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Soundcard emulation in DOS on non-legacy hardware. Possible? (Emulation)

posted by Zyzzle, 03.11.2022, 01:59

> For graphics, there's somewhat more hope. I don't if it is still so, but
> until recently, most graphics accelerating cards had VESA 3 support. Even
> with VESA 2, it's already very easy to provide graphics support in DOS, for
> SuperVGA modes. Of course, if you want support for old games, VGA
> compatibility is the key. VESA is software, not hardware.

Graphics (ie, maintaining VGA-compatibility and a 16-bit Video BIOS and legacy BIOS) is going or has already gone out the window, discarded due to greed and (perceived) obsolesence). Way to go, for manufacturers! Break 30 years of great software (ie, running DOS bare metal on modern systems), just to save a few cents by eliminating the BIOS and legacy 16-bit video BIOS, and kowtow to Microsoft's UEFI-only "requirement." It's absolutely insane, and an awful thing.

Modern systems do not even have VGA-compatibility, let alone VESA 2 or VESA 3. If they do, their legacy VGA video BIOSes are broken, badly broken. There's been some discussion by myself, RayeR, and others here and on VOGONS forum about this. A few "wrappers" to fix VESA-compatibility have been made, but none so far "replace" the onboard VBIOS with a new, compatible VGA BIOS. This should be able to be done in software, particularly for the millions of "onboard Intel VGA" chipset drivers which shipped as a SoC in those millions of second-to-13th generation Intel CPUs. This is exactly what SciTech did with Univbe and Advance MAME project attempted to do with AdvanceCAB, but all of those cards are old, dedicated cards. None were onboard video, for laptops, and never any Intel Graphics were supported because it was too new. Development has stopped with those VGA / VESA wrappers because DOS "died" and there were too many cards to support. At least with Intel Onboard VGA wrapper / bugfix, it would solve MANY problems because of those Intel VGA onboard chipsets being 'common' in modern systems.

(I do not know how to "modify" the Intel on-board VBIOS and "shadow" it in RAM, or if indeed it's easy to do). But it seems like it could be "easier" to do this video fixing / support on modern systems than support all those Intel ICH, IHD, and SKA PCI audio chipsets!).

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