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Windows 98 Gaming on Portable HDD


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#1 Uneitohr

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Posted 18 August 2016 - 09:03 AM

I have a spare 500GB SATA 5600RPM drive that I'd like to use for a portable gaming platform. What I'd like to do is to boot this drive and play old 16-bit games on it with windows 98 installed. I'm pretty sure that even if it does boot ok, it may be highly unstable on newer high-end systems (for instance an 4th generation i7 with 16GB of RAM).

The idea is to make it run on any system, and be able to actually use: start an application, play a game, etc. 

 

Would this be possible?


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#2 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 18 August 2016 - 10:02 AM

I have a spare 500GB SATA 5600RPM drive that I'd like to use for a portable gaming platform. What I'd like to do is to boot this drive and play old 16-bit games on it with windows 98 installed. I'm pretty sure that even if it does boot ok, it may be highly unstable on newer high-end systems (for instance an 4th generation i7 with 16GB of RAM).

The idea is to make it run on any system, and be able to actually use: start an application, play a game, etc. 

 

Would this be possible?

Yes/No.

 

Not without some patches, you have simply too much RAM, it is already difficult to get Win9x/Me to run on more than 1Gb without RLoew's patch(es).

And of course a 500 Gb disk drive won't be fully accessible (you will need a 128 Gb patch, cannot say if existing one might work on USB disks).

 

Loosely, you are looking for troubles :w00t: :ph34r: (mind you it will probably be fun :) to experiment with that, but do not expect to have anything working if not after hours/days/weeks of learning and experimenting and countless failures) and anyway a lot of modern hardware is simply not compatible with 9x/Me, so you can forget the "any" system.

 

If you want something working and "portable" use an emulator or VM, see:

http://reboot.pro/to...worth-learning/

http://reboot.pro/to...ng/#entry199798

 

Anyway, here is a good place to start:

http://www.msfn.org/...8-windows-9xme/

 

:duff:

Wonko



#3 RoyM

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Posted 20 August 2016 - 05:10 PM

The best platform I have found 
is a Windows10 PE running mame.
I actually use mame32 running from ram,
Windows 10 works good for the audio on most hardware,
I installed video drivers into the PE for my mame cabinet,
but I still must run the \rom folder from HD,
it is way too big to include in a PE disk.
Currently I have over 5000 games available on one machine.
 
Regards
RoyM

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#4 richardsks

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Posted 22 December 2016 - 11:19 PM

 

The best platform I have found 
is a Windows10 PE running mame.
I actually use mame32 running from ram,
Windows 10 works good for the audio on most hardware,
I installed video drivers into the PE for my mame cabinet,
but I still must run the \rom folder from HD,
it is way too big to include in a PE disk.
Currently I have over 5000 games available on one machine.
 
Regards
RoyM

 

 

I have been using mame on Win10pe but have been having performance and slowdown in games for some reason than I can't ascertain.

On Win8pe all is fine.

Do you build your own win10pe or use a project one? Also do you use just the standard mame32 with no extra frontend. I'm trying to figure why it's so slow.

thanks.



#5 RoyM

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Posted 23 December 2016 - 09:09 PM

Hi richardsks
 
I found mame32 to run slow on some of the games that were using higher end graphics.
Until I installed the drivers for my video card, and started running mame32 from memory.
I use a project Win10pe, no frontend standard mame32.script plus custom video drivers.script.
 
Some of these older games had minimum requirements for Processor and Graphics.
I am using a dual core Intel Pentium D 945 3.4G on Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L v2 with 2G Memory
with built-in graphics Intel GMA 3100 with home-built .script for video drivers.
 
I can run mame32 from X:\Program Files\Mame32UI\...
or from Internal Hard disk with mame and all /rom folders on it.
It obviously runs much better from ram.
 
What I would like to do is always run mame32 from ram, and then find
a decent way to redirect mame32 to use the folders residing on hard drive.
using links, junctions, maybe just putting them in the %path%, or 
just tweaking the mame32 settings to point to the /rom folders elsewhere.
 
Check that all your hardware, video, and audio are all working in your PE.
Make sure your Windows subsystems or all in order, Check DirectX via DXDiag.
 
I also had to play around in the mame32 video settings to get the most out of my hardware.
Check Mame settings in \Default Game Options\ Display and Advanced.
In advanced uncheck 'wait for vertical sync'
You may have to play with the settings above for best results.
 
Happy Gaming
RoyM


#6 richardsks

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Posted 25 December 2016 - 02:41 PM

 

Hi richardsks
 
I found mame32 to run slow on some of the games that were using higher end graphics.
Until I installed the drivers for my video card, and started running mame32 from memory.
I use a project Win10pe, no frontend standard mame32.script plus custom video drivers.script.
 
Some of these older games had minimum requirements for Processor and Graphics.
I am using a dual core Intel Pentium D 945 3.4G on Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L v2 with 2G Memory
with built-in graphics Intel GMA 3100 with home-built .script for video drivers.
 
I can run mame32 from X:\Program Files\Mame32UI\...
or from Internal Hard disk with mame and all /rom folders on it.
It obviously runs much better from ram.
 
What I would like to do is always run mame32 from ram, and then find
a decent way to redirect mame32 to use the folders residing on hard drive.
using links, junctions, maybe just putting them in the %path%, or 
just tweaking the mame32 settings to point to the /rom folders elsewhere.
 
Check that all your hardware, video, and audio are all working in your PE.
Make sure your Windows subsystems or all in order, Check DirectX via DXDiag.
 
I also had to play around in the mame32 video settings to get the most out of my hardware.
Check Mame settings in \Default Game Options\ Display and Advanced.
In advanced uncheck 'wait for vertical sync'
You may have to play with the settings above for best results.
 
Happy Gaming
RoyM

 

 

Thanks RoyM.  I'm using a laptop with a core i3 4000m and 'Win10pe SE' from the theoven.org (I don't know how this ranks as a win10pe.. Video drivers, Dirext x and audio are using the latest versions I could find.  Is that the project you use.

The strange part is Dosbox, which is known as being quite slow running the later protected mode Dos games, is running much faster on this win10pe setup than it was on Win8pe. The reverse is true for mame at the moment.



#7 RoyM

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Posted 27 December 2016 - 01:17 AM

Yes, same project.
You have plenty of horsepower and most laptop drivers should be available to use in 10PE.
Once I have mame running the way that I like in the 10PE, I export the .ini files in mame folder
and then manually add them using the mame.script.
 
Default Game Properties that I use for mame are:
 
\Display\
 Checked= Start Maximized, Throttle, Use Scanlines/None.
 Clean Stretch= Full
 Screen= Should be \\\.\\.DISPLAY? <-- "Yours will be different" but your display should be selected here.
 
\Advanced\
 Checked= Use DDraw, Triple Buff, sw res to fit, sw color to fit, 
          stretch using hardware, frame skipping= auto
          resolution= auto
  Aspect Ratio= 4:3 <-- " Yours may be different, make sure it is correct for your screen"
 
\Direct3D\
 Checked= Use Direct3D, Tex Mngmt, Rotate Effects
 
\Vector\
 Checked= Draw Anti Vectors, Draw Trans Vectors.
 
 \Misc\
  Checked= RDTSC Timing, High Thread, Skip Info
  
 Regards
 RoyM


#8 Uneitohr

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Posted 28 December 2016 - 08:04 PM

 

The best platform I have found 
is a Windows10 PE running mame.
I actually use mame32 running from ram,
Windows 10 works good for the audio on most hardware,
I installed video drivers into the PE for my mame cabinet,
but I still must run the \rom folder from HD,
it is way too big to include in a PE disk.
Currently I have over 5000 games available on one machine.
 
Regards
RoyM

 

 

Thanks for your reply and excuse the delay.

Please, would you take time to explain what exactly does mame32 do? I take it's some kind of emulator, similar to DosBOX?






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