Anyone know a good netbook subsim?
 

I have just purchased an HP Mini 1000 Netbook from Verizon. It runs Windows XP, has no video card, and no CD nor floppy drive (though I can access my desktop's CD drive via wireless LAN)

I'd like to find a subsim that I can load completely onto the hard drive so I can play it while mobile.

Does anyone know of one I can try? I've looked at lots of games, but they all seem to require a video card and/or CD.

Thanks,
-Mike
Phillips

well welcome to the forums. and yes, almost, if not all games require a vedio card, so what are you planing on doing with this laptop first...

How about some of the old ones? Aces of the Deep, Silent Hunter 1 (Maybe 2), Silent Service... might work

Jane's 688(i) Hunter/Killer !
It doesn't require 3D acceleration, and since it came out in 1997 or so, hardware requirements are very modest. You still require the CD to play though :hmmm: Best solution would be to install a program which enables you to use virtual drives.

I agree with Raptor1, why not try an oldie such as Silent Service II. I have SSII running on an Amiga emulator. You don't need a CD drive, you can download WinUAE from here http://www.winuae.net/ and disk images of old Amiga games are widely available on the net. The only drawback is you need to have the ROMS for the Amiga you want to emulate, which were only available for download commercially but check Google to be sure of their current status. I have an old Amiga so this wasn't an issue for me. I'm currently playing a career in SSII for old times sake and it runs superbly with WinUAE.

The other alternative is to run the PC version with DOS box.

Nemo

Another option is to make an image file of the CD (usually a .iso format) and copy it over through the network onto your harddrive. Use software like Deamon Tools to mount that file making into a virtual cdrom drive.

For the old games you could also try to run them in a Virtual Machine. Which is similar to dosbox, but it simulates a complete pc, not just dos. I never liked dosbox. It just doesn't fit with me. Or me with it. For dos games you need Microsoft Virtual PC 2004, since support for it has been removed in more current versions of it. Though I did have trouble with it's native dos-memory manager. It didn't like me using the MSDOS 6.22 emm386.exe and himem.sys memory manager, but Silent Hunter 1 didn't like the native memory manager either. Perhaps your games are less of a problem. But there are also other brands of virtual machine software (like Vmware). Microsoft is just free for download and use. Also, a cd-image is easily mounted in a virtual machine as if it is a real cdrom. I ran 2 Windows Server2008 and one Vista virtual machines today on a 3Ghz (hyperthreading) machine with 2 GB. It wasn't quick, but didn't choke either. Just laggy as hell with that load on it's back. So I'm sure it has no problem with an old game that needs below GHz specs.

Yup, that's also what I had in mind. Just remeber that DOSBox requires a lot of ressources, even more so a wholly virtual PC. - For older games that actually require slowing down, that's a good thing, but for some of the later Dos games (mostly those running in protected mode), it can actually get a bit laggy, depending on your hardware.
Something I warmly recommend: VDM Sound. It emulates only your soundcard and offers support for a game port (i.e. joystick/gamepad support) - you can thus play your older games in Windows without the need to emulate a whole O/S. It isn't nearly as compatible as DOSBox with most games, but those that run are much faster. I recommend the version 2.0.4 (not the newer 2.10), but that's a personal choice. I'd definetly give it a try :DL

Oh, just remembered two other classic sims:
- Three Sixty Pacific's "Das Boot". It was fun at the time (played it way more often than SSII, but I was still young and inexperienced back then :) ),
- Microproses' "Red Storm Rising". Never got to play it, but apparently it is still played today - in any case a well-known classic.
Both of these work very well with DOSBox.
Have Fun!

Thanks
 

Thank you gents.
I read over the reviews and tech tips for the games you all suggested.
I've ordered a copy of CAOD through the Amazon portal and will try and get it running. Will let you all know how it turns out.

CAOD works on HP Mini 1000 netbooks
 

Gents,
Thanks for your help. I was able to borrow an external usb CD/DVD drive and do a max install of CAOD onto my netbook. I don't need the CD anymore to play the game now that it's loaded onto the hard drive. I did have that installation-test-error described in SUBSIM tech tips, but the recommended fix worked just fine. Also, I had to tell Win XP to run the game in Win 95 compatability mode and in 256 color/640x480 mode.

There seems to be a bit of snow/video noise on certain screens. Occasioanlly, the screen also turns mostly pink, which fixes itself if I cycle the screens. But overall, it's playable, and much more satisfying than the kids' games that seem to be the only things made for netbooks.

Again, thanks for the help.
-Mike Phillips

I don't have my CAOD disk at hand right now, but I can remember that I had the same issues. I assume it's something of a Windows / window issue. There is no genuine fullscreen mode for the game, i.e. the window frame is always visible with the CAOD version. Try using the 'drag' tool (or whatever it's called in the English Windows) and drag your game window to maximum width and height. That way, the artifacts should disappear.
By the way, this is why I prefer the DOS version of the game. Though the resolution is lower, I think that the overall graphics have a more polished look, in some sense (the 3d engine even supports something like primitive anti-aliasing effect when rendering ship and plane models)

Silent Hunter Command Edition
 

After playing CAOD for some time, I decided to try another one. So I downloaded DOSBOX and MagicDisc, and ordered a copy of Silent Hunter Command Edition.

I was able to use an external CD drive to transfer a CD image to the netbook and mount it to a virtual drive with MagicDisc. Then I used DOSBOX to mount the Silent Hunter folder and the virtual drive as DOS drives and voila! - we have Silent Hunter on a netbook. The DOS based graghics of Silent Hunter are indeed much better than the windows graghics of CAOD.

Maybe I'll order a DOS version of CAOD next.

Thanks again!

Mike Phillips