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[hannah]

Hello!

I like playing old videogames, especially the ones I remember from when I was a kid, so I love this website. But recently I got a new, big monitor for my computer and since then some games just aren't that much fun to play anymore - they use full screen automatically and that's just too big. I figured there must be a very easy and obvious way to solve this problem, to just make them use a smaller window, because in these modern times, this must be a common problem for lovers of old games . So I tried to google it, but I can't seem to find anything. I hope you can help me!

[Mighty Midget]

If you run these games through DOSBox, you can press Alt+Enter to change from full screen mode to window mode. Alternatively, you can edit the DOSBox configuration file and change (IIRC) fullscreen=true to fullscreen=false (or something like that. If you look in the config file you'll find the right line).

[hannah]

Thanks!
I don't usually use dosbox if I don't have to, because I'm not so good with technical things...but I'll figure out how it works now that I know it can solve my problem.

[Mighty Midget]

Don't be a stranger to ask if the FAQs and guides don't answer your questions. Setting up DOSBox is done in a matter of minutes if you've read the guide but by all means, feel free to ask of there are any issues.

Also, a basic understanding of DOS commands is necessary, but it's not too hard.

In case you're not familiar with DOS commands, here are the most essential ones:



dir show current directory (folder in windows), the entries labeled dir there are subdirectories.

cd [subdirectory name] change directory to subdirectory

cd.. change directory one level back

file name (for exe, com and bat files) run program

[hannah]

thank you, this has been very helpful. I've set up dosbox now, using a guide for newbies, and it seems to work now. Perfect!

[hannah]

On second thought...I cried victory too soon. One of my childhood favourites, winter challenge, runs perfectly in dosbox now, even in the small window I wished for. But my other favourite, Pandemonium, is something else. It runs when I just doubleclick the pandy.exe file, but in fullscreen, and when I try to run it in dosbox I only get the message:

"this program cannot be run in DOS mode"

Is there anything to be done about this, or is it just not a dos-game?

[dosraider]

Pandemonium is a Wingame, won't run in dosbox.
But maybe *maybe* it can run in a Window?

[_r.u.s.s.]

you can try emulating whole windows via virtual machine, that'd work no matter if it works only in fullscreen or whatever, but i don't think that's not worth all the time since it will only run the game in window...

btw try running your pandemonium with "-w" parameter or something

edit2: actually you could also download playstation image and use a playstation emulator too, but that's illegal we would neeeeeever do that, would we

[hannah]

I don't know, maybe I would if I was a BIT less clueless about all this

Things were certainly a lot easier when I had my small monitor! Talking about a luxury problem...

[Mighty Midget]

If Pandemonium is a Win9x game and you have a beast of a PC, then perhaps MS Virtual PC will do the trick. You will need a Win9x CD for this though.

Oooor... right click on the game exe and choose properties -> "run in window". Chances are it will work, but you will want to cross your fingers.