PCem | Setup the Golden Age of Windows 95 & 98 PC Games With This PC-em Tutorial 

Well, you can now use later model PCIe with 8800/9800GTX GPUs within Windows 95 using VOGONS drivers. That's 2007 hardware worth peanuts these days. I still have my old QX6700, 2x 8800GTX in SLI, 2 GB Corsair Dominator1333, and it's a full loop system that I'd built in January 2007 for a grand total of... 5k. That's including 3x Mobo to give me the best clock speed/performance as some Northridge were running hotter than others and some could overclock the memory better than others and some couldn't. My third board was the ringer for lower NB/SB temps and I could go far beyond into 1400 on the memory. The good old days, back when work was plentiful and money was just money. That system is the king of the first 64-bit architectures, but I can easily disable all but one core in BIOS as well as enable some special options in said BIOS for older compatibility within earlier version of Windows. All of that geeking out of the way, I just grabbed the best candidate for running natively on hardware *WITHOUT* breaking the bank *$325!* There's a seller on eBay from Oregon who's building up insanely powerful vintage machines albeit within Dell Inspiron 9400 *LAPTOPS!* He's a legit good builder and my Windows 95 killer is a MONSTER! GTA 1/2 with zero issues! Only Rise of The Triad has given me any issues because of the sound card setup, but that's a non-issue as ROTT has always been a pain since my early days of buying the game in my early teens! 500+ FPS Unreal Tournament to Doom collection with zero issues. I love it so much, I don't even want to touch it it's that good! Dumbphone strikes AGAIN! I remember when smartphones were sorta smart and they didn't change nor try to predict words. All turned off and I think it's Google keyboard doing it now...

I'm with you on this! PCem is a free, community-supported piece of software and I know the creator(s) have a lot to deal with regarding feature requests and so on. They work extremely hard and I'm grateful for everything they do.

Always loved athlon. Never let me down. Duron got me addicted... Athlon was the cure lol

Also mmx is super hard to emulate on a stock cpu 8 instructions for every mmx instruction... Im amazed they got it that fast tbh.

I have not found any games that have trouble on a modern computer that need a Pentium 4 to run. I would go as far to say a Pentium 3 is not really needed except for maybe higher settings/fps in few edge case games and in these cases a DX9 capable graphics card would be a dream come true as well.

I hope so. It's not a deep dive, more of a surface scan. I just wanted to illustrate that these options are out there, and there's tons of support from really clever people, too.

Thanks bud. It's the little things like someone recognising the AoEII music that really pleases me :D

Now THAT is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to see. Welcome aboard! And please, help spread the word.

Thank you mate. I also struggled to get this up and running, so this video was partly me learning it myself! I'm so glad you enjoyed the video and took the time to leave a nice comment.

Agreed! Very few games get official patches, but there's a lot of great people out there helping to get games running on new systems. VOGONS and PCGW are two absolutely cherished resources.

Thanks, Ken! I've been a part of the "retro PC" community before it was really a thing. I built my first old PC because I found an article in a magazine from 1999 and thought it would be fun to see how much it would cost, some 15 years later or whatever it was. It cost me fifty quid and was a right laugh. You just couldn't do that now, which is why I'm turning to emulation and recommending that. I like hobbies which are accessible to all. I want to kick open every gate that I can!

Thanks for commenting :D

I admit I do like the basic MIDI synth sound. It's very nostalgic for me. But yeah, using a "real" synth emulator can take the sound to the next level.

Hey I'm glad to be of some help! I'll be streaming some PCem this week too, so drop in and hang out :D

@@MattyStoked Excellent. Will do :)

THAT explains why more people are finding this video. Obviously Linus copied me haha. Yeah I've been playing classic windows space shooters with my Xbox controller as a joystick. Absolutely great use of the tool!

Is it town.mid? That's a personal favourite. Thanks for commenting, PC-EM is awesome isn't it?!

@@MattyStoked Canyon.mid :-) Yes I'm really loving PC-em. I'm so glad that I accidentally bumped in to it while browsing the web.

@@ustoopia banger tune!

thx for that tid bit!

Thanks for watching!

Also shoutouts to the Australia track in the NFS footage, still confusing geographically in every way

NGL I thought you'd comment on that!

Glad it helped!

Such a nice comment! I really mean it. I love the old PC scene. But we can't expect to build a sustainable community while the barrier for entry keeps creeping up.

"Stick with it". I've been doing this for 10 years 😂😂

@@MattyStoked lol ok then it may be time to change strategy.. but dont rush into anything 😂😂😂😂

@@sammymcfone8281 I don't care I love what I do :)

I keep hearing about 86box. I will definitely check it out!

It's really fun tinkering around with PCem. Especially swapping in and out the virtual hardware. So much easier and more affordable than sourcing all those parts!

You're welcome!

Hey you're welcome ☺️

Zachary knows!

Over the years I've had a few great little PCs. I still currently have a Windows ME machine, but emulation is the future for me!

@@MattyStoked yes I agree. But oh man just the fun to build a computer like that... I knew many years ago this was going to be a reality one day but I forgotten about it. This to me is is quite a toy

At this point I think you're trying to emulate a Y2K-era PC, you're probably going to need a monster PC.

Thank you! I hadn't realised PCem wasn't under development. The forums seemed to be relatively active. I could take a look at 86Box. I've heard of it at least. Perhaps I'll take a look. Cheers for the kind words mate.

I had a Shuttle PC back in about 2010! Great machine.

Stuttering audio is caused by your real CPU struggling to keep up emulating the emulated CPU. You can fix this every time by emulating a less-powerful CPU. If you're trying to emulate a Pentium 3, drop your emulation settings down to emulate a P2 or a P1.

That is absolutely AWESOME. I'm so glad that the effort you put in all those years ago is still paying dividends. You're awesome for doing it and thank you for telling me about it

@@MattyStoked I appreciate that. I'm happy that that past version of me decided to save all that work, lol

Hell yeah!

That's the virtual hard drive we set up at 08:08!

Yes! You could run them in DosBox for more granular control. But nothing is stopping you installing DOS inside PC-em or using the DOS version that comes with Windows 95...

You're not being silly, not at all! You can wrap the .exe into an .iso using something like PowerISO or IMGBurn. Then you can loads that .iso into PC-em and it will treat it like a CD-ROM with the .exe burned onto it.

@@MattyStoked awesome, thank you. Gonna do this tonight. Thank you for taking the time to respond to me.

@@liamroberts7556 absolutely no problem, mate. Always glad to help people. The old PC hobby has a hell of a difficulty curve, so I'm happy to spread the joy

@@MattyStoked Sorry to be a pest. So, I created the iso, exact same version you use in the vid. 3.0.1.00 but when I update drivers after extracting the files it says that the selected location does not contain an updated driver :(. I wonder if I have gone wrong somewhere along the way. I think I see what i did wrong, hold fire. Edit: Yep, Would help if I selected the correct Voodoo graphics card. D'oh. All sorted now, thanks again.

I stopped short of benchmarking in this video because I thought it would be a bit too dry haha! I actually don't know, but I imagine it emulates performance, yes.

@@MattyStoked Maybe you could make a part 2 to that video testing it and see what happens

It´s been only a couple weeks since I started messing around with PCem, so no benchmarkings yet, BUT, from my experience emulating my old 486DX2 66 and the time it took to install Windows 95 on this emulated hardware, I guess the answer to your question is a resounding YES... Actually, it would not make sense to speed things up to match the host PC, as some older games would run tooooo fast (Wing Commander, I´m looking at you! kkkk)

You could try selecting another sound card?

You're welcome! Thanks for the positive comment :)

That's bizarre. I have never had that problem!

P.D: Estaba a punto de preguntar, cual era el primer juego de pcem que se parecía a "Blade Runner" 🤦

MORE than enough! That's more grunt than my setup and I've not had any significant problems

Or get that adorable little one that's shaped like a space shuttle 😍

Awesome! What are you working on?

@@MattyStoked Because of using a touch screen i make only tiny executable com files and i put all instructions into batch files, because batch files are executable, suitable to contain a visible source code of a routine and easy to copy&paste. All other executable are not made for copy&paste, because not all bytes of a mashine code are visible as an ASCII character.

@@MattyStoked The batch file contains some pipe operators (> >>

@@MattyStoked I made batch files for the text mode and the graphic mode in 320x200x8 and 800x600x32. Here is an uncomplete list of my batch files: 4GB.BAT switch into 16 bit big real mode BIGSCROL.BAT scroll first 8 rows of text screen (from right to left side) BIGTEXT.BAT display 10 big letters in the first 8 rows of text screen BOX.BAT display a box on the text screen CHARANI.BAT make an animation with 2 ASCII CHARANI2.BAT make an animation with 2 ASCII CHARGEN.BAT use own character for animation CHARTGA.BAT convert picture to character CIRCLE.BAT draw a circle in 320x200x8 graphic mode COLOR.BAT color entire text screen COLTEXT.BAT print colored text CUROFF.BAT hide cursor CURON.BAT unhide cursor CURSOR.BAT set cursor position DEC2HEX.BAT convert decimal to hexadecimal DUCKLING.BAT play a song on pc speaker HELLO.BAT print hello world HEX2DEC.BAT convert hexadecimal to decimal MCGACLS.BAT clear the graphic screen in 320x200x8 graphic mode MCGALINE.BAT draw a line in 320x200x8 graphic mode PIXEL.BAT set a pixel in 320x200x8 graphic mode RECT.BAT draw a rectangle in 320x200x8 graphic mode SCROLL.BAT scroll text SETMODE.BAT set video mode SHOWTGA.BAT print a block of 14*7 ASCII for to show a picture inside SMILEY.BAT draw a smiley in 320x200x8 graphic mode SOFT25.BAT scroll text screen on 25 rows SOFTSCRO.BAT scroll text screen on 50 rows TEXT25.BAT switch to textscreen with 25 rows TEXT50.BAT switch to textscreen with 50 rows TEXTCOL.BAT print colored text TEXTPAGE.BAT switch text page TGAREAD.BAT display a picture within graphic mode 800x600x32 VESA800.BAT switch into S3-VBE graphic mode 800x600x32 WRITDAC.BAT set color rgb components for 4 bit mode and 8 bit mode (text and graphic screen)

Haha, I'll take it! Thanks for watching the video :D

Let me know if you get it working ☺️

@@MattyStoked wish I could say yes but I've been having worse luck with it. First I was struggling to get cd to work in dos, then I thought "I'll just make a new virtual hard drive" I did, fdisk it, but now I can't even boot from it. I might be doing something wrong with the boot order.

My i7-4790k happily cruises a P133 with V2 and the S3 ViRGE at 100% accuracy _most_ of the time. Not all of the time, though. It's a great emulator and I can only hope that the creator(s) get the support they need to take the platform further.

The mobo BIOSes I used are included in PC-em. I couldn't say how to add new ones :/

Essentially, yes. It's empty, but it will still take up the space you allocate to it.

@@MattyStoked Interesting. I was raised on the Windows 95 and I think this video is the answer to my problem. Thanks.

​@@MattyStoked Sorry for bugging you, but can you tell me what the file is called that you used? In the new hard drive section where you placed a file of your's. What was it exactly? I'm trying to follow your video to the letter. Thanks

@@nathanaelhontz346 when I created the virtual hard drive, I didn't place any files. PC-em does everything for you. I created a folder in the PC-em directory to put the virtual hard drive in, but you don't have to. You just need to tell the emulator where to put the virtual HDD once it's created it.

7,000 games?! That's more games than anyone would be able to play, surely! Too much choice for me, I'd be paralysed with indecision 😃

Good info! Thanks for that :)

My favorite added feature is 9801 support. I wish the fontsets were internal though it hurts portability and flexibility to have to find a file on the computer for them.

OSs can be found at winworldpc Games can be found on archive dot org or abandonware sites Enjoy!

@@MattyStoked thanks!

I downloaded DOOM files bt they appear to be 4 disc images, I assume they are 1.44 mb floppy images, how can I load these into dosbox ?? @@MattyStoked

I don't believe it does support the X68k. There are emulators out there (like XM6) which emulate the whole OS environment. From what I gather, the Motorola 68k DOS is _not_ the same as PC DOS or MS DOS, so isn't a case of running it in DOSBox, but it requires its own separate interpretation. Re: Legacy emulation. I have have some (but very little) success with Legacy Mode. There are things that older games need that is just not present in the modern PC or OS. Examples of this would be 16-bit support, specific chipset firmware etc. It does work sometimes, but I've found much better success using emulators. In the case of newer games, API wrappers or compatibility layers like DGVoodoo are also incredibly useful.

@@MattyStoked At least one Dosbox does a non-compatible Dos environment with Dosbox-X doing 9801. I wonder if they thought to add other Japanese and maybe even other computers from other nations that did not stick to the IBM formula.

Yes indeed, there are alternatives out there!

That's Star Wars Dark Forces. One of the best DOS games ever

How to fix: Instead of pressing Shift+F5 (to open command prompt), press enter on the first boot floppy choice, then it works. That's how I fixed it

That's Star Wars: Dark Forces! An absolutely classic DOS game and a classic Star Wars game. It recently got remastered, too.

Good shout! I'm still enjoying VMS though!

Will look into this

Mate, I remember getting my first 1GB HDD and thinking I would _never_ fill it 😂 I also remember my first game to require 1GB of install space. Star Wars Supremacy!

you could run Windows 98 with a 32gig VHD image if you wanted

I *love* old PCs. But one of the reasons I used to enjoy that hobby was because it was cheap enough that you could afford to play around with builds. It's not that you can't do that any more, it's just more challenging. But I also really love emulating. I can mess around with stats and builds without spending hundreds of pounds on eBay 😎

I know this!

DOSBox is great!

The trick to any kind of pixel scaling is to scale by whole even numbers. I would upscale an 800x600 by two, resulting in 1600x1200. 640x480 you could go up to x4, giving you 2560x1920. That way you will always keep square pixels. Unless you have a monitor that meets that, you'll always get squonky pixels. FWIW I always run this stuff in a window so I can control that sort of thing.

@@MattyStoked the problem isn’t the uneven pixels. It’s how the image scales or in this case… doesn’t. It stretches. Atleast … for I can see from your usage of Pcem. I don’t have a powerful pc to run even the basic pentiums to test it. Some years ago… there was a version of VMware Workstation that had and still does “exclusive mode” that makes your vm work as a native pc. When you started a game with a resolution different than the of OS… the vm forced the OS and the monitor to run at that resolution natively. In some cases you can get a very sharp and clean image. The newer versions of Workstation still have the “exclusive mode” but now only “stretches “ the image to the host resolution. It’s a “fake” fullscreen. They probably changed how it works now because sometimes you had to exit the mode and re-enter it for it to work. Since it’s a “fake” fullscreen you can’t use technologies like “freesync “. Although… at the time… the hardware didn’t support it ;). Sorry… I might be wrong… soo take this statement of mine as a grain of salt.

Now that I'd love to see!

That's very true. You can buy Kickstart for a quid, which isn't too bad.

@@MattyStoked Yep the others not so those Roms keep illegal to obtain - if you find them somewhere online on some shady sites you end up in the best case with malware

I think the reality is more nuanced that that. We've seen recently that companies like Warner Bros can _actually_ make more money by making a film but burying it forever, than they would have by releasing it. Just this week I wanted to buy the Fall of Cybertron game, but it's been withdrawn from sale on all storefronts. That's two different examples of piracy not harming anyone, but our only option for experiencing those products being piracy. It's not quite as simple as _piracy is killing music_.

You say I lost you but you continued to watch :) Thanks for the high effort comment :D

@@MattyStoked Ahh, "yEt yOuRe sTiLl hErE"... you've met high effort with low.