DOS ain't dead

Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD (Announce)

posted by PCGamingTimeMachine, 27.04.2026, 09:46

> > Absolutely, I'll add memory to be allocated as a command line flag so
> maybe
> > that'll help.
> You could also implement a kind of round-robin "dual" buffer of a few MB
> where you'd be filling up the buffer a 5-10 seconds at a time in a
> revolving fashion with .PCM audio. This way you wouldn't need to
> pre-allocate any extra XMS beyond, say 4 MB maximum.
>
> Most modern systems with gobs of memory can of course allocated a full CD
> at a time, but vintage systems certainly can't. You're limited to as little
> as 4 or 8 mb total system memory on some of them. Indeed, the game itself
> will need to allocate its memory in addition. So, we're likely looking as
> 8mb total extended memory as the minimum where your program will even run
> with a CD image with redbook audio.
>
> Then SBEMU / VSBHDA has its memory requirements and CPU overhead also.

Thank you! I'll have a look at this approach after I've tested the current version a bit more extensively (in terms of multiple games).

But here was my rationale: generally vintage systems would anyways have the capability to run DOS games with full analog audio. My idea was to make this targetted to more modern systems since PCI cards generally don't have native DOS drivers, so even with an analog connection between CD drive and sound card, it's still not possible to get CD audio on the modern systems. Vintage systems (generally) would have, say, an ISA slot into which one could put a sound card sith native DOS support and connect it to CD drive. On the other hand, even more modern systems may not even have PCI slots, but if they have onboard audio with VSBHDA support, then this set of modified programs would be useful to get that full DOS audio.

Not saying that I won't try to implement the dual buffer approach you suggested, but just wanted to explain why (at least for the first pre-alpha) I decided to just assume that target modern systems would have sufficient memory. Hope it makes sense

Complete thread:

• Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - PCGamingTimeMachine, 24.04.2026, 18:35 (Announce)
  • Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - Laaca, 25.04.2026, 07:42
    • Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - Japheth, 25.04.2026, 08:21
    • Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - PCGamingTimeMachine, 25.04.2026, 10:53
  • Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - Japheth, 25.04.2026, 08:20
    • Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - PCGamingTimeMachine, 25.04.2026, 10:57
    • Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - Japheth, 26.04.2026, 21:52
      • Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - PCGamingTimeMachine, 26.04.2026, 23:02
        • Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - Zyzzle, 27.04.2026, 05:28
          • Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - PCGamingTimeMachine, 27.04.2026, 09:46
            • Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - Zyzzle, 28.04.2026, 02:25
              • Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - PCGamingTimeMachine, 28.04.2026, 12:40
                • Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - Zyzzle, 29.04.2026, 01:30
        • Digital CD Audio in DOS games via modified VSBHDA and SHSUCD - Japheth, 27.04.2026, 16:55