DOS Games Discussion

Hi all!

This is my first post. I plan on building another PC specifically to play all the old DOS games I enjoyed as a kid. I have a box of 3.5" and 5.25" disks and I figured....why not. Anywho, here are the specs I was considering:

Intel 486DX2 66mhz - 256k
16mb RAM
Cirrus Logic CL-6D5428-80QC-A VLB VGA (1MB)
635MB HDD
Aztech Azt2316a (16bit) ISA Sound Card
CD-ROM Drive
3.5" (1.44mb) Floppy Drive
5.25" Floppy Drive
Network Adapter
DOS 6.22 w/ Windows 3.1

Here are examples of some games I plan on playing regularly:

Monkey Island Series
Leisure Suit Larry (and similar Sierra games from the time)
Pool of Radiance (and sequels)
Full Throttle
Ultima IV

Basically, games made from 1988-1994 with some CD games. Would this setup be good for my needs? Any suggestions to changes to the hardware?

Seems nice...one thing about the CD rom - some old games use Red Book Audio standard, which can playing audio tracks off the CD, which both may need a Red Book capable drive and a (usually) CD specific cable from the drive to the sound card, connecte to an internal header. Unsure if such a header is available on the Aztech, but it seems to be a capable card, from what I read on the Vogons site. (I never owned one myself)

'bout thy sound card...
If it works in Sound Blaster (Pro) mode, or has OPL3 chip, plays sound.
Be ready for issues though.

So, I completed the build yesterday went through the MS-DOS install process, set up drivers, etc. Everything seems to be working great, but I did notice a couple of game specific issues.

Doom - Framey...maybe 20-30 fps. With the system specs, I kind of expected more performance. Sound is configured as a SB Pro using regular driver settings. Should I expect this game to run full speed at high detail and full sized window? **I did not install video drivers for the CL-6D5428. Is this necessary??

Secret of Monkey Island - Sound is loud, scrambled and crackly. From what I gather, this could be an Ad-Lib sound issue or resource conflict. Does this sound right?

Doom - seems to be capped in the game:
http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Uncapped_framerate

Monkey Island...I played that with Midi music, not FM synth.
There were some sound patches I think, maybe applicable.
http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=697