With modern operation systems(OS) based on Windows, Linux or MAC OS, you mostly cannot play old games designed for MS-DOS or old Windows distributions like Windows 3.1 or 95. This article shows your the possibilities of how to play those games.
If you have an old game and an OS that cannot play it properly, you have following options:
This option is mostly reasonable for DOS games even when there are some Windows emulators for Linux or MAC. Emulator is a program, that can run a different program in an environment typical for this program. For example MS-DOS emulator for Windows can run MS-DOS programs in Windows environment.
The best DOS emulator you can find is definitely DOSBOX. About 70% games run in default configuration and you can customize settings for almost every old DOS game. There are several PC emulators like BOCHS but they mostly have poor performance and you will probably not be able to play more complex games. PC emulator is a program emulating a complete PC, with a DOS image, you can boot up a whole new virtual computer. Those emulators are quite ineffective in compare with virtualization mentioned later. You can google some more stuff if interested, just look for "DOS emulator" or "PC emulator" for your system.
Something a little else is VDMSound Project. It emulates old sound card and other hardware to allow playing old DOS games directly under Windows. Unfortunately, this emulator is currently not working with Windows Vista and 7. But if you have NT/2000/XP system it's definitely worth a try,
I will focus on DOSBOX DOS emulator because it is a top of all possible emulators. DOSBOX is available for a wide range of OS including Windows, Linux, MAC and even Solaris is supported. There are also a lot of different frontends available to download at dosbox page. Complete documentation is available here. We will focus here only at some specific options.
When you install DOSBOX, you can play your old games pretty easy. In Windows, you can drag&drop game executable file at the desktop icon and the game will start instantly, detailed description is located here, with workaround for other OS. DOSBOX has some shortcuts to enter/leave fullscreen, change graphics, etc. those shortcuts are available here. Take your time to browse the documentation a bit, it cannot hurt you. Those basic information will be enough to play a wide area of games. Some games however require some special settings to work. every DOSBOX installation contains a configuration file. Name and location can differ based on OS but when you find some game not working with default settings, you will have to change it. Please note, that you will need a specific configuration file for every game that don't work with default settings. You can use program parameter -userconf
to load a specific configuration file. Please keep in mind that there can be multiple .EXE files located in your game directory. Refer to the game manual about the meaning of every file if not sure. When you start a DOSBOX without a parameter, you will get a DOS shell. All commands you can use are listed here. You can also use some utilities, take a closer look at MOUNT (for mounting disk devices including CD-ROM), CONFIG (For managing configuration files) and KEYB or IMGMOUNT can be pretty usefull.
In computing, virtualization is the facility that allows multiple operating systems to simultaneously share processor resources in a safe and efficient manner, a facility generically known as hardware virtualization. In the late 1990s x86 virtualization was achieved by complex software techniques which overcame the processor's lack of virtualization support and attained reasonable performance. In the mid 2000s, both Intel and AMD added hardware support to their processors making virtualization software simpler, and later hardware changes provided substantial speed improvements. Source: wikipedia.org
Virtualization is a good option to run both Windows or DOS games. You just have to setup a virtual machine and install an old Windows distribution or a simple DOS. Ideally install Windows 95/98 if you have some and you will get a DOS boot capability for free. If you wish to install a DOS only I recommend FreeDOS. It's free and has a lot of modern useful tools included. You can get a nice full distribution packed to an ISO image.This method is unfortunately much more complex and requires some basic skills with OS installation and with DOS OS. Anyway there is a project called RetroUSB that can be very helpful since you can boot an image directly to you virtual machine without a further configuration.
There are several virtualization tools that you can get. Windows users will probably choose a VirtualPC because it can do the job fine and is available for free. There are several other tools like Xen or Qemu but they require advanced computer skills to get them to work. See more information at their web pages. The most suitable solution for all OS is definitely VMware. It is basically not for free, but they offer a VMware player for free that is sufficient for our purpose.
This option is for old Windows games that cannot be run normally. This can be done under Windows only. Modern Windows OS have a mode called "Compatibility mode". In this mode, you can simulate an environment of older Windows systems like Win95. Some old Windows games for Win95/98 or even earlier will work in this mode. You may be even lucky with some newer DOS games.
You can set a compatibility mode for an old executable you wish to run that was designed for Windows 95 or even older. Some DOS games can run too but don't count on it too much. To initiate this dialog simply select preferences of the executable you wish to run. Selecting all checkboxes is usually a best choice but you can experiment with it.
{docmanlist get_subfolders 1 2}
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Jill of the Jungle is a classic shareware game, which signalled the imminent emergence of famous software developer and publisher Epic Megagames, one of this decade's leading software developers.
The game itself is a simple platform game where you take the role of Jill of the Jungle: an amazon woman who takes the untypical role of monster-slaying, leather-wearing feminist warrior. With this in mind, you will face 16 levels of puzzle-solving and monster-slaying with the use of several types of weapons and all sorts of enhancements.
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Jill of the Jungle is a classic shareware game, which signalled the imminent emergence of famous software developer and publisher Epic Megagames, one of this decade's leading software developers.
The game itself is a simple platform game where you take the role of Jill of the Jungle: an amazon woman who takes the untypical role of monster-slaying, leather-wearing feminist warrior. With this in mind, you will face 16 levels of puzzle-solving and monster-slaying with the use of several types of weapons and all sorts of enhancements.
This is the first in a series of three games.
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Jazz Jackrabbit is the PC world's answer to Sonic the Hedgehog. In this platform game, Jazz must rescue the princess and defeat the evil Devan the turtle. Epic released what turned out to be a fairly good, high paced game for its time.
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Experience white-knuckle speeds exceeding 200mph from an Indycar cockpit. Learn the racing strategies that actual Indycar drivers use, and with practice, challenge the pros at their own game. Features realistic car physics.
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Experience white-knuckle speeds exceeding 200mph from an Indycar cockpit. Learn the racing strategies that actual Indycar drivers use, and with practice, challenge the pros at their own game. Features realistic car physics.
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A typical LucasArts adventure game with funny dialogs and actions, excellent cast, marvelous story, great adventure and perfect composing and atmosphere.
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This time, Hugo and Penelope, his girlfriend, crash-land in a strange jungle (their plane ran out of fuel). Penelope is bitten by an enormous spider, and a friendly villager informs you that you have three days to find the right kind of water, bottle it, and bring it back to Penelope.
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Hocus Pocus is a fun, addicting platform game with colorful graphics. Send the little sorcerer Hocus on a mission to prove his worthiness to join the Council of Wizards.
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Hocus Pocus is a fun, addicting platform game with colorful graphics. Send the little sorcerer Hocus on a mission to prove his worthiness to join the Council of Wizards.
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Hexen is the sequel to Heretic. Like Heretic, Hexen is a fantasy game based on an enhanced DOOM engine. All of Heretic's innovations like vertical looking, flying, and the inventory system have been carried over. The new major changes this time around are three characters for the player to choose from and the level hub system. The characters are the Fighter, the Cleric, and the Mage. Each one has four unique weapons and different levels of speed and armor.
The hub system steps away from the traditional "single levels stringed along into episodes" system which had been carried over into the FPS (first person shooter) genre from sidescrollers and made popular by Wolfenstein 3D. In Hexen's hub system each episode is still made up of interconnected levels, but most of the levels are connected to a single "hub" level through portals. There are also portals between some of the "spoke" levels. Many of the puzzles in Hexen require travel back and forth between different levels.
Other innovations in Hexen included weather effects, jumping, earth-quakes, and destructable objects such as trees and vases.
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Heretic is the first game in the Heretic/Hexen franchise. Here begins Raven's tradition of taking id Software's latest game engines, improving on them, and using them in a fantasy game.
For Heretic, the DOOM engine was used. The Raven team enhanced the engine with the addition of an inventory system, the ability to look up and down, and the ability to fly, along with some lesser features such as powerful wind currents. Not counting the inventory, the core gameplay that made DOOM such a hit remained the same.
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You are a gangster in GTA. You get different jobs to do, like stealing cars, "helping out" at a bank job or killing someone. You can go everywhere in the city and steal almost every car (also trains and tanks). There are crates scattered all over the city which contains bonuses, such as a get out of jail free card or new weapons.
Date added: | 02/21/2011 |
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Filesize: | 33.48 MB |
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You are a gangster in GTA. You get different jobs to do, like stealing cars, "helping out" at a bank job or killing someone. You can go everywhere in the city and steal almost every car (also trains and tanks). There are crates scattered all over the city which contains bonuses, such as a get out of jail free card or new weapons.
Date added: | 02/21/2011 |
Date modified: | 04/05/2011 |
Filesize: | 6.3 MB |
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You are a gangster in GTA. You get different jobs to do, like stealing cars, "helping out" at a bank job or killing someone. You can go everywhere in the city and steal almost every car (also trains and tanks). There are crates scattered all over the city which contains bonuses, such as a get out of jail free card or new weapons.
Date added: | 02/21/2011 |
Date modified: | 04/05/2011 |
Filesize: | 13.65 MB |
Downloads: | 0 |
You are a gangster in GTA. You get different jobs to do, like stealing cars, "helping out" at a bank job or killing someone. You can go everywhere in the city and steal almost every car (also trains and tanks). There are crates scattered all over the city which contains bonuses, such as a get out of jail free card or new weapons.
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The third in the series of the weird adventure-puzzle games. This time you only have one Goblin to control. This was predictable just by the name of the game (the word 'Goblins' lost another 'i').
This time we control Blount, a lonely goblin travelling through the country of Foliander. Almost at the beginning he will fall in love, but his girl gets kidnapped (shouldn't it be goblinapped?) and so he has to go through the same kind of mind breaking puzzles to rescue her (and help lots of others 'weirdoes' in the meantime).
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Filesize: | 2.28 MB |
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A voodoo doll has turned King Angoulafre mad. You control a team of three Goblins - Oups, Ignatius and Asgard (Hooter, Dwayne, and BoBo in the US release), who must find four magic components to track down Niak the Wizard, who is the only one who can put things right. They all have different skills - one can cast powerful but erratic spells, another can collect and use objects, and the last can hit things. You switch between them to solve puzzles in this point-and-click game.
Action icons are activated at the bottom of the screen. The game takes place in 22 landscapes, each of which has puzzles which must be cleared. Your characters have limited energy, which can be sapped by traps.
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Filesize: | 2.42 MB |
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The second in the series of adventure-puzzle games. In this installation, you only have two imps to control instead of three.
Someone has kidnapped the prince and it's up to you and two hilarious sidekicks, Winkle and Fingus, to rescue him. Winkle is a reckless jokester, while Fingus is careful and has a gift for solving puzzles. Luckily, they're blessed with extraordinary vitality. In other words, they never die. That'll sure come in handy when you're up against Wily Wizard's traps, maniacal monsters, and twisted and perplexing puzzles.
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Galactix is a vertical scrolling space shooter, where you pass through several waves of attacks until you meet the "boss". The game and story-line are well presented in VGA graphics and SB/Adlib sound, although the gameplay is simpler than some other space shooters. An interesting feature is the claw hand that must be used to gather floating power-ups and weapons.
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Advertisment for Ford. Showed off their 1987 model line and gave you a chance to drive each one in a simulation. You could also fill out a form to get more information about each car.
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