I decided to indulge myself in a bit nostalgia while I still can (before uni starts, that is), and so tried running my old version of Quest For Glory 4. Unfortunately, of course, it couldn't run out of the box on Windows XP, even with compatibility mode set up for Windows 98, because of sound issues. However, I found that there is a neat way to make old DOS games run properly, and it's called VDMSound. It emulates the sound drivers that DOS games are used to, thereby making them think that you're running the games under true DOS. Nifty! I got QFG4 running with no problems in a matter of minutes, full music and voice (and my sound card is an Audigy, by the way). Of course, I did also download Sierra's driver update from here, which gives you an AUDBLAST.DRV file which I used for the voice (audio) driver. But otherwise, the whole thing was a piece of cake. Now I've just got to try some other DOS games that were horrendous to try to get to run, such as Ultima 8, and if they work..well, even if I never fully play the games again, at least I can rest assured that it is possible to have my nostalgic memories relived.

A related program is DOSBox, which emulates DOS mode (or at least that's what it looks like it does - I'm not sure about the specifics of how it implements its behaviour) and lets you run your games from its command line. Now, this did let me run QFG, but it gave me problems with sound - of course, QFG4 is apparently notorious for being one of the buggiest games Sierra made, and also one of the hardest to get running on a modern computer. But it's definitely worth checking out, because it seems to support a lot of old DOS games.

Of course, I am reminded of Paul Simon's Kodachrome:

"If you took all the girls I knew when I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they'd never match my sweet imagination
Everything looks worse in black and white"

I've found that my olde DOS games sometimes don't live up to the memories I had of them. Whether that somehow diminishes these memories, I'm not sure, but it is certainly something to keep in mind. Speaking of which, it's interesting which memories that are formed now will soon become tomorrow's fond nostalgia. Perhaps the marathon Morrowind and Baldur's Gate gaming hours? Heh, I am now reminded (what can I say, I'm in that kinda mood) of a Calvin & Hobbes strip, which ends something like

Hobbes: "You're going to wish when you're older that you had fonder memories than this tripe (watching television)"
Calvin: (Watching TV) "Quite probably"
Hobbes: (Sits down and watches TV)

Wonderful, simply wonderful.