Running Usb Mouse In Dos Effectively

[demare27]

Hi,

I use to play games in DOS a lot, and knew everything there was to know. Unfortunately that knowledge has passed from me (due to too many windows ;) ) and I have returned to all these amazing old DOS games and wish to play them again. I downloaded the boot disk from this site, and it works fine, however I only have a USB mouse, therefore the standard mouse driver won't work. I have downloaded a USB mouse driver for DOS but it uses up way too much memory, most games won't run (they need more memory). I suppose the simplest solution is to get a PS2 mouse, but other than that can anyone offer me any help, tips, solutions?

I run WIN ME on a PIII 800mhz. DosBox runs games but slowly (particulary protected mode games I believe). Windows only runs games that it chooses. Starting with a DOS boot disk seems to be only/best solution.

Thank you in advance for any help/advice,

Dan

[FreeFreddy]

Not really sure you should do it (never had Windows ME), but what about installing Windows 98 Second Edition? With it, you just need to play the Dos games in the Dos prompt and don't need to start in the Dos mode. Most of them should work then. And Windows 98 SE supports USB too, I guess.

[demare27]

Hi,

Thanks, yeah I suppose if I got a copy of Win 98 it would feature "MS DOS mode" which I believe you can access through the "Shutdown" part of windows. (I remember playing many Dos games this way on 95 and 98.) I am unsure if ME has this capability?

In regards to USB, many of the DOS games won't work through WIN ME (whether through a DOS prompt or otherwise) and therefore I need to run them in a "pure" dos environment (like through booting up the computer with a disk) and therefore since I only have a USB mouse, I would like to get my USB mouse to work in DOS (which I have done using a UHCI.exe driver). However this driver takes up too much memory (even when i ues the "lh" command to load it into high memory. (I don't know exactly what this does anymore or if its the appropiate command. My guess is that this driver is too large, takes up too much memory to be effective in DOS for playing games).

Thanks,

Anymore help would be appreciated :)

Dan

[demare27]

On a side note I have installed Direct 9.0. Would this have an adverse effect on playing DOS games through Windows (ie. the dos prompt) ?

[FreeFreddy]

I don't think so. Dos prompt (which is just command.com) doesn't use Directx in any way. Neither did the Dos games ever. Just the Windows games.