DOS ain't dead - I need speed on DOS games

chameleon

04.07.2021, 20:56

I need speed on DOS games (Users)

I have an old PC from 2006 (celeron before Core2Duo) and I want to play DOS games on this.

I play Screamer 2 on DOSBox-X with 3dfx emulation in my primary PC, an i5 from 2018.
Screamer 2 runs with 10 fps when on my old Pentium II was run with 20 fps.

So there is no possibility to run Screamer 2 on 2006 PC.

I am wondering if I can play Screamer 2 with 3dfx support on FreeDOS FASTER, or any other workaround to run good enough the game in a PC of 2006.

Thanks a lot!

Laaca

Czech republic,
04.07.2021, 23:23

@ chameleon

I need speed on DOS games

Post reply

Well, I am not expert for DosBox et all. Maybe others can advice you another build or another DosBox settings. By the way - do you have the emulation speed set to maximum?
Generaly - DosBox should allow to use alternate DOS kernel (like FreeDOS) except the default internal one. But do not expect any relevant speed up.
Another point - DOSbox is not the full hardware virtualisation. It means that it should be faster than other solutions like VWMare or QEMU.
Generaly, the i5 machine from 2018 should be powerful enough even for Screamer 2. Again - check your emulated CPU cycles to be high enough.
However I am uncertain about the 3DFX emulation. Some DOSbox build do support it some not - there is also space for experimenting.

If you are asking about running FreeDOS on real hardware (without virtualisation) it is very complicated but possible. I typing this text from notebook from 2020 which has dual boot configuration: Win10/FreeDOS.
But in almost all cases is impossible to get sound from such computer under DOS. So not a good solution for games.

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DOS-u-akbar!

RayeR

CZ,
05.07.2021, 07:02

@ chameleon

I need speed on DOS games

Post reply

> I have an old PC from 2006 (celeron before Core2Duo) and I want to play DOS
> games on this.

What motherboard do you have? If it has ICH5 and older southbridge chipset there should work PCI soundcards like SB Live under DOS. But even with newer chipset there's a chance to get sound under dos with Yamaha 7xx and Aureal Vortex PCI soundcars: http://rayer.g6.cz/hardware/sbemu.htm

Also there can be found on Vogons a patched QEMU build with 3Dfx Glide "passthrough" that should work faster than Dosbox (you need linux or Win10 to run it)

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.