Incline eXoDOS v6 — It's coming!

[thesheeep]

Only 700GB?
Cool. Cool.

Might get the boxed version of this once the Linux patch is out and, well... the box is actually available.
But there's no way in hell I'm gonna bother with a download that big, especially via torrent

 

[Lyric Suite]

I'm downloading it now ya'll just peasants.

 

[Rincewind]

Only 700GB?
Cool. Cool.

Might get the boxed version of this once the Linux patch is out and, well... the box is actually available.
But there's no way in hell I'm gonna bother with a download that big, especially via torrent

The "boxed version" is just an empty box you can put on your shelf.

 

[thesheeep]

Only 700GB?
Cool. Cool.

Might get the boxed version of this once the Linux patch is out and, well... the box is actually available.
But there's no way in hell I'm gonna bother with a download that big, especially via torrent

The "boxed version" is just an empty box you can put on your shelf.

Not according to this:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/RetroeXo#:~:text=NIKOLAOS-,on Sep 20, 2023,-5 out of

Looks to me like at least Version 5 (by whoever does the Etsy stuff) shipped with a 2TB drive with everything on it.

 

[Grauken]

This just might be a private seller who put together a box and the download on a stick (there's lot of stuff on etsy that's technical illegal but too small for anybody to care about), but they can't officially sell the box with the download because, at its core, it is piracy

 

[Rincewind]

This just might be a private seller who put together a box and the download on a stick (there's lot of stuff on etsy that's technical illegal but too small for anybody to care about), but they can't officially sell the box with the download because, at its core, it is piracy

Exactly. eXo only sells the boxes; you need to download the pack yourself.

 

[thesheeep]

This just might be a private seller who put together a box and the download on a stick (there's lot of stuff on etsy that's technical illegal but too small for anybody to care about), but they can't officially sell the box with the download because, at its core, it is piracy

Well, maybe.
But that is the page the eXoDOS website sends you to for the "physical release", and the seller is literally named "RetroeXo".

So... idk, looks as official as it gets to me.
I remember getting my first MAME ROM collection the same way, years and years back. Just someone selling a DVD collection with it.
Technically illegal, but as you said, nobody really cares for small sellers related to abandonware, etc.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Recent torrents of eXoDOS 6 have lumped the Media Pack in with the main release, bringing the total size to 799 Gb.

 

[Rincewind]

Reality check, guys: you're gonna get virtually all DOS games, so around 8000 of them, all preconfigured, with PDF manuals, posters, maps, extras, magazine scans, soundtracks, etc. for literally lifting your fingers a *little bit* only.

1. Buy new 2TB HDD
2. Start downloading torrent
3. Wait a few days / weeks, depending on connection

All for the price of 2 or 3 decent new games at Steam or GOG, or a few lunches... So stop whining, just do it.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Which reminds me Rincewind can I use you as an intermediary to get stuff into the eXoDOS-collection?

I've found a couple of manuals in higher resolution than what's included in eXoDOS, and some people might appreciate the crisper fonts.

 

[Reality]

Which soundcard is meant to be used with Star Control 1.?

 

[Rincewind]

Which reminds me Rincewind can I use you as an intermediary to get stuff into the eXoDOS-collection?

I've found a couple of manuals in higher resolution than what's included in eXoDOS, and some people might appreciate the crisper fonts.

Sure, I can do that if you don't want to go near their Discord

 

[Rincewind]

Which soundcard is meant to be used with Star Control 1.?

If you want the best sound, that will be the Amiga version, unironically.

Most games before about 1992 sound best on the Amiga, and many post-1992 games too.

On the Amiga you'll get PCM samples for this game, only the PC just some MIDI notes or AdLib noises.

Not sure about the backstory of this game, but if the music was originally composed as an Amiga MOD file, and then some other composer ported that to AdLib or MT-32 / General MIDI, the result often sounds like an early Kraftwerk demo or some 80s infomercial on national TV, respectively. Of course, if you never heard the Amiga original, you would not know any better...

The opposite can be true if the soundtrack was originally composed for an AdLib / MT-32, then it got ported to the Amiga. Many of those conversions are rather underwhelming.

 

[Reality]

My experience of the amiga sound is that it backports the sound effects from SC2 into SC1 (which is an improvement) but the chemjendu snd illwrath specifically cause sound clipping and looping whenever they get a kill.

 

[Ladonna]

If you want the best sound, that will be the Amiga version, unironically.

Translation; "An Amiga pack may be surfacing eventually that has these games on it"

Anyway, unless someone is hellbent on playing all of these dos games, why wouldn't they just download the "On Demand" version of ExoDOS? That way you just get the games you want to play.

 

[Naraya]

AdLib noises

As someone who didn't have $$$ for a Sound Blaster and bought an AdLib clone instead, this is spot on

 

[Rincewind]

My experience of the amiga sound is that it backports the sound effects from SC2 into SC1 (which is an improvement) but the chemjendu snd illwrath specifically cause sound clipping and looping whenever they get a kill.

Star Control 1 Amiga release — 1990
Star Control 2 DOS release — 1992 (it has no Amiga port)

So, unless they're time-travellers, what happened is that they *forward ported* the samples of the original SC1 Amiga version to SC2 DOS. That fully makes sense as SC2 supports the GUS to play back MOD files in hardware. Just the fact that they use MOD files and GUS means they're at least somewhat familiar with the Amiga and the demoscene.

From Wikipedia (because I'm lazy to do proper research):

The team stretched their music budget by holding a contest to create the game's soundtrack.[13] Reiche and Ford had previously discovered the sample-based MOD file format while porting the first Star Control's music to consoles.[14] They posted the music contest to a newsgroup for Amiga users, despite the fact that the game was for PC, because Amiga hobbyists were the main community of MOD-tracker users in that time.[29] The contest attracted people from around the world, due to the popularity of the MOD format in the largely European demoscene.[14] The contest also led them to discover a teenager named Dan Nicholson, who they hired to create additional music as needed.[13] Further music came from existing team member Erol Otus, who first composed the Ur-Quan theme on a synthesizer before it was re-sampled and exported to the MOD file format.[14] The critically acclaimed soundtrack would include music from Aaron Grier, Erol Otus, Eric Berge, Riku Nuottajärvi, and Dan Nicholson.[30]

 

[Unkillable Cat]

To be extra accurate, they re-used the music from the Amiga version of SC1, and the SFX-samples from the Genesis/Megadrive version of SC1, in Star Control 2 with the new tunes sent in via the competition.

The Ur-Quan tune in its entirety can be heard on the Amiga version of SC1 on the start-up screen.

 

[Bester]

Which reminds me Rincewind can I use you as an intermediary to get stuff into the eXoDOS-collection?

I've found a couple of manuals in higher resolution than what's included in eXoDOS, and some people might appreciate the crisper fonts.

I email exo since I got banned on Discord. He's reachable there, only takes 4-5 days to respond. Intermediaries not necessary. retroexo@gmail.com

 

[Bester]

Yeah, on crappier VGA monitors you'd get more blur, so there's a chance you'd effectively see no scanlines even from up close because they blend into each other.

Is this what CRT TVs exhibited as well?

I'm writing an article on NES emulation and from the pictures of CRTs I found, there's almost never any scanlines.

And some Sega photos:

Although on the following picture, you can see them, especially around Sonic's mouth. But not in other parts of the screen. Curious and unexplainable.

Regardless, is it safe to say that most TVs didn't have them or they were so subtle, you'd have to look under a microscope to find them?

Another interesting thing is that the slot mask had large enough gaps between the vertical lines, so much that I found a thread where a guy complained that his "scanlines are vertical", mistaking the gaps for scanlines.
Particularly noticeable on the green parts of this photo:

 

[Rincewind]

Yeah that's all accurate what you wrote. You don't see the scanlines on CRT TVs because of interlacing, and the scanlines are much less focused than on PC monitors, so they blend into each other.

Readability of fine text was not a consideration when designing CRT TVs. But a pleasant looking image when displaying real-world footage was.

You don't see scanlines on PAL 14" Commodore monitors either. On NTSC, you see the scanlines; that's the 256 vs 200 scanline difference. They are spread further apart on NTSC.

Yeah, on low dot pitch TVs you can see those vertical black lines from up close, but those are not scanlines. I really like that effect, it increases the perceptual resolution (that how my small TV looks like that I use with my C64).

 

[AndyS]

My main problem with the way scanline shaders are implemented is that they never seem to account for the glow of the CRT, which also had the effect of blurring the image to an extent. So with the filters you get a look where the game is really dimmed compared to how it actually looked at home or in the arcade. Then you have vector games, which look absolutely horrible and inaccurate if you don't try to incorporate some kind of glow/trailing effects.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'm still bothered by Yanks adding scanlines to the Amstrad CPC in emulation, especially the core-based ones.

The CPC came with its own monitor, that had no scanlines whatsoever.

No composite graphics crap, no relying upon televisions or Channel 3 or whatever.

Its. Own. Monitor.

It's bad enough when new hardware makes the original look of a game suffer, but when sheer ignorance takes the job further...

 

[Rincewind]

My main problem with the way scanline shaders are implemented is that they never seem to account for the glow of the CRT, which also had the effect of blurring the image to an extent.

But they do. You're using the wrong shaders then if you're looking for that. I'm using subtle glow emulation in my WinUAE setup too.

Having said that, glow emulation worsens the contrast, and we're not in a good spot when it comes to contrast even without glow on most flat screens such as all IPS panels.

Then for PC CRTs, the difference is minuscule (except for the crap CGA monitors, and long-phosphor persistence monochrome monitors).

 

[Azdul]

I wouldn't try too hard to replicate 'original' look on modern displays.

Most CRT have lots of analogue controls - and - besides arcades - you cannot tell exactly how the 'intended' picture looked like - how the author had seen it.

I believe that image size standards were set in stone only during DVD era - and when it comes to colors - even later - with Pantone Certified displays.

On platforms with long history - you can clearly see a difference between modern demos and early 80s games - in assumptions what part of the 'overscan' is visible.