Windows 7

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Spikey
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Windows 7

#1 Post by Spikey » Wed Jun 02, 2010 11:04 pm

So, it seems like the XP era is finally coming to an end.
I'm looking for a new laptop, and Windows 7 is becoming kind of unavoidable as of late, and was wondering...
...what will I be able to run on it?

My main goals for the new machine will be;

- running KQ8
- running Qfg5
- running GK3
- running AGDI remakes (of course)
- running DosBox with the Roland MT32 working

From what I gather, a lot can be done with virtual machines (with Win98 for KQ8 for example) or building an XP dual boot. Anybody who has any advise or whatsoever? I've been on XP for so long that I'm sort of in the dark as to what to buy.

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pbpb33
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Re: Windows 7

#2 Post by pbpb33 » Thu Jun 03, 2010 1:41 am

I'm able to run the AGDI games fine with Win 7 Ultimate. I'm also able to run DOSBox with my MT-32 (first gen with modern revision) for sound. I only wish I was able to select 800X600 for my display resolution when playing games in DOSBox... but this probably has more to do with my video card/monitor (??) than with Win 7.

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Re: Windows 7

#3 Post by MusicallyInspired » Thu Jun 03, 2010 5:06 am

I've heard stories of getting QFG5 to work. I don't know about KQ8. You might try the Sierra Help Pages forums. Collector (author of the site) specializes in getting Sierra games working on modern systems. I believe there's been discussion there about QFG5 and KQ8 recently. If anyone can help they can. I'm a member there. Great and helpful bunch.

Also, it's definitely possible to run DOSBox in 800x600. You just have to specify the resolution in the config file and also probably select a video scaler (like normal2x).

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Re: Windows 7

#4 Post by Spikey » Thu Jun 03, 2010 10:43 am

Yeah, I'm a member there too, I shared my method there for forcing KQ8 into Direct3D mode.

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Re: Windows 7

#5 Post by Chief » Sat Jul 31, 2010 1:59 am

I recently got Windows 7 and it works really well, and i love it overall. However I haven't really tried any older games on it so you'll probably be best off with some of them in an XP VM. QFG2 VGA works fine though.

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Re: Windows 7

#6 Post by Spikey » Sat Jul 31, 2010 2:40 pm

Well, actually, I recently bought a new laptop with Windows 7, and got everything up and running with more ease than expected.

Kq8; installed it in Win98 in Virtual Machine. Also installed a GlideWrapper to emulate the Voodoo3fx card, even though the game can't launch while in that mode.

Qfg5; A native install works, but Quicktime can give you a headache on this one. I now installed Windows XP in Virtual Machine with Quicktime 4, now it runs smoothly.

GK3; A native install worked fantastic.

DosBox and MIDI cables are all working flawlessly with my Roland MT32 and SC55, even though you won't find a MIDI option in your Sound config, so you'll have to work around that to set it right.

Enough said, Win7 rules for old games!

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Re: Windows 7

#7 Post by MusicallyInspired » Mon Aug 02, 2010 3:58 am

Nice work! And good to hear things are still possible on the next gen OS. Regarding KQ8 and the glide wrapper, virtual machines don't emulate a 3d graphics driver of any kind so anything other than software rendering won't work at all wrapper or not. That's why I shy away from virtual machines for old Win95/98 games. I have all the hardware to an early Pentium machine except for a case. Otherwise I'd be able to play them all natively right now! I do wish I had a better Voodoo card, though. Right now I only have a Voodoo 1. I foolishly traded my Voodoo 3 for an inferior card. That was dumb...

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Re: Windows 7

#8 Post by Spikey » Mon Aug 02, 2010 8:42 am

Yeah it's very hopeful!
MusicallyInspired wrote:Regarding KQ8 and the glide wrapper, virtual machines don't emulate a 3d graphics driver of any kind so anything other than software rendering won't work at all wrapper or not. That's why I shy away from virtual machines for old Win95/98 games.
Virtual machines don't support direct3D and won't correct for faulty hardware of course, but the GlideWrapper is actually a software rendered emulation [EDIT: let me say this correctly, it emulates the Voodo card on top of OpenGL). It's a good estimation of what the Voodoo graphics are like! KQ8 graphics & settings are very flawed unfortunately, with many of the dynamic shadings missing in the 3dfx mode (many examples on youtube), so it's debatable if the Voodoo graphics are better. However, the startup of the game is what is a major problem with KQ8; the startup often crashes if you've got complicated graphic modes. So the game is playable, but switch back to software rendering before you quit (or else you'll have to edit the option file with notepad before starting; change 'Glide' to 'Software').

A note on a native Qfg5 install; Quicktime 3.0 won't install in 64 bit, it's better to drop all the (unpacked) QT3 files in the root Qfg5 folder. During MOV playback, the sound can be scratchy. You can install Quicktime 4.0 instead, this should correct the sounds and you can install it in 64 bit. It is likely you're using iTunes though, in which case you'll have to find a whole other solution, because you'll need a much newer Indeo incomaptible Quicktime for iTunes to run. All this together made me turn to installing XP in Virtual Machine, since oddly enough, I couldn't manage Qfg5 to run in Win 98 on Virtual Machine.

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Re: Windows 7

#9 Post by MusicallyInspired » Mon Aug 02, 2010 3:06 pm

OpenGL is not software rendering. :p Just pointing that out.

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Re: Windows 7

#10 Post by Spikey » Mon Aug 02, 2010 3:52 pm

Hence the edit, I got caught up in the moment, sowwy. :p
The point is that you can emulate the voodoocard in a win98 virtual machine and play KQ8 with it.

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Re: Windows 7

#11 Post by MusicallyInspired » Mon Aug 02, 2010 4:21 pm

Well that is pretty neat. I never heard of software rendered wrappers.

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Re: Windows 7

#12 Post by Spikey » Mon Aug 02, 2010 6:59 pm

Well, it's not really software rendered since it builds on the native OpenGL. But...now I'm not so sure if it's actually working; I've read nowhere that it can. I can select the 3Dfx option, and the game plays, but what am I seeing in the game? Is it secretly using DirectDraw with different options?

* is off experimenting again *

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