Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Sign in to follow this  
Maes

Wolfenstein 3D on a PC XT

Recommended Posts

The guy in the video claimed that he modified the source code as to eliminate the 286 dependencies and demonstrates it running on a "Turbo" 8088 XT @ 8 Mhz with a Sound Blaster and a 1 MB VGA (heh!).



It plays like a slideshow at minimum display size, but does so with sound, which looks pretty impressive. Probably the most complex game you can run on a XT. There's even a download to the hacked .exe in the yt page of that video.

Some other video with the same (or a different?) hack says that a real 8088 won't actually handle it, and that what is actually used in the video is a V20/V30 (8088/8086 clones). Still pretty damn impressive IMHO.

Share this post


Link to post

Maes said:
The guy in the video claimed that he modified the source code as to eliminate the 286 dependencies and demonstrates it running on a "Turbo" 8088 XT @ 8 Mhz with a Sound Blaster and a 1 MB VGA (heh!).

Very neat. The game in the second video seems to run significantly faster than the first, so the V20 definitely helps. (I'm glad my dad put one in my Tandy 1000 way back in 1990 or so. Too bad I have no ISA VGA card to try this out...)

Some other video with the same (or a different?) hack says that a real 8088 won't actually handle it, and that what is actually used in the video is a V20/V30 (8088/8086 clones).

The V20 and V30 were compatible with the 80186's instruction set, although I don't remember how the instruction set changed between the 186 and the 286 (if at all).

Does anyone know what 286-specific features are used by Wolf3D? And would it benefit from the use of EMS memory?

Share this post


Link to post

It's not exactly fast. Or playable. maybe he forgot --fomit-frame-pointer.

printz said:

The music and the enemy shooting sound more kickass than on DOSBox.


Well, there's lots of factors in the sound of those cards, including the circuitry and whatnot, that DOSBox just can't emulate. DOSBox still has some trouble with OPL being just right for Doom as well. For such an old chip it sure does give the most trouble...

Share this post


Link to post
Csonicgo said:

For such an old chip it sure does give the most trouble...


The trouble is mostly in people's heads for that particular matter. Just because DOSBOX doesn't sound like Joe P. Random's "El cheap o" clone SB card with "1000 W PMPO Multimedia speakers" from 1995 did, it doesn't mean it's grossly inaccurate. The OPL2/3 chips themselves are entirely digital, deterministic, and thoroughly documented, thus reproducible, even if there were inferior clones.

Even on a genuine OPL2 card however, if you listen to it with unflattering headphones or speakers preferebly through an unamplified line-out without any fancy pre-amp or "3D sound", it sounds just as flat and thin as in DOSBox.

Share this post


Link to post
Bucket said:

How about next we get Doom to run on an EGA card?

Downgrading it to 16-bit code would be more impressive IMO. DOOM started out as a 16-bit program after all; there are even traces of that fact left in the source code as it was released (64 KB limitation on total texture size, and unnecessary alignment of certain buffers to a 64 KB memory boundary).

Share this post


Link to post
Quasar said:

DOOM started out as a 16-bit program after all;


But none of the platforms used when developing and testing it were purely 16-bit - even the NeXTSTEP, assuming they used a minimal 68030 NeXT Config.

Perhaps the limitations were bound to some weird quirks of the NeXTSTEP architecture itself - the 68020/30/40 should be free of the 16-bit alignment requirements of the 68000, but accessing odd addresses resulted in a performance penalty, so perhaps that's why they aligned the data after all.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  
×