Individually Bootable VHDs for Each Game

[AmintaMister]

My point isn't to generate packs. I'm deliberately splitting them all up one by one and generating build-scripts for them so anyone can easily make any kind of customized spins of them. The reason? Because I can, and because I deeply dislike huge "packs" of hundreds of games in a single disk image. The end result of this will be thousands of images of individual games so you can pick and choose, also including variants and patched versions. Scratching my own itch, so to say.

Hi Bas, this "containerization" approach seems to me the absolute best one in terms of practicality and philology: each game runs exactly in the environment was supposed to run and you can directly launch / save each game without tinkering with Os settings shared by all! I hope you'll open source your build script as soon as possible!

[NML32]

Whew, it's been this long!? Alright... Progress update. Things are starting to work. I have a few autobuilding game images now that I'd like to share. They're here and the list will grow slowly:

https://code.area536.com/DOSContainers/games

As I add more games, including more complicated ones, my build script will mature into a state that's ready for prime time and I'll open source it sometime probably the beginning of 2024.

Ultima VII - The Black Gate is giving errors when copying over the music settings. Looks like CP command is causing the error. After changing cp to copy there is an error starting the game.

Thank you!!

[Bas]

Thanks for testing, will fix!

None the images in bin are tested on my MiSTer yet and PCem bombs out in weird ways when I try to mimic the sound setup. Will test and fix things as needed tomorrow.

In the mean time I'm also looking for games that are hard to get running in DOS. Things requiring strange drivers, memory management hacks and the like. The Ultimas turned out much simpler to package than I expected. So suggestions are welcome!

[Bas]

Ultima7 BG is fixed now, tested on my MiSTer and works with both SB and MT32.

[akeley]

In the mean time I'm also looking for games that are hard to get running in DOS. Things requiring strange drivers, memory management hacks and the like. The Ultimas turned out much simpler to package than I expected. So suggestions are welcome!

Microprose's The Legacy was always a tricky one, I think it requires a lot of conventional memory.

[virtuali]

Ultima VII - The Black Gate is giving errors when copying over the music settings. Looks like CP command is causing the error. After changing cp to copy there is an error starting the game.

There are two problems with the .BAT files used to start it, easy enough to fix:

• It uses "CP" instead of "COPY" to copy the sound .cfg files

• In the MT32 config, the "CD C:\ULTIMA7" line is missing, so it errors out when starting the game because it's not in the correct folder.

[virtuali]

In the mean time I'm also looking for games that are hard to get running in DOS. Things requiring strange drivers, memory management hacks and the like. The Ultimas turned out much simpler to package than I expected. So suggestions are welcome!

Try Falcon 3.0, the game currently crashes on AO486 after starting a flight, but it's not very clear if it crashes because it requires an unusually high amount of conventional RAM to run, or for other reasons.

[Bas]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look into those. In the mean time Ultima VII Forge of Virtue and Space Quest II were added. Quest for Glory is there but doesn't have a boot menu yet, same as Ultima 8.

[Bas]

The Legacy: Realm of Terror is up for testing. I don't know this game but it seems to start up with 625K of conventional memory and a bunch of EMS configured on PCEm. Can't test on my MiSTer right now because my kid is hogging my TV... gaming.. so who am I to complain right?

Have some framework tweaks to do to facilitate the EMM386.EXE / HIMEM.SYS combo properly. If this one plays properly I'll tweak the disk size and add a boot menu that allows easy sound config.

[AmintaMister]

The Legacy: Realm of Terror is up for testing. I don't know this game but it seems to start up with 625K of conventional memory and a bunch of EMS configured on PCEm. Can't test on my MiSTer right now because my kid is hogging my TV... gaming.. so who am I to complain right?

Have some framework tweaks to do to facilitate the EMM386.EXE / HIMEM.SYS combo properly. If this one plays properly I'll tweak the disk size and add a boot menu that allows easy sound config.

In which programming language is the builder written? Maybe I can help...

[akeley]

The Legacy: Realm of Terror is up for testing. I don't know this game but it seems to start up with 625K of conventional memory and a bunch of EMS configured on PCEm. Can't test on my MiSTer right now because my kid is hogging my TV... gaming.. so who am I to complain right?

Thank you. Tried to run it but there's an error about EMS during boot. Game starts but then hangs when you try to quit the intro.

I think it needs minimum 610kb + EMS to run.

[virtuali]

In the mean time Ultima VII Forge of Virtue and Space Quest II were added.

It's best to add this to the CONFIG.SYS in most games:

FILES=25
BUFFERS=25

Without these, Ultima VII crashed when trying to save a game, adding these fixed it.

Fortunately, I still had my original manual for the Ultima VII CD collection, which suggested these lines to create a boot disk. The game doesn't need anything else, because it has its own memory manager, which is compatible with HIMEM.SYS, but the manual says is not required.

[Bas]

New builds for the U7BG images are up. I had the originals of these games but don't remember anything about setting this up. Thanks for testing! Will also add these to Serpent Isle later. Pagan already has the FILES as per the game's instructions.

[Bas]

Legacy now starts up into gameplay. The problem with EMS is fixed and I had to disable all sound hardware (for now). Will test with different combinations of sound hardware once the soundless build is found to be OK. Do note: you must set your AO486 RAM to 16MB.

[Bas]

Added Leisure Suit Larry 1 (AGI) and Space Quest III for your enjoyment (and testing ). Have a good night!

[HerrBerzerk]

I vote for Comanche, Duke Nukem 3d and Command & Conquer.

[Bas]

I just added Quest for Glory III. Will look into Falcon 3 next, then the ones you named HerrBerzerk. Not entirely sure on C&C just yet as I remember that as a Win95 game. I don't have the framework up and ready to install Windows of any kind yet, although that is an ambition.

[akeley]

Legacy now starts up into gameplay. The problem with EMS is fixed and I had to disable all sound hardware (for now). Will test with different combinations of sound hardware once the soundless build is found to be OK. Do note: you must set your AO486 RAM to 16MB.

I did play it briefly and the game seems to run ok. You can load/save, also quit to DOS and run install.exe and set the sound. My first-attempt config of SB Pro (early) and default IRQ settings seemed to play the music + fx fine.

Thanks again for putting it all together, this can indeed be a good solution for the more troublesome games.

[Bas]

Falcon 3 now boots on PCEm. Haven't been able to test it on MiSTer yet. The same EMM386 fix that was applied for Legacy is also present here so it should function. I get the game to load and run, but I have no idea how to actually get anywhere in this game so I leave that up to the more experienced players to test.

[virtuali]

I'm afraid Falcon 3 is just not compatible with Mister and AO486, since it freezes always in the same way, 4-5 seconds into a flight, no matter which configuration is used.

[Bas]

How do I get into a flight? I tried to play this one but I have no idea.

[virtuali]

Just select "Instant Action" on the top-right screen.

[akeley]

I think I read somewhere that Falcon needs FPU? Or maybe requires FPU for certain flight models, while non-FPU operation is also possible. So perhaps it can be tweaked in options?

EDIT: The manual says:

NOTE: The HF flight model
requires a math coprocessor, 80486DX or Pentium to run. If you don’t have a math coprocessor,
the game will default to the Complex flight model even if you choose Hi Fidelity.

So in theory it should run on ao486 too...

[Bas]

It may not detect the lack of FPU on the AO486 frankenCPU. Worth a shot. Will look into this further when I have time again, for now I'm calling it a night.

[HerrBerzerk]

I just added Quest for Glory III. Will look into Falcon 3 next, then the ones you named HerrBerzerk. Not entirely sure on C&C just yet as I remember that as a Win95 game. I don't have the framework up and ready to install Windows of any kind yet, although that is an ambition.

Hi,

C&C Tiberium Conflict and C&C Red Alert were available for DOS. Not sure about the later games

Thanks.

[Bas]

Unfortunately Falcon 3.0 won't fly on AO486. I could run it for a short while with the Q87 emulator but that also freezes after some time. Since I have the build in my repo now anyway I'm leaving it there for anyone who wants to test with this further or play on a different emulator (although those generally do include an FPU). The good thing: Q87 is now also part of my framework and this may be useful elsewhere.

[virtuali]

Unfortunately Falcon 3.0 won't fly on AO486. I could run it for a short while with the Q87 emulator but that also freezes after some time.

Interesting, is it possible AO486 tries to "spoof" the math coprocessor in some way, and fails for some reason like the Q87 emu? Because the same .VHD you made for Falcon 3 works with no crashes on PCEM, even if the emulated PC is set to a 486SX (the BIOS startup confirms the absence of a math coprocessor), that indicates the game can handle the lack of a coprocessor.

[Bas]

The AO486 CPU doesn't really behave like-for-like to an actual i486 or any of its contemporaries from AMD or Cyrix. There may be all manner of things "wrong" with it that this game trips up on. Falcon is doing something that seems to hit an edge case somewhere. I just spent 10 minutes flying around without any problem, but the next run the game just freezes a few seconds into the action. Maybe a core dev can chip in on this one at some point, that's not my expertise. I'm leaving my VHD up for posterity to provide such people with a test case. On to the next game for me now.

[Bas]

Added Dune 1 to the list while still trying to coax life into Return to Zork CD. Contemplating a change to the method of distributing the files. Git repo isn't the best for binaries. To be continued!

[akeley]

Contemplating a change to the method of distributing the files. Git repo isn't the best for binaries.

I use archive.org for all my collection projects. It's not ideal, but allows for the stuff to be findable by general public. They have also improved their uploader/UI in general, so it's now less of a PITA. You can drag and drop files and they will also get included in one main torrent file, aside from individual archives. DL speeds seem to be also somewhat better these days. But, if you want to do frequent updates of small-ish files maybe it's better to use some private cloud storage service...

You might also reconsider posting direct links to this stuff here. Many of these games are being currently sold as commercial on GOG or Steam. I don't think anybody will care about our tiny, niche forum, but I guess it's better to be safe than sorry.