Sometimes we just can’t let go of old habits. After more than a decade, we still find ourselves yearning to recapture those early days of game computing. You can only play so many rounds of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto before hankering for simpler times when computers ran slower and the Internet was something only geeks and eggheads frequented.
Where are those games we knew so well, like Sierra’s King’s Quest series? Sure, we’ve kept the disks, but with today’s speedy Windows XP operating system, those old disks serve better as coasters. Today’s newer, faster systems are just too quick for the old games.
Luckily, we found VDMSound. It’s a program that overcomes one of today’s system’s problems with older software: sound compatibility. VDMSound is an open, plug-in oriented platform that emulates an MPU- 401 interface and a SoundBlaster-compatible implementat ion. VDMSound is also currently under further development to improve existing joystick emulation, and possibly VESA support.
VDMSound emulates drivers that were king during the ISA computing years. It’s completely independent of your audio hardware type and settings. No need to pull out the sounds cards that won’t work in today’s PC anyway. VDMSound works with any soundcard. Heck, it’ll even work on computers that have no audio hardware at all (for instance, instead of outputting sounds through your soundcard using the standard Windows drivers, VDMSound can easily output them to disk).
If all this sounds good to you old PC game players, get back in the game with VDMSound.
Where to get it: http://www.ece.mcgill.ca/~vromas/vdmsound/ Price: Free System Requirements: Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Does not work on Windows 95, 98 or Me.
Bill Dubie and Dave Sciuto are the hosts of The Computer Report, New
England’s longest-running technology talk show. Contact them at
billdave@thereport.com.
