I have an old Pentium based laptop which has a NeoMagic NM2093 graphics card in it. This machine is running DOS 6.22. The laptop was made probably around 1998 or so, and I have it around because I'm into collecting older systems and keeping them running (I recently restored a 486 SX 25 MHz desktop system).
My question is a general one: for these older machines and video cards, do you have to have a DOS device driver to run games or do games from this era (mid 1990s) usually just access the video card directly and control it at a low level that way?
I ask this because I was unable to find a DOS version for this graphics card, and I'm seeing some problems with some software. King's Quest 1, for example, looks fine except for the text, which is distorted and unreadable. Tie Fighter shows the initial start-up screen but then freezes...
Anyone have ideas how I could troubleshoot what's wrong?
(p.s. please don't respond with any "why don't you just use dosbox?" comments - they drive me nuts - i'm more into the hardware aspect of this stuff. thanks in advance!)
My question is a general one: for these older machines and video cards, do you have to have a DOS device driver to run games or do games from this era (mid 1990s) usually just access the video card directly and control it at a low level that way?
I ask this because I was unable to find a DOS version for this graphics card, and I'm seeing some problems with some software. King's Quest 1, for example, looks fine except for the text, which is distorted and unreadable. Tie Fighter shows the initial start-up screen but then freezes...
Anyone have ideas how I could troubleshoot what's wrong?
(p.s. please don't respond with any "why don't you just use dosbox?" comments - they drive me nuts - i'm more into the hardware aspect of this stuff. thanks in advance!)