Honestly, I find running real DOS on modern computers to be a complete waste of time and would rather use emulators on those. Hardware support isn't adequate even with the SBEMU TSR for Sound Blaster emulation.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-05-30, 16:16:

Honestly, I find running real DOS on modern computers to be a complete waste of time and would rather use emulators on those. Hardware support isn't adequate even with the SBEMU TSR for Sound Blaster emulation.

I don't care any sound card due to my mute. 😉

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-05-30, 16:16:

Honestly, I find running real DOS on modern computers to be a complete waste of time and would rather use emulators on those. Hardware support isn't adequate even with the SBEMU TSR for Sound Blaster emulation.

But, more people should care about running DOS games bare metal. That's why the SBEMU project is so fantastic. It solves many, many problems for using sound in DOS games, via a wrapper which recognizes newer PCI sound chipsets and makes them usable by working in these "new" DOS systems.

Now, we need enough similar interest in fixing the hardware side of things via a sort of generic VGA simulator, and one which uses a pageframe and provides VESA support for higher-resolution games on bare-metal. The concept is similar: a kind of abstraction layer which won't be an emulation (which is dreadfully slow like DOSBOX), but a sort of conduit which can fix all the bugs intentionally introduced into modern vBIOSes, like lack of VGA support, etc.

In short, like a "revived" Univbe, but supporting newer Intel video BIOses, Nvidia BIOSes. Many would pay for such a wrapper, I believe. There's money to be made. But, even more, there a lots of very smart programmers who could contribute to such a project. Many are on this very forum. A few have even written small BIOS 'fix' tools. (I think ruthan is one of them, as well as RayeR).

zyzzle wrote on 2023-05-31, 04:43:

But, more people should care about running DOS games bare metal. That's why the SBEMU project is so fantastic. It solves many, m […]
Show full quote

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-05-30, 16:16:

Honestly, I find running real DOS on modern computers to be a complete waste of time and would rather use emulators on those. Hardware support isn't adequate even with the SBEMU TSR for Sound Blaster emulation.

But, more people should care about running DOS games bare metal. That's why the SBEMU project is so fantastic. It solves many, many problems for using sound in DOS games, via a wrapper which recognizes newer PCI sound chipsets and makes them usable by working in these "new" DOS systems.

Now, we need enough similar interest in fixing the hardware side of things via a sort of generic VGA simulator, and one which uses a pageframe and provides VESA support for higher-resolution games on bare-metal. The concept is similar: a kind of abstraction layer which won't be an emulation (which is dreadfully slow like DOSBOX), but a sort of conduit which can fix all the bugs intentionally introduced into modern vBIOSes, like lack of VGA support, etc.

In short, like a "revived" Univbe, but supporting newer Intel video BIOses, Nvidia BIOSes. Many would pay for such a wrapper, I believe. There's money to be made. But, even more, there a lots of very smart programmers who could contribute to such a project. Many are on this very forum. A few have even written small BIOS 'fix' tools. (I think ruthan is one of them, as well as RayeR).

Have you a link for sbemu project because I don't find anything on google?

willow wrote on 2023-07-09, 11:58:

zyzzle wrote on 2023-05-31, 04:43:

But, more people should care about running DOS games bare metal. That's why the SBEMU project is so fantastic. It solves many, m […]
Show full quote

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-05-30, 16:16:

Honestly, I find running real DOS on modern computers to be a complete waste of time and would rather use emulators on those. Hardware support isn't adequate even with the SBEMU TSR for Sound Blaster emulation.

But, more people should care about running DOS games bare metal. That's why the SBEMU project is so fantastic. It solves many, many problems for using sound in DOS games, via a wrapper which recognizes newer PCI sound chipsets and makes them usable by working in these "new" DOS systems.

Now, we need enough similar interest in fixing the hardware side of things via a sort of generic VGA simulator, and one which uses a pageframe and provides VESA support for higher-resolution games on bare-metal. The concept is similar: a kind of abstraction layer which won't be an emulation (which is dreadfully slow like DOSBOX), but a sort of conduit which can fix all the bugs intentionally introduced into modern vBIOSes, like lack of VGA support, etc.

In short, like a "revived" Univbe, but supporting newer Intel video BIOses, Nvidia BIOSes. Many would pay for such a wrapper, I believe. There's money to be made. But, even more, there a lots of very smart programmers who could contribute to such a project. Many are on this very forum. A few have even written small BIOS 'fix' tools. (I think ruthan is one of them, as well as RayeR).

Have you a link for sbemu project because I don't find anything on google?

Here: SBEMU: Sound Blaster emulation on AC97

zyzzle wrote on 2023-05-31, 04:43:

But, more people should care about running DOS games bare metal. That's why the SBEMU project is so fantastic. It solves many, m […]
Show full quote

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-05-30, 16:16:

Honestly, I find running real DOS on modern computers to be a complete waste of time and would rather use emulators on those. Hardware support isn't adequate even with the SBEMU TSR for Sound Blaster emulation.

But, more people should care about running DOS games bare metal. That's why the SBEMU project is so fantastic. It solves many, many problems for using sound in DOS games, via a wrapper which recognizes newer PCI sound chipsets and makes them usable by working in these "new" DOS systems.

Now, we need enough similar interest in fixing the hardware side of things via a sort of generic VGA simulator, and one which uses a pageframe and provides VESA support for higher-resolution games on bare-metal. The concept is similar: a kind of abstraction layer which won't be an emulation (which is dreadfully slow like DOSBOX), but a sort of conduit which can fix all the bugs intentionally introduced into modern vBIOSes, like lack of VGA support, etc.

In short, like a "revived" Univbe, but supporting newer Intel video BIOses, Nvidia BIOSes. Many would pay for such a wrapper, I believe. There's money to be made. But, even more, there a lots of very smart programmers who could contribute to such a project. Many are on this very forum. A few have even written small BIOS 'fix' tools. (I think ruthan is one of them, as well as RayeR).

I'd love to see a solution for "fixing" the VGA functions (as well as VESA/VBE) for new video cards. I think UniVBE existed at a time when many video cards did not have VBE or only lower versions like 1.2, and became obsolete when later video cards all getting native VBE 3.0 support. Now with new video cards still claiming to be VBE 3.0 compatible but in reality not (functions marked as supported but calls would fail), and it keeps getting worse with later generations, there's once again the need for such a tool to make them "really" VBE 3.0 complaint.

Haha, what an awesome video! 😁

Hmm, Chris's 3D Benchmark only 102.5 fps.. something must be capping that benchmark.

Too bad about UNIVBE not detecting the graphics card. I wonder what my SNOOP.EXE would say about that card.. (see SNOOP.EXE: (S)VGA adapter info tool and CRT Terminator config utility )

Was super surprising to see that Pinball Fantasies worked - that game does the most custom things to video modes possible..

clb wrote on 2023-08-08, 22:36:

Hmm, Chris's 3D Benchmark only 102.5 fps.. something must be capping that benchmark.

I'm super surprised the 4090 even *works* in DOS. It must have at least some legacy 16-bit vBIOS. That is encouraging, for it means a utility which "fixes" (patches) its BIOS could be made as a TSR. The same goes for other "modern" onboard BIOSes with broken VBE3, 24-bit colors, and inability to enable MTRRs on such onboard, buggy 16-bit video BIOSes. Many of these even have *all* sub 640x480 modes and *all* 8-bit modes completely disabled / non-existent! Such as all onboard AMD Ryzen vBIOSES I've ever booted into DOS.

Chris' 3D benchmark probably doesn't report higher fps because the MTRRs of the write-combining cache mode are not set or even possible to enable in that card. If MTRRs for WC could be enabled, no doubt the 4090 card would score in the thousands of fps on the Chris 3D SVGA benchmark.

I know, at least on Intel i3/i5/i7 internal onboard video, the last system that I have that can enable write-cache combining MTRRs is a Broadwell family CPU (i5-56oo) with Broadwell onboard graphics (Intel HD graphics 5600). All my 6th gen and above systems freeze when trying to enable the proper MTRRs using write-combining option of RayeR's MTRRLFBE utility, as well as other such programs.

Many of these onboard graphics also fail to set the VBE mode properly and / or lack such support. For example, on all my intel systems at 6th Gen or above, using some games to manually set 640x480 and up results in black screen and complete system freeze, while others like Quake, Quake 2, Need for Speed, etc work very well with VBE modes. I think the problem is a lack of support of either a real VESA2 linear framebuffer and / or VBE3 bugs in setting / enabling 640x480 on up -- resulting in black screen and freeze.

zyzzle wrote on 2023-08-09, 02:37:

I'm super surprised the 4090 even *works* in DOS. It must have at least some legacy 16-bit vBIOS. That is encouraging, for it m […]
Show full quote

I'm super surprised the 4090 even *works* in DOS. It must have at least some legacy 16-bit vBIOS. That is encouraging, for it means a utility which "fixes" (patches) its BIOS could be made as a TSR. The same goes for other "modern" onboard BIOSes with broken VBE3, 24-bit colors, and inability to enable MTRRs on such onboard, buggy 16-bit video BIOSes. Many of these even have *all* sub 640x480 modes and *all* 8-bit modes completely disabled / non-existent! Such as all onboard AMD Ryzen vBIOSES I've ever booted into DOS.

Chris' 3D benchmark probably doesn't report higher fps because the MTRRs of the write-combining cache mode are not set or even possible to enable in that card. If MTRRs for WC could be enabled, no doubt the 4090 card would score in the thousands of fps on the Chris 3D SVGA benchmark.

I know, at least on Intel i3/i5/i7 internal onboard video, the last system that I have that can enable write-cache combining MTRRs is a Broadwell family CPU (i5-56oo) with Broadwell onboard graphics (Intel HD graphics 5600). All my 6th gen and above systems freeze when trying to enable the proper MTRRs using write-combining option of RayeR's MTRRLFBE utility, as well as other such programs.

Many of these onboard graphics also fail to set the VBE mode properly and / or lack such support. For example, on all my intel systems at 6th Gen or above, using some games to manually set 640x480 and up results in black screen and complete system freeze, while others like Quake, Quake 2, Need for Speed, etc work very well with VBE modes. I think the problem is a lack of support of either a real VESA2 linear framebuffer and / or VBE3 bugs in setting / enabling 640x480 on up -- resulting in black screen and freeze.

RTX cards indeed work in DOS... just barely. VBETEST can be used on these cards but only a select few resolutions are listed as available. With older video cards, you can access more resolutions.

On the other hand, these cards' VGA BIOS footprint is relatively smaller than older generation cards with better VGA BIOS, that with these cards, I could access a bit more UMB in DOS.

It feels as if the functions in question are there but no actual code at all. Either does nothing or always returns a fail, and it's up to the calling program to handle the failures.