DOS or Windows

[dmish82]

I have a P3 933Mhz w/ 256mb ram, a 64mb video card, and a  20gb hard drive. I am very savvy in both dos and windows formats and am about to set up my computer for mame to run in my arcade cab. Do most of you prefer DOS or Windows? It seems like dos could hide the fact that it's a computer better, but what about MAMEWAH? how does that work exactly? i had trouble finding any info on it. What are your thoughts?
Thanks in advance.

[brained]

Well, I think it's a thing of taste, but I'll go with windows. You have better FrontEnds and really cools skins!!

[LeedsFan]

I wanted to know a bit about this too. I'm not at the stage of getting my cab running yet.... but it's all in my mind.  
I know absolute zero about DOS.  I do like the look of MameWah though and it's something I would like to use.

I hear that booting up is a lot faster in DOS as well. Is there an idiots guide to setting up MameWah? And I mean... for total idiots.... (Like me  )   A lot of the stuff I read seems to assume some knowledge of DOS in advance.

[Buddabing]

I have a P3 933Mhz w/ 256mb ram, a 64mb video card, and a  20gb hard drive. I am very savvy in both dos and windows formats and am about to set up my computer for mame to run in my arcade cab. Do most of you prefer DOS or Windows? It seems like dos could hide the fact that it's a computer better, but what about MAMEWAH? how does that work exactly? i had trouble finding any info on it. What are your thoughts?
Thanks in advance.

I prefer DOS, but I have Windows XP installed on my cab.

DOS boots up faster and can run on an older machine. Finding DOS drivers for built-in sound on most motherboards is impossible. Getting sound to work in MAME is a big pain.

Most of the fancier frontends are Windows-only, but Kymaera and GameLauncher have DOS versions.

You can attempt to hide Windows with MAMEWah or other front ends.

A computer with your specs should run Windows XP with no problems. If you run the Pentium Pro-optimized version of MAME (mamepp.exe), you'll be fine.

Regards,
Buddabing

[dmish82]

Oh, forgot to mention that I currently have Windows XP Pro installed on the machine.

[Ghoward]

I also use windows XP.

[Thenasty]

Most of the fancier frontends are Windows-only, but Kymaera and GameLauncher have DOS versions.
Regards,
Buddabing

I always thought that Kymaera is for Windows. Does it really run in Pure DOS ?

[Crazy Cooter]

I downloaded MAMEWAH yesterday.  It's not hard.  Poke around in the software forum for details on how to set it up.  It took me a few hours but it's worth it.  I was going to do my own shell design using talisman/litestep or something similar, but MAMEWAH does everything I want it to.

You don't need to know DOS for MAMEWAH.  It uses .ini files very similar to .cfg files for quake.  If you've ever written any "code" for a rocketjump or quickweapon script, you know much more than you need to.

[Buddabing]

Most of the fancier frontends are Windows-only, but Kymaera and GameLauncher have DOS versions.
Regards,
Buddabing

I always thought that Kymaera is for Windows. Does it really run in Pure DOS ?

Link to announcement

Maybe I should have said "Kymaera WILL be available on DOS".

[RayB]

If you go pure DOS, what do you use to edit INI files?
Back in the day I used Norton Commander for that stuff and more, but I don't have a copy of that anymore.

[dabone]

>If you go pure DOS, what do you use to edit INI files?
>Back in the day I used Norton Commander for that stuff and more, but I >don't have a copy of that anymore.



edit.com


or for the really old dos users around here..

edlin....



Later,
dabone

[Chris]

EDLIN?  AIEEE!!!!!!!!!

I'll use COPY CON before EDLIN...  

Most people around here will disagree with me, but I say if you're building a single-purpose MAME cabinet with no USB controllers, go with DOS.  USB, however, is extremely handy.  I run Windows solely for USB support, but I was much happier when my cabinet was DOS, and it was more stable and booted much faster.  Basically, it felt more like a real arcade machine, whereas people recognize my current cabinet as Windows.

The biggest disadvantages of DOS are: no USB support, very few front-ends for DOS, no hardware stretching, it can be difficult to find DOS drivers for modern hardware, especially sound cards, and memory limitations (EMM386 can't see more than 128 MB of RAM; QEMM will see 256MB). The "no hardware stretching" issue is bigger than it sounds: I spent a good while trying to find the best resolution for each game, as MAME's autoselected resolution was sub-optimal about 20% of the time.  Get Scitech Display Doctor for DOS at http://www.scitechsoft.com/products/ent/free_titles.html; it'll give you many more low-resolution display modes.

The other big disadvantage is that every time you talk about your machine on this board, people will come out of the woodwork to tell you how awful DOS is and that you "need a modern operating system to get the most out of modern hardware".   It gets tiresome defending a DOS decision after a while.

--Chris

[Hoagie_one]

Most of the fancier frontends are Windows-only, but Kymaera and GameLauncher have DOS versions.
Regards,
Buddabing

I always thought that Kymaera is for Windows. Does it really run in Pure DOS ?

Link to announcement

Maybe I should have said "Kymaera WILL be available on DOS".

And Linux it seems

[dmish82]

Yea, i know it's hard to defend DOS and i was going to go with it but I think it'd be too troublesome to find drivers for my video card  and on top of that I'm looking at getting 2 Act Labs guns for my machine which means again, I wouldn't be able to use the guns w/ DOS.  Looks like it's gonna be Windows here. Thanks.

[Chris]

Yea, i know it's hard to defend DOS and i was going to go with it but I think it'd be too troublesome to find drivers for my video card  and on top of that I'm looking at getting 2 Act Labs guns for my machine which means again, I wouldn't be able to use the guns w/ DOS.  Looks like it's gonna be Windows here. Thanks.

The Act-Labs guns are what pushed me over the edge from DOS to Windows.  If you want two guns, Windows 2000 is not an option; you need either Windows 98 or Windows XP.

--Chris

[dmish82]

I'll be using XP Pro. How do those guns work for you? I was planning on getting two. do they work w/ t2 & house of the dead?

[PacManFan]

Just thought I'd add a few things. Yes, Kymaera is going to be available for DOS and Linux as well as Windows.

The major issue right now is that KymaeraConfig is a Windows-only application. So you have to configure the FE in windows, and then you can copy over your config files and run the FE in DOS. Same thing for Linux. Right now, I'm working on a crossplatform UI version of KymaeraConfig to solve this.

Another piece of info that most people don't know is that you can use USB in Dos with certain device drivers. I know that on win98 installations, you can get the hidusb.sys file. You can use this driver in DOS by putting it in your config.sys file to enable your USB mice.
Haven't tried it personally, but I hear it works fine.

Most of the fancier frontends are Windows-only, but Kymaera and GameLauncher have DOS versions.
Regards,
Buddabing

I always thought that Kymaera is for Windows. Does it really run in Pure DOS ?

Link to announcement

Maybe I should have said "Kymaera WILL be available on DOS".

And Linux it seems

[Chris]

I'll be using XP Pro. How do those guns work for you? I was planning on getting two. do they work w/ t2 & house of the dead?

T2 works, but you can't hold down the trigger for machine-gun fire, so your trigger finger gets tired in a hurry.  On the other hand, your weapon never overheats.    The PC versions of House of the Dead and House of the Dead 2 work with two guns with a third-party patch called The Troubleshooter.  Find it at http://thetroubleshooter.home.mindspring.com/index.htm.  My favorite two-gun games are actually Sharpshooter and Zero Point.

When you're playing games with hot and heavy 2-player shooting like Area 51 and Maximum Force, the system can bog down a bit when both players are pulling the trigger like it's a turf war in Compton.  But overall, it works well.

You'll note that the top rear piece of the guns slides off (they probably meant to make a removable scope available or something).  I took advantage of this and spray-painted the removable pieces with automotive metal-flake touch-up paint:


--Chris

[dmish82]

Thanks Chris. Nice touch w/ the coloring of the guns. There's gotta be a hack or a way around the issue of not being able to hold the trigger down for machine gun fire in T2. I'll try to find out something on that. Thanks again.

[Chris]

Thanks Chris. Nice touch w/ the coloring of the guns. There's gotta be a hack or a way around the issue of not being able to hold the trigger down for machine gun fire in T2. I'll try to find out something on that. Thanks again.

The guns do not auto-track, as they have to flash the screen white to locate the shot.  I imagine that an autofire circuit could be built like the ones you used to find on third-parti Atari joysticks.

--Chris

[dmish82]

Isn't there a mouse hack for that game? I've heard something about this but am not quite clear on it.

[Chris]

Isn't there a mouse hack for that game? I've heard something about this but am not quite clear on it.

You can use a mouse or trackball with T@ and it will work and autofire just fine.  The non-autofire restriction isn't part of the game or driver, it's part of the gun.  To act like a held mouse button, it would have to set the screen to solid white to track the gun lie it does in calibration mode, making the game unplayable.  

[dmish82]

Isn't there a mouse hack for that game? I've heard something about this but am not quite clear on it.

You can use a mouse or trackball with T@ and it will work and autofire just fine.  The non-autofire restriction isn't part of the game or driver, it's part of the gun.  To act like a held mouse button, it would have to set the screen to solid white to track the gun lie it does in calibration mode, making the game unplayable.  

i had heard of ways of incorporating a mouse into a gun though? is that possible?

[Hoagie_one]

on a side note, is there anyplace to get generic dos audio drivers for onboard audio mobo's

[RetroJames]

Having just finished a DOS mame cab (The Moon Patrol in "Projects") let me say I WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN!!!!

Very painful.

[krick]

If you know what you're doing and have a really good reason, use DOS.

Otherwise use Windows 98SE on old machines (P3 and less) and Windows XP on new machines (P4 and higher).  They both support dual mice and dual light guns.

Try to avoid:
Win 95 (no USB support, no fat32)
Win 98 (better USB support but still not perfect)
Win ME (the bastard stepchild of the windows family. trust me, stay away)
Win 2K (does not support dual mice/trackballs/lightguns, otherwise it's ok)

[Thenasty]

If you go pure DOS, what do you use to edit INI files?
Back in the day I used Norton Commander for that stuff and more, but I don't have a copy of that anymore.

I use DOS Navigator. by RIT research Lab and it is like Norton Commander. This had become freeware now. Its got alot of nice features.

[Buddabing]

If you go pure DOS, what do you use to edit INI files?
Back in the day I used Norton Commander for that stuff and more, but I don't have a copy of that anymore.

I use DOS Navigator. by RIT research Lab and it is like Norton Commander. This had become freeware now. Its got alot of nice features.

I like DOS Edit and Vernon Buerg's List utility. My version of List is pretty old, it's not Y2k- compliant I also use DOS Vedit (an old version) for large files.