AO486 Compatibility List

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jrronimo
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by jrronimo »

I was able to start up MechWarrior 1, but after trying to recruit people at the bar I get this lovely mess. Not sure if it's the game or something else.

mechwar.jpg
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The MT-32 sound comes through beautifully though!
Coldheat007
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Coldheat007 »

I used ADLIB and did not have that issue. I am using the source from exodos. I fored it to run with ADLIB by using "MW.EXE A"

Switches for game.

A - AdLib
T - Tandy MT-32
R - Roland
S - PC Speaker
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by flynnsbit »

Working through my automation and front end testing so I did some manual installs of games and played a bit. Manually testing CD install and running of 6 CD games from ISO/BIN. Installation and short play captured. Timestamp links in the YT Description if you want to see how one runs or installs or what commands to get them to run (Dos32a as an example)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0si0cor ... e=youtu.be

Command and Conquer, Play: 0:34
The 7th Guest, Install: 8:15, Play: 14:21
3 Skulls of the Tolte, Install: 24:00, Play: 25:01
3d Body Adventure, Install: 29:20, Play: 30:47
3d Hero: 35:13, Failed Play
A.D. Cop Overseas Mission, Install: 39:18, Play: 45:14
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Chris23235
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Chris23235 »

I gave Wing Commander III another look. The joystick calibration under DOS isn't working, while it is working fine under Windows 95 which makes me think it has nothing to do with the core or the speed of the CPU at all but is a software problem. The readme says not working calibration can be caused by IRQs used by multiple devices. Has anybody an idea what can be at fault here?
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thera34
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by thera34 »

Hi all,

Just wondering , while waiting for my MiSTer to arrive: did anyone tried and succeeded installing/playing Dungeon Master 1 & 2 ? If yes, any special things to do before ?
I am interested especially in DM2, a fave game of mine :) Succeeded to install it on my Amiga setup running on MiST, but honestly I prefer the DOS version.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by rhester72 »

DM1 worked - never tried DM2.
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Caldor
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Caldor »

Coldheat007 wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 5:42 pm Seems like the comments got shifted up about 3 rows. I used a downloaded copy I had and fixed all the comments.
So its fixed now? I noticed this happening early on. I take a copy of the whole sheet once in a while to be ready to fix such errors. Google should have some version history as well though for Google Drive.
flynnsbit wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 1:05 am Working through my automation and front end testing so I did some manual installs of games and played a bit. Manually testing CD install and running of 6 CD games from ISO/BIN. Installation and short play captured. Timestamp links in the YT Description if you want to see how one runs or installs or what commands to get them to run (Dos32a as an example)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0si0cor ... e=youtu.be

Command and Conquer, Play: 0:34
The 7th Guest, Install: 8:15, Play: 14:21
3 Skulls of the Tolte, Install: 24:00, Play: 25:01
3d Body Adventure, Install: 29:20, Play: 30:47
3d Hero: 35:13, Failed Play
A.D. Cop Overseas Mission, Install: 39:18, Play: 45:14
Very nice. I have tried getting C&C to work a few times, but so far it failed to run the installation. I did not think it would run this well.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by jordi »

* Pinball fantasies had some graphics corruption, not sure why:

photo6005696274176782718.jpg
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* Side scrolling already causes some artifacts for games like Commander KEEN. It might be interesting to add a 'crop' option in the output image filter settings?
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by flynnsbit »

Caldor wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 7:33 am
Very nice. I have tried getting C&C to work a few times, but so far it failed to run the installation. I did not think it would run this well.
Yeah, the trick for it and a few others is dos32a. If you run it straight you get (Double FAULTs) with DOS/4GW. Anyone figured that one out yet? It seems to be the same in most DOS/4GW games where those same games on my actual 486 run fine with this exact image setup.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Caldor »

flynnsbit wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 10:28 am
Caldor wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 7:33 am
Very nice. I have tried getting C&C to work a few times, but so far it failed to run the installation. I did not think it would run this well.
Yeah, the trick for it and a few others is dos32a. If you run it straight you get (Double FAULTs) with DOS/4GW. Anyone figured that one out yet? It seems to be the same in most DOS/4GW games where those same games on my actual 486 run fine with this exact image setup.
I am not sure why. I first noticed it with another DOS extender that should help make it possible to run some Windows programs in DOS, and it turned out that it helped run some games that usually threw DOS4GW errors.

Then I found DOS32A when looking for general DOS optimizations.

My theory is that DOS32A is just a more effective protected memory mode and I suspect the problem is because AO486 uses some areas of the memory for special features where it does not seem to be enough for DOS4GW to exclude those parts of the memory in the memory configuration.

When it comes to DOS4GW, it seems its just intentionally bad. There was a low cost general version, but it was badly optimized and to get an industry quality one it would cost a lot of money. But DOS32A is coded in assembly I think it was and had many of not all the optimizations of the best versions of DOS4GW. I think its probably a sign of its quality that it is so much smaller than DOS4GW usually is, without seeming to lose any features for it.
Coldheat007
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Coldheat007 »

Caldor wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 7:33 am
Coldheat007 wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 5:42 pm Seems like the comments got shifted up about 3 rows. I used a downloaded copy I had and fixed all the comments.
So its fixed now? I noticed this happening early on. I take a copy of the whole sheet once in a while to be ready to fix such errors. Google should have some version history as well though for Google Drive.
flynnsbit wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 1:05 am
I did fix it.
Coldheat007
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Coldheat007 »

Caldor wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 7:33 am
Coldheat007 wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 5:42 pm Seems like the comments got shifted up about 3 rows. I used a downloaded copy I had and fixed all the comments.
So its fixed now? I noticed this happening early on. I take a copy of the whole sheet once in a while to be ready to fix such errors. Google should have some version history as well though for Google Drive.
I did fix it but it got scrambled again. I think it happens when someone changes the sort order on the first column. The comment column does not shift right. Its off a few lines.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Coldheat007 »

I did a sort on the 1st column and it seems to be lined up again when comparing it to my downloaded list.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by flynnsbit »

bump, starting to use this for curated packs. Please update any that require a specific memory manager

HIRAM
EMM386
QEMM
EXTENDED
CLEAN (HIMEM only)
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Caldor
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Caldor »

flynnsbit wrote: Wed Oct 28, 2020 9:15 pm bump, starting to use this for curated packs. Please update any that require a specific memory manager

HIRAM
EMM386
QEMM
EXTENDED
CLEAN (HIMEM only)
Nice, good idea. That should cover most games by far.

Especially with the frontend stuff that should support a good portion of the EXODos collection, it should become possible to test compatibility for several games pretty fast, making a more streamlined system for testing new games and existing games (where updates to AO486 might affect them somehow)
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thera34
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by thera34 »

rhester72 wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:46 pm DM1 worked - never tried DM2.
I can confirm that Dungeon Master 2 also works, tried with MSDOS 6.22 and DOS 7.1
Works with DOS4GW, though instead of intro shows some interrupt errors, then it goes straight into the game menu. Otherwise, it works fine, sound and all.
Doesn't work with DOS32A so far with my tests, I'll look more into this and intro issue.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Caldor »

thera34 wrote: Thu Nov 12, 2020 7:48 pm
rhester72 wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:46 pm DM1 worked - never tried DM2.
I can confirm that Dungeon Master 2 also works, tried with MSDOS 6.22 and DOS 7.1
Works with DOS4GW, though instead of intro shows some interrupt errors, then it goes straight into the game menu. Otherwise, it works fine, sound and all.
Doesn't work with DOS32A so far with my tests, I'll look more into this and intro issue.
So some games do work better with DOS4GW than with DOS32A? Sucks... I was planning to make a way to just stub every DOS4GW game with DOS32A. But the way I plan to do it, I will be generating a big BAT file that would stub every game when run. But I guess if we find out which games runs better with DOS4GW, those games can just be removed from that bat file.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by flynnsbit »

If you create a new stub exe with something predictable (game32.exe) we can add a launch option to the run.bat file that allows for a dos32a option instead of dos4gw. So both options would be there.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Caldor »

flynnsbit wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 9:56 pm If you create a new stub exe with something predictable (game32.exe) we can add a launch option to the run.bat file that allows for a dos32a option instead of dos4gw. So both options would be there.
But in the cases where that would work, it would also work to just run the game with
DOS32A game.exe
Without the need to stub the game file. The only case where that would not work is the games that have DOS32A in some DAT file or some other non-exe file. Or.. I guess when the game has a launcher or something that makes the exe file come after some file that does not use DOS4GW.

What is the command to stub a file and does it have an option to output a new file with a different name instead of just altering the input file?
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by thera34 »

@Caldor: I used SB utility to patch for example game.dat for C&C : sb -r game.dat , it outputs a file which can be renamed after.
When I used it on an executable, it removed dos4gw and made it a bit smaller with dos32a
Source docs: https://dos32a.narechk.net/manual/index.html

Hope it helps :)
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Caldor »

thera34 wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 4:29 pm @Caldor: I used SB utility to patch for example game.dat for C&C : sb -r game.dat , it outputs a file which can be renamed after.
When I used it on an executable, it removed dos4gw and made it a bit smaller with dos32a
Source docs: https://dos32a.narechk.net/manual/index.html

Hope it helps :)
Thanks. Yeah, I read that guide, but was not sure what the command was even after reading it. I think I will try making a bat file that will make it possible to stub all the files to see if it could work. Well, it should but could be fun to try.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Chris23235 »

Did anyone manage to get the Doom 2 Freeroam Pack to work?

https://www.moddb.com/mods/doom-free-ro ... m-freeroam

For me it hangs while loading.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Caldor »

Caldor wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:56 pm
thera34 wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 4:29 pm @Caldor: I used SB utility to patch for example game.dat for C&C : sb -r game.dat , it outputs a file which can be renamed after.
When I used it on an executable, it removed dos4gw and made it a bit smaller with dos32a
Source docs: https://dos32a.narechk.net/manual/index.html

Hope it helps :)
Thanks. Yeah, I read that guide, but was not sure what the command was even after reading it. I think I will try making a bat file that will make it possible to stub all the files to see if it could work. Well, it should but could be fun to try.
I was playing C&C yesterday and C&C was one of the games I wanted to try because I was testing CD games. I found something interesting because I was stubbing the game.dat file, but I had some trouble. So I tried:
DOS32A game.dat

And it worked... this would actually run the game. This makes me wonder whether this might also work for other games that embeds DOS4GW in game files other than the executable.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by thera34 »

By trouble you mean it made a file named $$$sb$$$.tmp or smth like that ?

Found a workaround: in the output of SB you'll see smth like missing "game.le" file
Rename that $$$sb$$$.tmp into "game.le" and re-run the SB -r command on the original file.
It will output an game.exe file this time (for C&C can be renamed in game.dat and works just fine by running RA/RUNGAME)

For the "normal" exe files, like duke3d, same workaround with renaming tmp file applies.

P.S. By normal i meant not like masked in .dat like C&C :P Damn, this game brings up so many memories lol and i'm so happy it works again :D
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Caldor »

I am not sure what the problem was. Maybe it had trouble finding the DOS32A file, I had this problem when testing 11th Hour.

Anyone got that game running? I get errors when running it normally from DOS4GW, and when I try to run it with DOS32A or stub it with DOS32A it freezes. I got Under A Killing Moon running though. I want to try 7th Guest as well, but I need to change its CD format first. I have trouble finding a simple way to convert to Cue Bin format.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by flynnsbit »

you dont need to change the cd format any longer with the latest updates to main. This commit fixed that. All CD's should now work out of the box. https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_Mi ... 1922f36b9b
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

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flynnsbit wrote: Sat Nov 21, 2020 1:22 pm you dont need to change the cd format any longer with the latest updates to main. This commit fixed that. All CD's should now work out of the box. https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_Mi ... 1922f36b9b
That was a problem with games not having audio tracks not working, Should not make AO486 support CloneCD, CUE IMG and so on. But I did find a way to convert them. I just mount with Daemon Tools and then use AnyBurn to convert the mounted CD to cue bin.

I just tried Deaths Gate. Seems to run really well, and in SVGA even. I also got Under a Killing Moon running. The intro of Lands of Lore 2 runs, but it runs into an error even when using DOS32A. I thought it was Lands of Lore 1 i had copied, so I will try that later. Now I hope to get 7th Guest running.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by flynnsbit »

I'm confused on what you are doing. Are you converting redbook cd's to some other format? What's wrong with 7th guest? I've been playing that pretty consistently.

I couldn't get 11th hour going so will be interested in if you do.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by Caldor »

flynnsbit wrote: Sat Nov 21, 2020 11:47 pm I'm confused on what you are doing. Are you converting redbook cd's to some other format? What's wrong with 7th guest? I've been playing that pretty consistently.

I couldn't get 11th hour going so will be interested in if you do.
Redbook CDs? Not sure what those are. These images are from the ExoDOS collection, many of the CD images are CloneCD format. (CCD). Makes each CD have 3-4 files instead of just cue and bin. So I convert them to regular cue bin. Some of them are also cue-img (a cue and img file). Not sure where that comes from, but I can mount it with Daemon Tools and convert that to Cue bin as well. So just making sure all the games are either in iso or cue-bin format.

How did you get 7th Guest to run? For me it keeps complaining about the audio setup. Pretty annoying. I tried several different setups. Just keeps saying it lacks drivers or something. Its installing from CD2 I think it was. Has an install file on CD1 saying it did not have room for the install program on CD1 so you have to use CD2 to install.
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Re: AO486 Compatibility List

Unread post by flynnsbit »

Redbook is where games had audio tracks on the CD's that are referenced in the cue file. Those won't play audio if they are referenced but the games should still play, you just might have silent audio tracks.

Also, fyi, cue / img files should work fine on the mister. I've tested many combo's of iso, cue/bin, cue/img, and they all work now. At least all the ones I have tested from eXoDOSv4 and eXoDOSv5.

Here is what I had to do for 7th guest. Your setup might differ from my ExoDOS pack I setup but should give you some pointers: https://youtu.be/xWw0Lw56jJ0?t=18632
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