Slowing down old DOS Games

[Daniel]

Yesterday I bought a very old tatty copy of one of my all time favourite games Wing Comander on a Carboot sale (Still in it's original floppy disk glory [img]smile.gif[/img] )

I installed it and too my dismay it's unplayable, as soon as you start the game you are dead it runs that fast.

My question is there anyway to slow down old DOS games to a playable level, do i need a program to do this or can I do it through windows? (Im running on 98).

Just for a laugh I will tell you that the game's recommended processor speed is a 12mhz and mine is a 1000mhz. playing the game like this is a bit extreme.

[johnny]

do you run win xp ? If you do you probably won't be able to run the game normally.

[Lord of Alcohol]

I cant get Master of Orion (an old dos game) to run For me its a conventional memory problem

[MILAMBER]

I don't think there's a way unless someone wrote a program which can emulate a system clock. In many old dos games, they count processing cycles as a way of keeping time. Have you ever seen some old versions of solitaire when the game is over and the cards cascade, they move at light speed? This is because the program was written to pace itself with the system clock before people thought processors would get as fast as they have. I think someone would have to actually write some kind of emulator or something to make it work.

[Sir Goulum]

Thats kinda funny. I'd keep it as a joke, and show people how impossible the game is(when it probably isn't)

[Sazerac]

Well, there's Mo'Slo, which is a clock-slower for emulating DOS games...comes in invaluably for we gamers who love those "ancient games."

I don't know if it would run on XP, but let me see if I can find a link for it. Here you go:

http://www.hpaa.com/moslo/

Check it out and see if it will run on your system.

Cheers,
-Sazerac

[Daniel]

Originally posted by Lord of Alcohol: I cant get Master of Orion (an old dos game) to run For me its a conventional memory problem

I used to have to same problem until i figured out how to change the memory settings (In windows 98 anyway). Right click on the games exe file and go into properties and then click on the memory tab, from there you can assign how much conventional, expanded and extended memory you wish to give the game. If you don't have windows 98 give it a try anyway it might still work.

[ 06-03-2002, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: Daniel ]

[Daniel]

Originally posted by Sazerac: Well, there's Mo'Slo, which is a clock-slower for emulating DOS games...comes in invaluably for we gamers who love those "ancient games." I don't know if it would run on XP, but let me see if I can find a link for it. Here you go: http://www.hpaa.com/moslo/ Check it out and see if it will run on your system. Cheers, -Sazerac

Thanks a lot, luckily I'm not running under XP so this might work. Im going to bed now though I cant stay awake any longer, I'll download it tommorow and let you all know if it worked again.

Once again thanks for the link [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Sazerac]

Sure, Daniel! Glad to oblige. [img]smile.gif[/img]

-Saz

[Legolas]

Originally posted by Daniel: quote: Originally posted by Lord of Alcohol: I cant get Master of Orion (an old dos game) to run For me its a conventional memory problem

I used to have to same problem until i figured out how to change the memory settings (In windows 98 anyway). Right click on the games exe file and go into properties and then click on the memory tab, from there you can assign how much conventional, expanded and extended memory you wish to give the game. If you don't have windows 98 give it a try anyway it might still work.[/QUOTE]Never even noticed that. I went to properties, program, advanced and told it to run in DOSmode with every memory freeing program I could think of. Works just fine.
Since it's turnbased you have no problems with high speeds, and as you've got only barely enough memory availiable it tends to run slower rather than faster.

We did, at one time, have a very old game called Battlehawks 19somethingsomething and there your misson would be over almost before the scenario started. But that was with our 486 and the turbo button still had enough effect to slow the game down enough to make it playable.

BTW, if Wing Commander has a speed setting, I'm sure you've already tried to set that to minimum...