new PC's vs. old school games

[noiseredux]

but same thing... nVidea, eh? So it may even be a problem there. Should I go for it, haha?

[Hobie-wan]

but same thing... nVidea, eh? So it may even be a problem there. Should I go for it, haha?

Sure why not. I'll hold your beer.

[noiseredux]

mybeerweighsaton

[noiseredux]

right so I downloaded the 8.1 upgrade. PC had to restart. Black screen. No signal. Seemed my GPU was not outputting anything. Hard-reset, took out the GPU, plugged VGA into Mobo and restarted. Was told the 8.1 upgrade didn't work. (Wish I had written down error code). But... man. I hate Win8.

[samsonlonghair]

Necro-bumb!

I've been picking up old PC games at the Salvation Army recently. I haven't even tried making them run yet. I've just been adding them to the collection.

Right now I have Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, and Sega Smash Pack. I find the Sega one very interesting because it contains a prototype of Revenge of Shinobi labeled "Super Shinobi".

Sega Smash Pack

The version included in volume 1 of the PC Smash Pack collection appears to be a prototype version. The internal ROM date says March 1989, and the product number is filled with zeroes. In the notes section of the ROM header (at 0x1C8), there is the string, "A0115 Sega_Channel", whereas all other releases have that area filled with ASCII space characters. The header also is only marked as being a Japanese release, while all other versions are marked as Japanese, US, and European.

The title screen always uses The Super Shinobi regardless of the console region. The game has an invincibility mode in the options screen, and a level select at the main menu. Enabling invincibility also gives infinite lives from falling off screen, out open doors, and using Mijin (it also prevents you from gaining lives). There are other changes found in the options menu: the shuriken option is spelled "syurikin" (in other versions, it's spelled "shurikin"), and the sound test option lacks music titles, showing only a hex number (in other versions, sound effects are numbered in decimal).

There is no copyright screen. The introduction uses the final version Round 1 music (The Shinobi) instead of its own theme. The sound effect when Musashi changes his grip does not play, and the sparks when the shuriken hit the sword stay on screen longer. There are no demos other than the opening animation (i.e. no plot text or gameplay demos).

Using Mijin uses up ninjitsu; in other versions ninjitsu is still available after using Mijin. Mijin also remains selected after it has been used, instead of switching to Ikazuchi. There is also no shouting sound effect when ninjutsu are activated.

The final game has 19 music tracks, but this version only has the first 7 (the order of music in the sound test is unchanged). Because of this, there are differences in what music is used for what Round, but even when the music is in all versions, different tracks are used. The music used in 1-1 is China Beat, and 1-2's music is Make Me Dance while in the final, both stages use The Shinobi. The game over screen has no music and is missing Zeed's laughter. The drum samples used throughout the game are also different.

For the most part, the enemies resemble the REV00 versions with the exception of Spider-Man, which is red and blue instead of red and black. However, he is still missing the eye mask.

Some bosses appear incomplete. The Godzilla boss of Round 7 seems to be invincible, and the fight ends after the boss goes through a few attacks. The Round 3 and 8 bosses appear to be missing completely (although the maps themselves are there); the game switches to the end of level screen shortly after starting. There is no ending either: the game loops back to Round 1 after 8-3.[5]

So here's my question: Starting now, does it make more sense to try to run a win98se environment inside of some Virtual PC on my macbook, or does it make more sense to just find an old PC rig and get her running on real physical hardware?

[isiolia]

I'd say virtualized would be more ideal if it works well for you. As opposed to additional computers set up, needing older accessories and parts to work right, etc. Plus, the old machines won't last forever (have an SE/30 in need of new caps sitting in my home office, for instance).

That said, I think most newer VMs haven't really rolled seamless support in for pre-XP OSes, and possibly not even that, depending. 'course, I think you have a relatively narrow window of titles that are both not DOS compatible (making DOSBox a more appealing option), and won't run right on NT based Windows.

[ExedExes]

I've got both Sega Smash Packs on the PC as part of the larger Sega Mega Pack. Funny enough, the box claim(ed) XP compatibility at the time I bought that, but nearly all the games in the collection were made for 95/98. Even the Mega Packs have limited screen resolution (read: game in small corner of screen) and they even crashed back to title from time to time. Which is a shame because both packs have a decent selection of games, and as already pointed out, Revenge of Shinobi is titled "The Super Shinobi" and also doesn't have the Spider Man character. Maybe I should reinstall them and try 95/98 compatibility.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Games and software released during the Windows 95 era can come across a lot of issues for modern PCs to run without emulation. I personally emulate and have zero problems with the titles and it is hassle free in comparison to setting up a retro PC to use. The only time when I am like, "Use the original hardware!" is when you are playing like an Apple II

[ExedExes]

I don't know, I always thought AppleWin was good enough to run The Oregon Trail But a lot of early retro game compilations were made for 95/98, which sucks.

[Ogreatgames]

Compatibility mode should be great to use for old school games so the computer can actually run the program correctly.