performance was very poor. Then I tried pure DOS on the machine, but the onboard sound didn't have proper dos drivers. The Soundblaster16 PCI card I added sounded very poor compared to my old AWE64 ISA.
It is then, 3 years ago, that I decided to revive my old PI 233 exclusively for DOS, and that's the way it's been since.
I use DosBox on my main computer, just to test some games before I transfer them the Dos machine. But performace in Dosbox leaves much to be desired.

Oh, and to strictly answer your question, "Why XP": out of convenience or not enough knowledge. I guess that a command-line interface is discouraging for those that haven't seen/used it before.

Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:19 am

Put simply XP is easier, many people don’t remember how to use DOS or are simply incapable of using pure DOS. For them DOSBox is a much better solution, all that’s required is a bit of common sense and not much fiddling around is required.

Another thing is space. I still own a DOS 6.0/Win 3.1 PC but I don’t have anywhere to put it. The main computer I use is this one, which is an XP laptop, we have another XP laptop that currently doesn’t get used much and a Win98 PC which handles most DOS games without DOSBox anyway, so it’d be kinda redundant to try to make space for another PC.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:11 pm

Why do we use XP for Dos games?

Why? Why not? I'm sorry to say times change, and games and computers evolve. Newer games attract us more and are mostly superior. They need faster PC's and WinXP is best. That's not to say DOS games stink now. We often like to play them because they're nostalgic. But getting an older computer for them is really more trouble than it's worth. The newer cpu's are perfectly capable of running them better than older ones. The problem is a poorly made command prompt. That's why DOSBOX is here! Personally, I enjoy playing old games on a new computer! They get like heirlooms, and the new computer makes them feel almost like new!

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 10:03 pm

the problem is that there is no real dos in winXP.

Roger · Post by **Roger** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 1:14 am

Also, there are no dos-compatible settings for soundcards. The IRQs are far off-scale in XP.

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 2:22 am

thats because of the driver architecture that is used in winXP... in winME and older it usualy came with vxd drivers.

Fri Jul 28, 2006 9:09 pm

Anonymous wrote:The newer cpu's are perfectly capable of running them better than older ones.

That's so wrong it's not even funny.