HELP: rebuilding PC to run PC coder demos....
category: general [glöplog]
I am interested to know what PC coders current PCs are? Are they today's P4/Athlon64 motherboards or still oldskool 486/P1s?
What about sound cards? How do you program for today's sound cards?
I am wanting to buy an old Creative Sound Blaster 16 PCI and plug it into my today's P4 3.0GHz motherboard. I want to be able to run sound in native MS-DOS 6.2 and play PC coder demos. Is this possible? Or will I run into problems?
What about sound cards? How do you program for today's sound cards?
I am wanting to buy an old Creative Sound Blaster 16 PCI and plug it into my today's P4 3.0GHz motherboard. I want to be able to run sound in native MS-DOS 6.2 and play PC coder demos. Is this possible? Or will I run into problems?
uh. i give up here.
well, you might run into several problems. you see, most of demos routines back in the ms-dos era were actually built tow
kevingpo: Well, if you download some of the most recently released PC demos, you'll realize that they've been created for top-notch PCs and won't run on an "oldskool" 486 or Pentium 1. They won't run under MS-DOS, either: Windows XP is the best choice.
Getting old demos to run on a modern PC is the lesser problem. Many MS-DOS based demos work using the latest version of DOSbox. Sound playback is probably one of the greatest problems. If the soundtrack is provided as a separate file (e.g. mod, xm, s3m, it), then it may be possible to play it using XMplay or even Winamp in the background while running DOSbox at the same time. If it isn't, you may try to contact the makers of the demo and ask them to send you the original music or provide you with instructions how to extract the music from the demo.
OK. Reply ends. And now I admit: The first time I read this posting: "I am interested to know what PC coders current PCs are? Are they today's P4/Athlon64 motherboards or still oldskool 486/P1s?" I had to LOL!
Getting old demos to run on a modern PC is the lesser problem. Many MS-DOS based demos work using the latest version of DOSbox. Sound playback is probably one of the greatest problems. If the soundtrack is provided as a separate file (e.g. mod, xm, s3m, it), then it may be possible to play it using XMplay or even Winamp in the background while running DOSbox at the same time. If it isn't, you may try to contact the makers of the demo and ask them to send you the original music or provide you with instructions how to extract the music from the demo.
OK. Reply ends. And now I admit: The first time I read this posting: "I am interested to know what PC coders current PCs are? Are they today's P4/Athlon64 motherboards or still oldskool 486/P1s?" I had to LOL!
kevingpo: in case you were asking seriously...
Nowadays, most PC demos use state of the art hardware or at least decent hardware, such as 2 GHz processors, nVIDIA 6600 GT GPUs and any basic soundboard (some basic integrated soundchip even suffices). They are made in C/C++, using either OpenGL or DirectX and a shading language, which also means no more hassle programming the soundcard thanks to DirectSound.
Old DOS demos from the mid 90's indeed used 386/486/Pentiums, ET4000, SB16 or GUS and were made in Assembler, Pascal and C, but that's not the case anymore (except for limited size prods and critical code, which is rarely more than 1% of the whole code of a demo/intro)
Nowadays, most PC demos use state of the art hardware or at least decent hardware, such as 2 GHz processors, nVIDIA 6600 GT GPUs and any basic soundboard (some basic integrated soundchip even suffices). They are made in C/C++, using either OpenGL or DirectX and a shading language, which also means no more hassle programming the soundcard thanks to DirectSound.
Old DOS demos from the mid 90's indeed used 386/486/Pentiums, ET4000, SB16 or GUS and were made in Assembler, Pascal and C, but that's not the case anymore (except for limited size prods and critical code, which is rarely more than 1% of the whole code of a demo/intro)
What you need is a BASS Processing unit, or BPU. The BPU card is connected to a clueshoppe-resonator using jarig connectors.
Nobody likes coder demos!
We demand design!
(Excluding Smash Designs "design")
We demand design!
(Excluding Smash Designs "design")
sauli ^_^
Get DOSBox and a fast PC for old ones... if you're asking seriously...
No. Get an old PC for old demos (486dx2/sb+gus/et4000 or something... they cost next to nothing nowadays) and a new PC for new demos.
there are various good ones for sale at the clueshoppe
seriously though, even if the op was a troll, someone genuinely interested might be reading this so giving an honest answer is never wrong :)
Ok, lemme put it this way: The demoscene (such as it is) usually uses the latest and greatest of hardware available for the platform
For C64, Atari ST(e), ZX Spectrum and console coders (etc), well... not much has happened hardware-wise. Stock machines from Ye Olden Dayse should probably run those demos, because that's the latest hardware available.
For Amiga, that means Amiga 4000, often with PowerPC extender cards or 68060 processors (though some still make A500 demos and things like that- those machines were pretty common). It might even mean AmigaOne, if those machines ever... well, exist.
For Mac(, Linux) and Windows, expect to use the latest hardware and software available. I can only really think of one demo recently (some 8086 animation submitted as a wild demo, I think) specifically designed to run on really, really old hardware.
In general, if you want to run demos on older hardware, you're going to need to find older demos. Things move pretty fast.
Heck, my once-smokin' Pentium 4-M with Nvidia 4200 card used to be able to view all the new demos, and then Shaders 2 came a long, and now Shaders 3, DirectX 9, soon to be DirectX 10... It's on its way to legacy hardware status.
For C64, Atari ST(e), ZX Spectrum and console coders (etc), well... not much has happened hardware-wise. Stock machines from Ye Olden Dayse should probably run those demos, because that's the latest hardware available.
For Amiga, that means Amiga 4000, often with PowerPC extender cards or 68060 processors (though some still make A500 demos and things like that- those machines were pretty common). It might even mean AmigaOne, if those machines ever... well, exist.
For Mac(, Linux) and Windows, expect to use the latest hardware and software available. I can only really think of one demo recently (some 8086 animation submitted as a wild demo, I think) specifically designed to run on really, really old hardware.
In general, if you want to run demos on older hardware, you're going to need to find older demos. Things move pretty fast.
Heck, my once-smokin' Pentium 4-M with Nvidia 4200 card used to be able to view all the new demos, and then Shaders 2 came a long, and now Shaders 3, DirectX 9, soon to be DirectX 10... It's on its way to legacy hardware status.
ok, since most of these ppl have no idea what you are talking about, and therefore cant reply properly i'll give you a clue..
if you are into "oldskool" pc demos, get an old comp like a p2 or so, 500mhz should do the trick, install ms dos on it.. get yourself a videocard that supports vesa2.0(and download/install/run the UNIVBE Vesa driver", install an old soudblaster(like SB16 or so) and/or a GUS card.. worst case scenario, install win95 and gusemu(in case you dont have a GUS card)..
that should allow you to run most demos(old ones from like 92 and up to 96-97) without problems.. if you run into memory manager problems(read: second reality) read up on how the extended memory manager for dos(EMS386.exe i think?) works..
config your dos system to load most, if not all yuour dos drivers(sound, graphics, mouse, UNIVBE) into the UMB(upper memory block).. that should give you like 610k conventional memory which should be enough for 95% of the oldskool demos to run.. etc..
or, do what the others told you.. use your standard 3.0Ghz computer, install dosbox, run your demos and have fun :)
if you are into "oldskool" pc demos, get an old comp like a p2 or so, 500mhz should do the trick, install ms dos on it.. get yourself a videocard that supports vesa2.0(and download/install/run the UNIVBE Vesa driver", install an old soudblaster(like SB16 or so) and/or a GUS card.. worst case scenario, install win95 and gusemu(in case you dont have a GUS card)..
that should allow you to run most demos(old ones from like 92 and up to 96-97) without problems.. if you run into memory manager problems(read: second reality) read up on how the extended memory manager for dos(EMS386.exe i think?) works..
config your dos system to load most, if not all yuour dos drivers(sound, graphics, mouse, UNIVBE) into the UMB(upper memory block).. that should give you like 610k conventional memory which should be enough for 95% of the oldskool demos to run.. etc..
or, do what the others told you.. use your standard 3.0Ghz computer, install dosbox, run your demos and have fun :)
1. DOSBox is getting better and got some ok results from it. Though 3D via DOSBox is very very slow. And if the DOS app has fast refreshes or updates then DOSBox can't handle it.
2. VDMSound is okay but doesn't always work very. I ran Blood before and it was jerky. VDMSound is a discontinued project. It will not run under 64-bit Windows unfortunately.
3. VirtualPC has very bad support for DOS sound and joystick. Searching on the web & google groups I find people reporting this as a fact. They all say DOS games run chuggy.
4. I have yet to get DOS sound to work in VMWare. Just installed Windows 98SE. Getting DOS sound to work looks fiddly (from web & google group searching). And performance wise is again chuggy.
2. VDMSound is okay but doesn't always work very. I ran Blood before and it was jerky. VDMSound is a discontinued project. It will not run under 64-bit Windows unfortunately.
3. VirtualPC has very bad support for DOS sound and joystick. Searching on the web & google groups I find people reporting this as a fact. They all say DOS games run chuggy.
4. I have yet to get DOS sound to work in VMWare. Just installed Windows 98SE. Getting DOS sound to work looks fiddly (from web & google group searching). And performance wise is again chuggy.
Thanks for your replies:
I have learnt that the last Creative Labs Sound Blaster card that comes with DOS drivers was Audigy 1. I have also tried DOSBox & VirtualPC. VirtualPC has stated that it has very bad DOS support and won't improve. DOSBox is not good at 3D DOS games, has jerky sounds and can't do programs with extremely fast refresh updates.
I have yet to get MS-DOS/Windows98SE working in VMWare.
But am hoping to grab a few Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 PCI/ISA off eBay to stick in my near-future iBASE MB865 or some other Intel 865 chipset motherboard. Intel 865 chipset motherboards were the last to support Windows 98SE. I have a socket 775 P4 3GHz so I don't want that to go to waste.
Windows 98SE CD is indeed bootable with CD-ROM support. (but obviously not made for EMS loading games and sound).
Is it possible to take original 3 MS-DOS 6.2 floppy disks, and burn them onto CD? Has anyone done this before? Install/setup files or already-installed MS-DOS?
I have learnt that the last Creative Labs Sound Blaster card that comes with DOS drivers was Audigy 1. I have also tried DOSBox & VirtualPC. VirtualPC has stated that it has very bad DOS support and won't improve. DOSBox is not good at 3D DOS games, has jerky sounds and can't do programs with extremely fast refresh updates.
I have yet to get MS-DOS/Windows98SE working in VMWare.
But am hoping to grab a few Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 PCI/ISA off eBay to stick in my near-future iBASE MB865 or some other Intel 865 chipset motherboard. Intel 865 chipset motherboards were the last to support Windows 98SE. I have a socket 775 P4 3GHz so I don't want that to go to waste.
Windows 98SE CD is indeed bootable with CD-ROM support. (but obviously not made for EMS loading games and sound).
Is it possible to take original 3 MS-DOS 6.2 floppy disks, and burn them onto CD? Has anyone done this before? Install/setup files or already-installed MS-DOS?
why dont you get a GUS instead of some sb?
Best: Get both SB 32 and GUS (or Interwave) add a 4MB MlDI Wavetable and make sure that the GUS has atleast 1MB and the SB 2MB RAM. And forget PCI sound shit!
And use a GFX card supported by UniVBE, todays ATI/Nvidia are not that good for DOS.
Yes, DOSBox, GUSemu, VDMSound,... are pretty convenient, but nothing can give you the real feeling as the real hardware.
And use a GFX card supported by UniVBE, todays ATI/Nvidia are not that good for DOS.
Yes, DOSBox, GUSemu, VDMSound,... are pretty convenient, but nothing can give you the real feeling as the real hardware.
kevingpo: Try to get an old version of VMWare. (No idea how though) VMWare used to have pretty good SB16 classic and VESA support, but they removed that, more or less.
