Voodoo
01-26-2009, 08:24 AM
Article by Trebor
Many people wonder, now that we are in a "GUI" world, how can I play those great DOS only games that predated Windows 98? It seems that the concept of setting up IRQs, DMAs, and file buffers are a thing of the past. However by taking that view, you, as a PC Gamer, either casual or hard-core, will deny yourself what has allowed PC games to stand on their own and become the thing of legend. Such renowned titles like System Shock, BioForge, Wing Commander 3, Full Throttle, Blood, Terminal Veloclity, Syndicate Plus, and more with the stamp, DOS Only, would be removed from your gaming experience. But there is hope, always hope.
My viewpoint on retro-gaming is viewed as an opportunity to play "catch-up" with those games that I never got a chance to play, never had time to play, or there was a new game that was more Windows friendly which did not require me to reboot into DOS. In the course of this pursuit I have become very familiar with a product called DOSBox, http://www.dosbox.com/, which allows me to play those, more aged games, on XP. The only issue was that to set a game up you had to be familiar with installing and configuring the game environment with only a command line to use. Yes, there were instructions to get things up and running, but PC gamers really don't want to do all that work to play a twelve year old PC game. However there is now a light at the end of the tunnel, and it's name is D-Fend Reloaded.
...more after the jump...
Many people wonder, now that we are in a "GUI" world, how can I play those great DOS only games that predated Windows 98? It seems that the concept of setting up IRQs, DMAs, and file buffers are a thing of the past. However by taking that view, you, as a PC Gamer, either casual or hard-core, will deny yourself what has allowed PC games to stand on their own and become the thing of legend. Such renowned titles like System Shock, BioForge, Wing Commander 3, Full Throttle, Blood, Terminal Veloclity, Syndicate Plus, and more with the stamp, DOS Only, would be removed from your gaming experience. But there is hope, always hope.
My viewpoint on retro-gaming is viewed as an opportunity to play "catch-up" with those games that I never got a chance to play, never had time to play, or there was a new game that was more Windows friendly which did not require me to reboot into DOS. In the course of this pursuit I have become very familiar with a product called DOSBox, http://www.dosbox.com/, which allows me to play those, more aged games, on XP. The only issue was that to set a game up you had to be familiar with installing and configuring the game environment with only a command line to use. Yes, there were instructions to get things up and running, but PC gamers really don't want to do all that work to play a twelve year old PC game. However there is now a light at the end of the tunnel, and it's name is D-Fend Reloaded.
...more after the jump...