DOS Games General

[Anonymous No.6684926]

DOS Games general... Where the fuck did those awesome DOS and Win 3.1 games get off to Edition.

I'd paste in all the standard general stuff, but I don't have it as the last thread died and I didn't copy paste it because I'm using DOS and there's no fucking copy paste..... Wait...


Someone post the general start URLs.

[Anonymous No.6685207]

>>6684926
Think you mean my dosgames pack (4chan dospack) that i used to post here, you can still get it here:

https://mega.nz/folder/CldGAahb#yn_8LkRHraywPgKJMp5pqA

My other project, Win98 games made to run on Win10:

https://mega.nz/folder/3t8nzSIS#947kyMN6Z80f8HS7q2XlqA

There's also the other anon who used to post his early DOS titles PCem pack, but i read somewhere he can't work on it for the time being (he used some kind of temporary host-links so i don't know where to download as of now). As for my dospack above, i also stopped working on it (i consider it complete, any additional games can be added manually).

Always sad to see DOS games don't get the same love here on /vr as the japanese rpg games etc do. Being someone who actually lived through the DOS era, this is strange to me because back then everybody in the west was playing the hot DOS games like Doom and Quake, Tomb Raider and C&C etc.

[Anonymous No.6685270]

>>6685207
TY BasedDOSGuy! I failed to have the foresight to save the links as well.

What port did you use to run Doom? MBF?
What about Quake? QDOS?
And did you use any ports to run Duke 3D, or is that the original executable? I've been trying to re-create the comfy Duke 3D DOS look in modern source ports but all of them fall short in some way. BuildGDX is the most authentic in terms of looks and accurate HUD (top picture) but it lacks OPL3 emulation and you can't play the Roland SC-55 music packs with it ( http://sc55.duke4.net/games.php#doom ). EDuke32 and Rednukem can play the music packs, but the fullscreen HUD looks like shit (bottom pic). Also, the newest version of EDuke32 introduces a really shitty bug in which the level geometry temporarily disappears when taking the lifts in episode two, and you can't get a previous version because they don't have releases on the github. I have a previous version but it lacks OPL3 music. Luckily Rednukem doesn't have that bug but it still visibly jitters in those lifts. My only complaint about Duke3d through DOS is everything is stretched horizontally

[Anonymous No.6685272]

>>6685270
forgot pic

[Anonymous No.6685302]

>>6685207
>https://mega.nz/folder/CldGAahb#yn_8LkRHraywPgKJMp5pqA
Based anon made my week. Thanks! That pack is the tits.

[Anonymous No.6685629]

>>6685270
Doom executable in this pack is the MBF 2.04 one (updated by gerwin over at vogons), it was updated until 2017.

Quake uses QDOS indeed, which is (ironically) a DOS port of the WinQuake port (WinQuake was released for Win95 with some minor QOL updates, including to changes to the software renderer).

Duke 3D uses the original 1.5 version executable by 3DRealms albeit a cracked version (this wasn't normally necessary, a simple empty CDROM.INI file also makes it play without CD) but i couldn't find a patched 1.5 executable anywhere, and the 1.4 -> 1.5 patching program didn't work for me so i solved it this way. It also has the BuildMouseFix by CHEATER applied (fixes both Y/Z axis being equally updated pixel by pixel).

The reason why original DOS duke3d stretches vertically like that is because it's pure software rendering unlike EDuke32 (OpenGL support, also dubbed Polymer, which enables true 3D geometry). The trick used to give the up/down look in software mode is called Y-shearing (also present in other games such as Hexen, Dark Forces etc).

Also check the readme for more stuff like this.

[Anonymous No.6685669]

>>6685629
To clarify further, my previous post may have made it look like only OpenGL can be true 3D and software can't but this isn't true ofcourse. Software rendering can also draw full 3D (example being Quake and Descent in DOS). Dedicated videocards however made rendering so much faster with their apropriate drivers (OpenGL, Direct3D, 3DFX Glide) that pretty much every game that was released after them (unless it was intentionally a 2D game) was in full 3D. The reason you never saw true 3D in unaccelerared software mode at the time was simply because the computer's processor couldn't handle the calculations. Example being Descent, a full 3d 6-axis software based game that was really really heavy at the time of release. John Carmack from id Software made a highly optimized software renderer for Quake to make it run on normal computers at the time (around 60mhz iirc could run it).

>>6685302
thank you anon

[Anonymous No.6685703]

>>6685629
Ah, shit, it's all in the readme. TY.

>The reason why original DOS duke3d stretches vertically like that is because it's pure software rendering
I know about that, I saw this video
https://youtu.be/dTLfPu8TeI0
I said it stretches horizontally. You can see it clearly when the game starts up. The circular radiation hazard sign is stretched. Which reminds me, the MBF port does the same.

For Doom, I like the Chocolate/Crispy Doom ports to achieve that original pixelated look. For Quake, I like the Mark V WinQuake port for its original software rendering, and, like Crispy Doom, you can have it fill up your entire widescreen monitor while maintaining the original 320xwhatever or 480xwhatever resolutions with no stretching. I'm still trying to find a Duke 3D port to use but they all fall short in some way: EDuke and Rednukem can play the Roland SC-55 music packs and come with OLP3 emulation, but they have that shitty fullscreen HUD; BuildGDX has a superior fullscreen HUD but can't play the music packs nor OLP3 emulation; and none of those Duke ports will display lower resolutions properly; they come out blurred instead of pixelated, which is why I currently unironically prefer DOS Duke for the retro look, despite it's stretching. Somehow the World Tour port has more compressed sound and music than even DOS does, as well as missing options like the original screen tilting when mouse look is off. Even Raze has even worse compressed audio and I can't fix it with the autoload folder. I'll either stick to your DOS build or Rednukem since EDuke introduced that weird bug I mentioned in my previous post and BuildGDX can't play good music

[Anonymous No.6685791]

>>6685703
I once read posts of people saying the Megaton edition was vastly superior to the World Tour edition, but Megaton edition isn't being sold anymore, perhaps you can pirate it somewhere..

[Anonymous No.6685804]

>>6685791
Someone posted it in the Doom thread in the past, but I dunno how to get it to run

[Anonymous No.6685818]

>>6685804
My bad, forgot it was released on Steam and Steam DRM is implemented. I think the Steam requirement is hardcoded, so no way to use this version if you didn't buy it on Steam prior to its removal in 2016. Shame because apparantly they kept adding technical updates for a while and then the rights went to GearBox and they fucked it up

[Anonymous No.6685861]

I've decided I will use BasedDOSGuy's program to play Duke Nukem :)

My goal is to create a spiritual successor to this video, which I think is the single greatest Duke Nukem 3D run on youtube:
https://youtu.be/4rSGPiNqbg0
He does a 100% kills and secrets run, and also visits (nearly) every easter egg as well, all done on DOSBox with the original autoaim and no mouselook, just like I remember. He never created an episode two or three run to follow up, and I believe it's because the kill counts get borked once protozoid slimers are introduced. When the egg hatches, the monster count does not increase by one, but killing the slimer counts as a kill, and killing the egg counts as a kill, so the final kill count does not accurately reflect if you actually killed everything. Or he just hates mini battlelords; it's very difficult to shrink them with autoaim, as you have to crouch AND be at a lower elevation than them to get the shrinkray to hit their feet and shrink them, and you can easily get killed trying to get the setup right (there is a bug in which you have to hit the mini battlelord's feet to shrink it, which is easy with mouselook and no autoaim). Or he just hates episode two. Anyway, my goal is to create some comfy episode 2-4 runs that showcase not only all the kills and secrets but also the easter eggs like this dude did, all performed on DOSBox with the original autoaim and no mouselook, just like I remember. I'll probably also do some runs in modern ports with the polymer renderer and the Roland SC-55 music packs, as I'm not happy with the videos I've seen. Some of them use the hideous polymer renderer, some of them use mouselook AND autoaim, which is atrocious. I won't do any episode 1 runs because that video is the perfect showcase as far as I'm concerned

[Anonymous No.6685863]

>>6685861
The aspect ratio in the video is also identical to the one that DOSBox produces, so if the greatest Duke 3D run on youtube is slightly stretched horizontally then I can definitely live with it. I checked the .cfg and the resolution is set to 640x400.

[Anonymous No.6685870]

>>6685861
fuck i meant to say i will use the polyMOST renderer

[Anonymous No.6685920]

I figured out how to open the Duke3D setup.exe using this video
https://youtu.be/rRmcZBoQ1IY
and if you change the screen resolution to one of the default ones then you don't get any stretching, but you get a weird graphical bug in which your gun disappears behind the level, and the bug goes away if you change the .cfg file back to BaseDOSGuy's default 640x400

[Anonymous No.6685943]

I tried running Duke3D by launching it through DOSBox myself using C:\Games\DOSBox\Duke3d\duke3d but the mouse sensitivity is like a fraction of what it is if you use BasedDOSGuy's launcher so props to you for getting that to work so well

[Anonymous No.6685970]

Another thing I noticed - if I launch the game myself using DOSBox instead of using Based DOS Anon's program, and I fullscreen DOSBox using Alt+Enter, I get a blurred look, instead of the DOSpack's crisp clean pixels, so, again, props for making everything look and play so well

[Anonymous No.6686037]

>>6685920
Most games back then were meant to run on a 320x200 or 640x400 (16:10) resolution, except that every monitor back then was 640x480 (4:3). Games such as Duke3D and Doom that natively ran on 320x200 or 640x400 were then scaled a bit to fit on 4:3 screens. However since todays LCD's are all 16:9 it's better to stick to 640x400 and not 640x480 (16:10 is closer to 16:9 than 4:3 is). That may be the reason it's more crisp i guess (pack runs 640x400). As for the sensitivity, i remember i adjusted the setup.exe sliders in a way that made it feel like 1:1 horizontal/vertical movement, so perhaps thats what you notice in comparison to the default setup settings (default made the vertical movement slower compared to horizontal).

[Anonymous No.6686080]

>>6686037
When I launch Duke3d through the DOSPack, I can whip around left and right very quickly, but when I launch the game myself using DOSBox the mouse control feel VERY slow in comparison, even though the sensitivity slider in the in-game menu is identical

>>6685629
BTW the readme is not in the DOSpack and I was running 1.36. I upgraded to the community pack just now, although admittedly it was to test some things out against a "fresh install" of douk

[Anonymous No.6686082]

>>6685804
megaton edition was kind of bad there was noticable mouse lag for me and it was kind of buggy sometimes the mouse cursor would show on the screen and you need to restart the game to make it go away it was really only worth having for the grp files or if you wanted to play with friends without using meltdown

[Anonymous No.6686086]

>>6686082
Yes I figured. I'll delete it; I have the download link an anon provided in case I ever need it but I doubt I will. You can get the .grp files from the OP in the Doom thread

[Anonymous No.6686112]

>>6686080
Could have something to do with the dosbox config file provided with the pack. By clicking dosbox.exe from the pack, it uses the attached dosbox.conf file. If you start your own instance of DosBox through Program Files, it will switch to the user config file found in C:\Users\(name)\Appdata\Local\Dosbox or something.

[Anonymous No.6686126]

What are the extra games in the Community Edition? I don't see a list in the readme

[Anonymous No.6686392]

>>6685207
Hey friend. Any new updates on your dospack? I've been playing through Quake and your config makes it silky smooth after a bit of sensitivity tweaks. I'd like to see more fps stuff if you ever want to expand it some more. Again, thanks for all your work!

[Anonymous No.6686404]

>>6686392
You're welcome. Last version is 1.37 (from june), the last extra changes (july) consist simply of adding in a nicely made ANSI menu by a fellow anon here (thanks again ANSI anon) and splitting the pack up in two (they're both the same except that the CE edition has like 10+ games or so that were requested here). I'm not sure which fps is still left to be added, it has pretty much all of the good ones, last one that was added was System Shock.

>>6686126
The difference is they have a different startup splash screen and the CE edition has a couple more requested games, from the likes of Pool of Radiance, MoonStone, BloodStone, Theme Hospital, Micro Machines 2 and some others i'm forgetting right now. Other than that the packs are the same.

[Anonymous No.6686412]

>DOS games general
>windows games in the picture

[Anonymous No.6686468]

>>6686404
Is there any chance you could add Blake Stone, Redneck Rampage, and Eradicator?

[Anonymous No.6686808]

>>6686468
Can do, will add them later to the CE edition then. Funny how that game Eradicator never caught my eye, it looks pretty decent. Probably snowed under by the big boys like Quake and Duke?

[Anonymous No.6686815]

>>6685943
^ This for all the FPS games.

[Anonymous No.6686823]

A couple more to add to the archive when you get time based DOS anon:
Albion
Rise of the Triad
Daggerfall
Elder Scrolls Arena

Thanks for the hard work Anon! Albion is essential.

[Anonymous No.6687054]

>>6686808
Most likely. I just found out about just a bit ago and grabbed it on either steam or GOG, can't remember which. It's a pretty solid game from the bit I've played. Also maybe add dungeon keeper if you can manage that. Hope you don't mind all the requests. I really love your game pack. Thanks dude.

[Anonymous No.6687076]

>>6686808
It's an FPS genre deepcut imo. It plays a bit like Duke Nukem with less interactive levels but the shooting is solid even if the levels can be confusing at times. Also maybe add dungeon keeper if you can manage that. Hope you don't mind all the requests. I really love your game pack. Thanks dude.

Pic related is me appreciating you

[Anonymous No.6687920]

How do I toggle autoaim in Blood?

When using the DOSPack, Duke3D has autoaim enabled, but Blood does not. I have One Unit Whole Blood and when I launch that, it has autoaim enabled, but I don't want to use it because I can't figure out how to get the MIDIs to play instead of the CD audio, and the video modes fuck up, whereas the DOSPack runs just fine aside from no autoaim

[Anonymous No.6687946]

>>6687920
Found it! It's inside of BLOOD.BAT

[Anonymous No.6688162]

>>6685207
>Being someone who actually lived through the DOS era, this is strange to me because back then everybody in the west
I love your pack, but there's no need to pick a fight like this. I also "lived through the DOS era" and was mostly playing Japanese games. Not everyone's got the same circumstances as you.

[Anonymous No.6688728]

>>6687946
Yeah, it's the -noaim parameter you're looking for. Removing it will do the trick. I added it to give more of a challenge.

>>6688162
Not looking to pick a fight at all, just an observation. I think what mainly lurks on /vr is a group of younger people who are intetested in the subgenre of japanese retro games. Not saying it's bad at all, it's just not what you'd expect on a forum about retrogames that's mostly visited by western people. Like i said anyone who lived through that time in the west definitely wasn't playing jrpg's. I don't mind what people discuss on here, was just something i noticed.

[Anonymous No.6688730]

>>6688728
Correction* most people in the west

[Anonymous No.6688824]

>>6688728
BasedDOSGuy! I figured out how to use DOSBox to record videos :D

I downloaded a fresh copy of DOSBox and put the game files inside and used Ctrl+Alt+F5 to record. When I played back the video, the colors were completely messed up, and I had to download a new video player that could play the video. I uploaded the video to youtube just to test to see if the video played properly in youtube, and it does!
https://youtu.be/vdps8ii8Tw0
This is just a test video. It's super laggy when recording, which is why I missed so many rockets. I'm gonna practice all the individual levels and eventually I'll record an entire single-segment video of episode two.

[Anonymous No.6688828]

>>6688824
The "Video Instructions" text file warns that it can be laggy when playing but the video itself will come out without lag

[Anonymous No.6688854]

>>6688828
Protip: don't record a video while playing, first make a demofile of your play (which is lagless) and then later record from the demo with the DosBox video recording.

If you want to start Duke 3D with recording on, change the .bat file like this:

DUKE3D.EXE /r

It should record your gameplay per each level and create a .dmo file (the demo) that you can record later.

[Anonymous No.6688893]

>>6688854
Have you been able to get your demos to play? I haven't been able to so that's why I tried this.

[Anonymous No.6688895]

>>6688854
Have you been able to get your demos to play? I haven't been able to so that's why I tried this. I've recorded lots of Doom videos using demos I recorded, but Duke demo playback isn't working

[Anonymous No.6688916]

>>6688895
Turns out it's a bit more complicated actually, not near computer atm so can't try but this page should cover all about demo recording: http://www.r-t-c-m.com/knowledge-base/documents-online/setup-demo-usage.html

[Anonymous No.6688967]

>>6688916
Nah, man, it doesn't work. I recorded a demo in DOS Duke and tried to replay it in DOS Duke and it failed. DOS Duke doesn't play any demos upon startup period, so I tried Rednukem since that at least plays the OG demos. I recorded a demo in Rednukem and it plays in Rednukem for about a second then an error message appears in the console saying the demo's corrupt and it goes back to the original demos. I can also use console commands to try to play it but the same thing happens. I recorded a demo in Duke GDX next since that port also plays the OG demos, but it just instantly crashes when trying to replay my demo

[Anonymous No.6689448]

>>6685207
>My other project, Win98 games made to run on Win10
Not sure if you're taking any requests but if so, a definitive pack for GTA, the GTA London games and GTA 2 would be great. The current best setup, the Max Pack from GTA Forums, is flawed as sometimes it doesn't save correctly. Cheers.

[Anonymous No.6689483]

Whatever happened to DOS era cRPGs? Esp stuff like Eye of the Beholder, Wizardy and Lands of Lore. Why aren't we basking in a new age of simulation based cRPGs where our character stats are crippled by our characters age?

[Anonymous No.6691056]

>>6689483
The FPS genre came along, and Myst selling more copies than any computer RPG was the final nail. Why spend all that time and effort on a game for a genre that wouldn't sell as well as FPS games or a simple puzzle game with high-end graphics?