G'day everyone.
Today I'm sick, so I'm going to be handing over to my echidna, who will present today's
video.
Thanks Sparcie, you should probably lie down and try not to die.
Yeah I must just go and do that.
Anyhow today's project is to try and get windows 98 running in emulation of some kind.
The reason you'd want to do this is that some old games do not work well or at all on windows
10.
Some games will work perfectly fine under windows 10, such as age of empires.
So you should try that first to save some time and effort.
Isn't it amazing that anything from more than 20 years ago can work on a modern PC.
Sparcie has some games which don't work natively on windows 10, and whilst he has a windows
98 rig, he doesn't have a good video capture setup for it.
Hence the need for emulation.
He actually tried 86 box first, but the sound was breaking up and the performance was poor.
So he tried a few other options.
After initial failure with 86 box he tried Qemu, which he has used for emulating sparc
systems in the past.
It was fast enough but windows 98 wouldn't boot properly not long after install.
It could be that some of the emulated hardware isn't supported on the old OS.
There didn't seem to be an obvious way to fix it.
Virtual box seemed like another good option, but it was a problem because windows 98 is
not supported as a guest operating system.
So basically you're stuck with no graphics acceleration and sub par sound.
Virtual box doesn't emulate fm synthesis of older cards so music would be absent from
many games.
If there was a driver solution this would be a viable option.
Returning to 86 box after doing some reading, it turned out that we had tried to emulate
too powerful a system for his computer to handle.
Seems like it's a bit weak like him!
The configuration process for 86 box is fairly straight forward, you just select the kind
of hardware you want in each section.
The selections made here turned out to be too demanding so Sparcie had to tone it down
to a pentium running at 133 mega hertz.
Otherwise the process is the same.
For an install of windows 98 I would suggest roughly 10 gigabytes of storage.
Also be sure to add a CD-rom as you'll need that to do the installation.
Installing windows is pretty much the same as it is on real hardware, here is a useful
tip for making life easier once it's done.
Instead of letting the installer set up the hard disk, do it manually using fdisk and
format.
You'll find fdisk on the boot drive and format in the win98 folder.
After the hard disk is prepared make a directory on it for storing the setup files and copy
them there.
Run the setup program from the hard disk.
This makes windows use that directory as the windows CD, so when you're installing software
or drivers you don't have to put in the windows CD.
This can be a real time saver on windows 98.
Especially back in the day when you might not have the disk to hand.
After that just follow the wizard until you're done, then install drivers and updates.
Sparcie was able to get these games running.
The windows 95 version of Doom.
The Fury 3x demo.
Mechwarrior 2 titanium edition.
Honestly I prefer the older pentium version of this game.
Lastly Mech commander.
There
were also some games which didn't work so well, such as Dxball which still has some
slight stuttering in the music.
This was probably because the screen was being recorded.
Grand theft auto didn't work, it just showed a black screen.
Perhaps that could be solved by changing the graphic card driver or emulated graphic card.
One of the most limiting factors is of course the relatively weak system you can emulate,
you can only really play earlier windows 95 titles as there just isn't enough CPU power.
There is more to explore as you can emulate a glide card such as a voodoo 2, so that's
something for Sparcie to try when he feels better.
An alternative would be to virtualise a newer operating system that can run the game.
Windows XP would be a good option with virtual box, as there are guest additions that allow
graphics acceleration.
I haven't tested this yet, but it might be a solution for more demanding games, provided
they work on windows XP which is another kettle of fish.
Another alternative is installing windows 95 or 98 into dosbox-X, I don't know much
about this solution, but it might be something to look into.
Unfortunately there isn't a one-size-fits all solution for windows 95 games.
Partly because of the wide range of hardware and software.
That's all I have for you today, hopefully Sparcie will get better soon, I'm not really
equipped for playing games or with old hardware.
Thanks for watching!