DOS ain't dead

FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! (Users)

posted by jhall , 20.11.2021, 18:34

A lot of folks who didn't grow up with DOS expect DOS will "just work" with whatever software or games. And for most programs, FreeDOS does work fine. But like any DOS, you sometimes need to tweak your config to get things to work.

It was not uncommon to have a special config for each game. In the early 1990s, I had an MS-DOS boot floppy with a custom CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT that was just to run X-Wing (I think it was EMS only?) and another MS-DOS boot floppy to run other games. It was all about saving memory so the game could get as much as it could.

That's not to say that FreeDOS is perfect. For the life of me, I cannot get the Wolfenstein 3D installer (1wolf14.zip) to run on FreeDOS. Even with nothing loaded, INSTALL.EXE aborts with "Runtime error 200 at 0774:0091"

Complete thread:

• FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - liljames2k, 13.11.2021, 20:50
  • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - Laaca, 13.11.2021, 22:51
  • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - rr, 13.11.2021, 23:35
  • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - Rugxulo, 14.11.2021, 06:37
  • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - liljames2k, 20.11.2021, 05:48
    • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - Zyzzle, 20.11.2021, 09:03
    • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - mceric, 20.11.2021, 11:25
      • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - Rugxulo, 21.11.2021, 14:35
    • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - Japheth, 20.11.2021, 11:27
    • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - tom, 20.11.2021, 12:09
    • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - jhall, 20.11.2021, 18:30
      • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - jhall, 20.11.2021, 18:34
        • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - tom, 20.11.2021, 19:04
          • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - tom, 20.11.2021, 19:14
            • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - tom, 20.11.2021, 19:28
            • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - Khusraw, 21.11.2021, 16:54
              • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - tom, 21.11.2021, 17:17
              • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - mceric, 21.11.2021, 18:35
                • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - Zyzzle, 22.11.2021, 06:18
              • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - Rugxulo, 21.11.2021, 19:03
                • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - Japheth, 22.11.2021, 14:36
                  • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - tom, 22.11.2021, 22:00
                    • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - rr, 23.11.2021, 21:15
                      • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - glennmcc, 24.11.2021, 04:16
                • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - mceric, 23.11.2021, 01:07
                  • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - rr, 23.11.2021, 21:07
        • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - rr, 21.11.2021, 12:38
          • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - rr, 21.11.2021, 13:24
          • FDOS works fine, but Old Games not! - Rugxulo, 21.11.2021, 14:44
    • Don't panic! (FreeDOS works!) - Rugxulo, 20.11.2021, 19:34
      • Don't panic! (FreeDOS works!) - tom, 20.11.2021, 19:46
        • Don't panic! (FreeDOS works!) - mceric, 20.11.2021, 20:12