Just an update on this topic. I spent a few months testing old games in pure dos mode with Dos6.22, Dos7.1 and FreeDos.
I have a core2duo, 4GB RAM and gf9600. I booted the computer into realmode dos with a bootcd filled with around 150 games.
I was amazed and surprised, every single gamed worked perfectly. Dune 2, Alleycat, Return of the Jedi, Speedball 2, Star Trek a final unity, Weird Dreams, F1GP etc.
The oldest part of my machine was a SBLIVE! but the dos drivers worked in all games, even General midi worked and adlib for the older games.
I configured the system to have 624kb conventional memory (with mouse +cdrom +sbeinit).
In terms of compatability.
Dos7.1 all games worked + sound
Dos6.22 - same as above but no fat32 and only 64MB ram is visible to DOS.
FreeDos, - 10 games didn't work(Freedos has some time to go before it is 100% compatible with MS-DOS.
Dos7.1(taken from win98) is as compatible as 6.22. I have never come across a DOS game that has worked on 6.22 but not 7.1 on the same hardware.
From the boot cd I created a 2gb ramdrive and run games from that.
Dos6.22 only has fat16 and can only see 64MB ram. which is not large for ramdisks.
Dos 7.1 apart from fat32, it's himem.sys see's 4GB RAM which is good for hige ramdisks that you can use as a temporary hard drive to copy games from the CD to and run.
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