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Showing all 158 replies.
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File: Monitor_1_20260601-221013-387.png (97.4 KB)
>Aside from games, what else is in the pack?
Lots of stuff. I've installed Encarta 98 Deluxe, which is set up so it doesn't require the original CDs at all to access any of its content, as well as 3D Movie Maker and all the expansion packs I could find for it. I've also installed the Plus! packs for Windows 95 and 98, which add a couple of features to Windows together with lots of themes. And just because I could, I threw in every system sound and MIDI track officially included in every retail version of Windows from Windows 3.0 MME to Windows XP, as well as every wallpaper up to Windows ME (I didn't get around to adding XP's, unfortunately). There's a few more neat things in there, but I'll leave it to you to discover them.
>What about DOS games?
The main focus of the pack is, of course, retro Windows games, but it wouldn't be a complete pack if I didn't also address DOS. I've set up a shortcut to MS-DOS Mode that automatically launches a startup menu (courtesy of Phil, though I modified it a bit) that gives you options for EMS, XMS, and Conventional memory boot, along with adding CD and/or mouse support for each of them, with fully working Adlib, Sound Blaster, and General MIDI sound and music. To maximize conventional memory usage, I make use of HIMEMX, which has a lower memory footprint than regular HIMEM.SYS, as well as a couple of drivers from FreeDOS such as ctmouse. Per my testing, the majority of DOS games will work with the default option. There's a second shortcut called DOS Expansion Pack, which will also launch MS-DOS mode, but it is meant to work with an upcoming DOS pack, which, when installed, launches a menu from which to easily load and configure DOS games. However, that pack is still being worked on, so for now, ignore that shortcut.
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File: Monitor_1_20260601-221534-457.png (8.1 KB)
>Why does the interface look like Windows 95?
I opted to install Windows 98 through the quickinstall project, which alongside installing every official update and DirectX 8.1 (downgraded to 7.0a here because we don't need anything more) gives you the option to install a version called 98lite, which replaces the Windows 98 shell with the much lighter and simpler one from 95 and removes a bunch of extraneous stuff, including Internet Explorer (which is otherwise useless here and was in fact an oft-cited cause of instability due to its shoddy integration into the shell). I went with the lite version, which makes the system more performant, but it also looks plainer and admittedly lacks some nice UI improvements. Should you wish to have the real Windows 98 shell back, you can run the 98lite installer from the Start Menu, and choose to install a partial or full version of it.
>Why would I download this when I can just play almost all these games on modern Windows through OTVDM, eXoWin9x, GoG or Steam releases, using DgVoodoo2 and other patches and fixes from the PC Gaming Wiki, or through source ports?
Indeed, if you just want to play only a handful of the games in this pack and you don't care for all the other stuff, this pack is not for you. Admittedly, some or even most of these games are more easily or effectively played through other means, without having to emulate a whole-ass PC. Even the DOS pack I'm working on as a companion to this is a bit of a folly, as DOSBox is far less cumbersome to work with. That's not quite why I made this pack, though. More than just a curated games pack, this is also meant to be something of a celebration of the retro Windows experience as a whole, a time capsule that you can lose yourself in for a while, hence all the extras that have nothing to do with games, and why I went through the trouble to make sure MS-DOS mode worked properly. If that appeals to you, then give this a try.
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>>12609450
>https://gofile.io
very cool. sus fileserver.
and i didn't think the Win 3.1 games had Win98 versions.
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>I tried to play X or do X, but it didn't work/it crashed/shit bugged out on me.
I've done my absolute best to test the shit out of everything in this pack, but I am one guy, and so I may have missed something or inadvertently fucked something up. If that's the case, let me know. Do keep in mind, however, despite every effort I've made to keep this installation clean and optimal, this is still Windows 98, and sometimes shit just goes sideways. Believe me, were it not for my desire to have the highest degree of game compatibility possible, I'd have gone with Windows 2000 instead.
>Ok, anything else?
This pack also includes some RetroArch GLSL shaders, if you're into that. I only included some CRT and interpolation shaders, try some of them out if you wish. Probably you'll be just fine using something like sharp-bilinear for fullscreen use. There's also sounds for the floppy and hard drives, but I only set up the floppy sounds, as the hard drive sounds require setting the emulated hard drive to a slow 3600 RPM type, so eh. Try that out for novelty's sake, I suppose.
Anyway, that's all I've got.
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>>12609454
>sus fileserver
I've used it for a good while, it's fine as it doesn't require an account to upload, nor does it have a file size or download limit like MEGA or catbox, but it does delete files after a period of inactivity, so that's a negative.
>i didn't think the Win 3.1 games had Win98 versions.
Most of them don't, Win9x is almost fully compatible with Win3.x applications and games, so they work as is.
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>>12609492
This anon here. I'm playing Slay until I pass out tonight! Might even get a bit wild as the hours go by and play Amazon Trail II
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I've spent like 5 hours dicking around on this, thanks OP.
I'm a dumbass though, and I have a question, how would I go about installing games on here? There's a few I want to try out. It's probably obvious but my brain has been rotted from modern spoon-fed systems.
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>>12609450
zased
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>>12610330
There's a few ways. You can find install disc/disk images from places like archive, load them through the floppy or CD menu on the emulator, and go through the installation process just like on a real PC. For games that are already installed in a folder that you just download (common in abandonware sites, for instance), you can make use of 86Box's feature to mount folders as disc images. Simply mount the folder with the game you downloaded, and Windows 98 will see it as if it's a CD, and you can then easily copy the files over.
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>>12609450
There is some good stuff in here, but it is still really heavy on tiny little "toy" games that just do one thing, like most of the Microsoft games (e.g., ten versions of solitaire that should really just be selectable modes of a single game, minesweeper, reversi, etc.), and yet feels a bit devoid of the kinds of games that you could really sink hours into back then. I see you've got StarCraft, AoE, Diablo... good start, but how about Myst, Dungeon Keeper, Command and Conquer, or Heroes of Might and Magic 3? Let's get some big games that people would have actually paid for in here, not just 30-games-in-1 combo pack stuff (which was certainly very common! But people prized their "real" games too).
>>12609451
If you're adding non-game stuff like Encarta and a movie maker for the full "personal computing at the end of history" experience, you've gotta have Kid Pix Studio Deluxe. It was my first movie maker; I used it to draw graphics for my first website. "Computer lab" class in school was just Kid Pix time for a few years around the turn of the century.
And for something completely different, that nobody would have had on their home computer at the time, you could throw in the free-form adventure game-like multimedia educational software "Cosmology of Kyoto."
I might have to fire up some of my old PCs and see what else I'm forgetting.
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>>12610624
Very fair criticism, once again. As you can see, I began to feel the same, and have indeed tried to rectify. Now, I did try to add Myst, but I could not find a version that didn't run without the CD, so I scrapped it for the moment. I may go back on that for the next time, now that I am also distributing disc images alongside the main pack. I'll check out the others as well, though now that you mention it, I do have the HoMM compendium on hand. Anyway, something for the next version.
>Kid Pix
I considered it as well. I loved that program as a kid myself. Not sure why I didn't add it, honestly.
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>>12610710
You should be able to mount as many virtual drives as you want inside the virtual machine. Just include the disc images and let them all stay mounted as if the computer had a dozen CD drives. Change the drive letter that the games are looking for on startup and most of them should just work. Organizations used to use stuff like pic related, with multiple users sharing CDs as network drives.
>>12610714
Ok yeah, that makes sense. A lot of the more "immersive" games around that time were still DOS games and if you want to cover that separately, fine. Stuff like System Shock...
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>>12611213
Not very. It's set up for a very specific hardware configuration, so just dropping the contents onto any old machine will most likely cause all kinds of problems. My suggestion is to grab the Windows 98 quickinstall ISO, burn that onto a CD, install it on whatever machine you have, then grab whatever suits your fancy from the hard drive image and transfer it over. Even then, a lot of games probably need to be installed outright for them to work, though most of the ones in the C:\Windows games\ folder are portable and can be dragged and dropped.
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>>12611341
It sucked in many ways, but they were the commonly sensible limitations of a practical tool. Like how it sucks to hit your thumb with a hammer. Not like how it sucks to be caught in a diabolically designed digital catch-22, which is how almost all software feels now.
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>>12611341
It was objectively less simple back then from the user experience because they weren't designed around use by someone who doesn't recreationally use computers. The reason we have shit like a touch screen start menu now is specifically because of people who can't even be trusted to use a mouse.
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>>12611380
Right. People forget that one of the main reasons for the existence of the Windows Entertainment Pack was specifically to encourage people to experiment with the mouse peripheral and so learn how to use it to navigate. It's hard to fathom nowadays, but the mouse isn't actually intuitive to a whole lot of people.
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>>12610793
>>12610821
Well, I thought about it, and then I remembered 86Box has support for SCSI adapters, and after some dicking around, I actually got one working, giving me access to a bunch more CD drives. Only issue is, for whatever reason 86Box caps you at eight drives, when SCSI supports more channels than that, but whatevs, this could definitely work to make at least a few games with mandatory CD checks work ootb. Maybe DaemonTools might be a better option, though, so I'll have to test that out next.
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>>12611380
Sure, it's not as simple from a new user experience, but it quickly becomes so after some initial hurdles. Shit these days is counter-intuitive to learning, zoomers don't know how to use a fucking computer for their lives for example. My 20 year old cousin is a programmer and I have to help him with tech support because he doesn't understand how the OS works at all.
It was archaic, but it made you learn to use it. It was mostly straight-forward with its design and didn't try to trick you. Everything is a nightmare now. At least to me, specifically as I've been actual tech support before and modern technology makes me want to put a stake through my temple.
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>>12611427
Old version of Daemon Tools would work much better, the only "spyware" on them was a toolbar you could opt out of during install.
of course the major issue here is that the average /vr/ poster is too retarded to figure out disc mounting.
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>>12611550
Well, I ran into a bit of an issue with this. I managed to install the last version of Daemon Tools that supports Windows 98, but it only allows up to four virtual drives, so unless I'm missing something, it's actually not better in this regard.
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>>12612712
For sure, I thought about it but I guess I figured whatever I wrote would end up in the OP and subsequent posts anyway, but you're right, there's so much more going on with the pack now than before that it's almost a no-brainer.
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I'd like to address some things I thought about mentioning in the OP that I didn't get around to, as well as share some tips for getting the most out of the pack:
>Performance
There's two aspects to this: guest performance (meaning how well the OS, games, and applications within the emulated machine run) and emulation performance (how well your host can run the machine without slowdown). The default configuration was chosen as a reasonable compromise between both these aspects. Both PCem and 86Box are largely single-threaded low level emulators, and as such they grow increasingly demanding the more complex the configuration is. Even the best PC you can put together may struggle emulating a high end Pentium II at full speed. That is why I chose such a low-end CPU, so that even older PCs can handle the emulation for the most part. That said, if you're still struggling with speed, there's a couple of things you can do at a pinch (though only on 86Box, as PCem is already pretty much as fast as it can be).
One thing to try is to disable the SB16's OPL emulation, which will render it useless for DOS but will free up a bit of CPU time. The Nuked SC-55 plugin may also be a bit heavy, so you can try setting it to System MIDI instead. Lastly, you may set the hard drive speed down from RAM Disk to a generic 5400 or even a 3600 RPM drive, which will increase load, seek, and boot times, but will also reduce or eliminate performance drops while the drive is at work. Same with the CD drive: set it to a lower speed to avoid occasional slowdown during drive access.
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>>12613220
Conversely, if you have CPU horsepower to spare, there's a couple of things you can do to make the OS look, feel, and perform better. Switching to a higher-clocked emulated CPU is, of course, a no-brainer, but another thing you can do is in the machine settings, go to the last tab and under CPU frames, switch from larger to smaller frame size. This will improve frame pacing and reduce input delay, making everything feel smoother. And one more thing: if you have a high refresh rate monitor, within Windows under Display settings, set the refresh rate to 120 Hz. All of this together will make the system feel damn near as smooth as on your host OS. And as mentioned in the OP, you can also switch back to the regular Windows 98 shell, which is overall more pleasant to navigate.
I must reiterate, however: these WILL have an impact on performance, so don't be surprised if you get additional slowdown as a result. You may have to tweak things around until you get a satisfactory balance. If unsure, leave things as is.
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>>12613569
Because the alternatives, despite being more performant, leave a lot to be desired in several respects. Windows 98 on DOSBox, even in forks that claim to support it, is quite janky and some things don't work with it. VirtualBox and VMWare don't do hardware acceleration with Windows 98 unless you pair them with SoftGPU, and they still have compatibility issues then. Then there's QEMU, which has a fork that claims to be compatible with nearly everything while having near-native performance, but it's a bitch to set up and use, and it's VERY user unfriendly even when you do get it working.
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>>12613668
Thanks, this largely makes sense, although I am still kind of shocked by how inconvenient these emulators seem to be about loading configurations with many disc images and so on. If I were spending weeks iterating on this anyway, I would at least try out the 3dfx branch of QEMU. But my point of comparison for "success" on this project would be something like infinitemac.org. And I believe they just offer a menu to pick one CD image at a time to load, along with as much software as they can put on the HDD image itself. Although that's an emulator running in a browser, so maybe it isn't even a fair comparison and I should expect a lot more out of a downloadable pack.
I guess 8 virtual CD ROM drives could be enough anyway. Some games will accept being pointed to a folder on the hard disk with a copy of the CD contents, to save a drive letter. And even some Win 98 games will have no-CD cracks available that you could easily drop in as needed. I think the fact that we have basically infinite storage available compared to the size of most Windows 98 programs means that an all-in-one sort of pack might as well include as much as possible out of the box.
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>>12613718
Right, that has been my goal since the beginning, to have as many games playable right from the get-go, and that has indeed involved doing all kinds of things to get games that normally require a CD to play without it. Unfortunately some games either don't have a crack available or seem to inherently rely on CD technology for things like audio or for data streaming (seems like Myst is one of these), so there's not much that can be done there. And for Redbook audio in particular, many games only want to work with the D: or E: drive, so no matter what, some disc switching will be involved. It's just how things were back then.
>>12613729
MW2 should work no problem with software rendering. However, despite my best efforts and a lot of googling, I couldn't get the 3DFX version to work, as it was made squarely with the original Voodoo in mind. Perhaps the D3D version from the Titanium Edition may work, but I didn't try that one.
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I'm completely clueless about emulating old PCs so thank you for this it's very cool and I probably wouldn't have messed with it otherwise.
>Those menu sounds
hnnnnnnnng
Question: Am I able to add games to this? How would I roughly have an idea of what will run and what wont? Mainly would want to add 1997 Battleship, Warcraft 1+2, AOE2+Conq, old edutainment games of my youth like Disney and Math Blasters stuff, etc
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>>12614226
>Am I able to add games to this?
Yes, you can. See >>12610409
>How would I roughly have an idea of what will run and what wont?
Same way you might've back in the day: check the game's system requirements (as found in sites like the PC Gaming Wiki or MobyGames). The GPU will carry you through most 3D-accelerated games up to 1998 or so. Likewise with the CPU for most games in general. Stuff from 2000 and above, however, will likely require that you switch to a beefier CPU.
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File: Monitor_1_20260604-154102-167.png (10.8 KB)
I'm now working on finishing up the companion DOS pack. Here's a screenshot of the launcher that it will use by default (though if you prefer something more traditional/period accurate, Norton Commander is also included as an option, or you can just use the command line). I've been working hard to install many of the classics as well as some less well-known games, but as you might imagine with a machine this fast (for DOS standards), quite a few games don't play well, so if you don't see a favorite, it's probably because it had some issues I couldn't resolve. It will come in the form of a 2GB .vhd hard drive image file that you can point 86Box/PCem to, and they will automatically detect it and give it the drive letter D.
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I'm aiming to have every game in the pack configured and ready to play with the best possible settings, using General MIDI and/or Sound Blaster music and audio as well as mouse controls when available. For the FPS games such as Doom and such, I've tried to set them up with WASD inputs for the benefit of those who didn't grow up with older input styles, and I may even throw in NOVERT so the mouse doesn't move characters forward or backward, but of course, you're welcome to set them up as you wish. The great thing about this launcher is that it allows quick access to each game's setup executable, so if you don't like how I set them up (maybe you prefer SB FM Synth to General MIDI, or you want to use a joystick, etc), you can change all of that quickly.
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>>12614868
>>12614871
Just uninstall the stuff (you) don't like, Mr.Contrarian prick.
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>>12613732
I installed 3dfx Preinstalled from
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/mechwarrior-2-31st-century-combat-3 4i#download
seems to working good so far
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>>12615421
This guy actually seems to have a mental disability or something. Like in a serious, medically legitimate way, not just as a generic insult. He's also possibly dosed with a medication that makes you out of it, like antipsychotic drugs maybe. He seems to briefly react to things and then forget about them, so there's no point in responding.
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>>12616647
According to google, you can no CD crack the DOS version by a simple hex edit on two exe's that it can tell you all about, and the Win9x version can be cracked by doing a Full Install and then create a folder called Sounds in the MW2 root directory, and copy+pasting all .spc files from the CD to that folder.
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>>12616665
>>12616668
Cool, I'll give it a shot. Thanks, anon.
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>>12613668
>claims to be
>implying it isn't
>It's a bitch to set up
>VERY user unfriendly
thanks for the unbiased opinion
>>12613718
>If I were spending weeks iterating on this anyway, I would at least try out the 3dfx branch of QEMU
please do so, it is so much better than 86box it's not even funny
I seriously cannot understand why the OP insists on wasting his time on 86box for Windows 98 instead of choosing the objectively superior solution
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This is fantastic, I want to just live in this VM. I downloaded it for just 2 things but am having fun with so many of the others.
Zombie Wars is soul overload but runs like shit no matter what I do, I think it's just like that.
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>>12613668
>Then there's QEMU, which has a fork that claims to be compatible with nearly everything while having near-native performance, but it's a bitch to set up and use, and it's VERY user unfriendly even when you do get it working.
Are you too poor for a $89.99 donation?
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File: 1768565157705919.png (3.0 MB)
>>12609450
>Ignition
Holy based
Got it from a bargain bin back in the day and it was pretty fun
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>>12616665
Well, I did manage to get the game working after all by installing it from the image, but I must say I couldn't get it to work without the CD. There aren't even any .spc file in the disc that I could find, so unless I'm dumb and missing something, this method for making MW2 play without the CD sounds like an AI hallucination. Still, you kinda do want the music anyway, so it's kind of a moot point.
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File: 1768823256880972.png (48.8 KB)
>>12616895
Holy kek
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>>12617268
I did also find some no-CD cracks for MW2, but I dunno if they are for the DOS or Win9x version. https://web.archive.org/web/20240528062702/https://jaylittle.com/downl oads/mech2_1.1_crack.zip
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File: 1757507056753547.png (99.3 KB)
>>12617440
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>>12617274
awesome, that means WHPX finally reached parity with KVM
>>12617450
he might be a schizoid freak, but objectively speaking, qemu can run on literal toasters and be lightning fast, while 86box cannot run at 100% even on a Threadripper
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>>12617450
>3dfx
nGlide works fine on shit laptops though. thoughthoughthough ,that solution is for games which already work on toastery PCs.
> Requirements
>------------------------
>For the most games (running at full speed) this configuration is good enough.
>
>Processor: Intel / AMD at 2.0 GHz
>Graphics card: Compatible with DirectX 9
>Operating system: Windows XP / Windows 7 / Windows 8 / Windows 10
https://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide
i don't even know why that screenshot was talking making DX10 work with VMs. "modern" OS and hardware should be able run DX10 games just fine.
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>>12617234
>>12618037
>>12618049
I think this verging on turning into misinformation, so let me clarify: QEMU is still 100% free software. This schizo is taking donations mainly in return for optimizing it for the specific game of your choice. You do not have to pay anyone to simply use the software. If you can't follow his instructions for compiling it, you can download a build provided by somebody else, which can be easily found on github.
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File: WineD3D.png (11.2 KB)
>>12618124
the github repo from the teto profile picture guy is missing the custom WineD3D binaries.
I was unable to find those binaries on Archive
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