Hi, where can I get trustable informations about working GOG-Games on a real Retro-PC.

Available Systems are:
1. Tandy-1000 RL/HD
2. Schneider Tower AT 286/10/EGA
3. Schneider Tower AT 286/12.5/VGA
4. Schneider System 70/ 386/16sx VGA
5. Amiga 2000 with A2286/8/VGA -> currently upgrading to 386sx25
6. SNI-PRO-PII-333 Dos6+Win98se DX6.1 Voodoo3+Voodoo1

Perhaps the best way is to question for the Game right?

So here are the first:
- Does MotoRacer 1+2 work an my System 6 (how is it done with the AudioCD-Tracks) ?
- Does Screamer 1+2 work on my System 6
- Does the Falcon release include the second Disk of the First Falcon release ? (Tandy-Disk)

Thx
Doc

I thought the main purpose of Gog was to provide old game files, with wrappers (eg dosbox) to make them function on newer systems. As far as I am aware they don't alter the original files, so if you instal the game, you should just be able to copy the relevant files out and drop the wrapper/drivers.

I would ask why you want to do that though. I have some old systems, and yes its fun to go back to dos once in a while, but seriously, your going to put all that effort into each and every game to get it working, when Gog have already done it for newer systems?

its fun to go back to dos? really?

I must have missed something

Yes, why wouldn't it be? Just because something is old, doesn't mean it can't be great, I mean just look at me :o)

Seriously though, its still a form of DOS behind the scenes even on that new spanky Win10 release, they just plonk some nice pictures on top for people to click. In the commercial world command line systems (although supported by powershells) are still widely used, for instance Unix mainframes. There is also a certain nostalgia associated with this things of course.

Yeah but that door swings both ways.

Look at me. :P

Today it's easier and cheaper to buy old games from gog, then going for the originals.
I do not want to buy old games from gog to play them in any kind of "emulation".

therefore it is quite essential to know, how the files are "ported"

1. Does the gog release include an image of the original game-cd ?
2. Does the gog release use software that has dependencies of newer OS/DX/drivers/tools as the original one?
3. Does the gog release include nocd's in order to play without a before burnt cd-image?

For my purposes I need 1 or 3, everything that changed basic requirements of the game will be a nogo for my use, because then the game simply will not run on my machine anymore.

Doc

Often, but not always. Usually just what is needed for the game to run. The emulation software, whether it's DosBOX or ScummVM When needed, yes.

There were a couple of topics on the forum about how to get specific games to run on retro machines, tell me if you want me to go looking for them.

I don't really adore dosbox.

In another point I think I tried some amiga-500 emulator a while back. I believe it had even noises coming from loading the disk it was insane and I never owned amiga but I still believe that it was made to make it more authentic for nostalgos..

you actually have a working Tandy??? like what nightcraw1er.488 said, gog.com makes old games work on WinXP and above. this is not the best place to get the original code/installations. maybe archive.org is where you should be.

maybe you could ask tech support , game by game, what they actually changed in the original code to make it work. getting the original installed files out of the DOSBox-ed games is easy enougn though.

Do what this Dick says...

Whenever I buy a DOS game from gog I just extract the files, move them where I have all my other DOS games, make a custom dosbox.conf, run the setup utility (usually included) for any tweaks, and I'm good to go.

This is for DOSBox, yes, but if you know your way around DOS, you probably won't have too much trouble setting them up on a real machine. But gog won't support this, so you're on your own.

Actually, my understanding is that Windows upgraded the engine behind the hood quite a bit since the DOS days.

Windows 95 was the old DOS with a graphical interface strapped on top of it.

Starting with Windows NT, I believe they redid underlying architecture quite a bit.

Also, the graphical interface is strongly coupled in Windows. They have some no frills version (Windows Server) for the enterprise, but back when I looked at it, they were charging like 1000$ for it (my initial reason for switching to Linux... enterprise software assumes too much a big successful company customer).

Overall, the main attraction of the command line is automation (and greater speed if you're really good, but automation is the main part).

Most people are better off with a graphical gui.

Just curious: since gOg offers a good dozen+ games for free, have you experimented with those to get an idea of what is or isn't different? If you truly want to work in MS-DOS 6.22, for example, then you will need to install the games on a Windows machine and copy over the resultant folder to the DOS machine. From there, ditch the DOSBOX stuff and see what happens. I think if you get consistent results then that should give you a decent idea for much of the rest of the DOS-based catalog.

Available Systems are:
1. Tandy-1000 RL/HD
2. Schneider Tower AT 286/10/EGA
3. Schneider Tower AT 286/12.5/VGA
4. Schneider System 70/ 386/16sx VGA
5. Amiga 2000 with A2286/8/VGA -> currently upgrading to 386sx25
6. SNI-PRO-PII-333 Dos6+Win98se DX6.1 Voodoo3+Voodoo1


Why no Trash-80 or Commodore 64? lol