The Retro Gentlemen Agreement (RGA from hereon) is a sign of goodwill from retro gamer to companies who might own the copyright to a certain game.

We think the emulation scene is divided into people who love retro games and want to enjoy them as pure and authentic as possible, but also people who simply want to pirate even modern games for free and use unavailability of retro games as an excuse to do so.

Even though Remake/Remaster/Re-Releases often can be simply bought in stores, the real thing, the authentic experience of the original console is usually unavailable and sometimes, it isn't even known which company is holding the rights to this IP and/or simply has no interest to care about it.

But we respect that companies want to protect the rights to these games and hence limit ourself as a sign of goodwill to show our respect for the gaming industry.

Out intend is not to cause financial damage, we want the authentic experience that often is simply impossible outside of emulating ROM.

We, the Retro Gaming Gentlemen, agree to promise the following things

1. We are only emulating systems up until the 6. Generation. This includes, for example
   1. SEGA Dreamcast
   2. SONY PlayStation 2
   3. Nintendo Gamecube
   4. NEC PC-FX
   5. PC Platforms from that era
      1. DOS
      2. Windows 3.x
      3. Windows 9x
      4. PC-8801*
      5. PC-9801
      6. X68000
2. We only play/archive/host official published ROM that have been released for these consoles
   1. No Remakes/Remasters/Re-Releases, only the real thing
3. If an re-release can be bought, we buy/support it to show our respect
4. We do not try to make the process of emulation too easy
   1. We do not develop/support Hardware that comes with emulators/ROM pre-installed
   2. We do not develop/support Software that comes with emulators/ROM pre-installed
   3. We do not make money with retro games
      1. No reselling of Emulator/ROM
      2. No payed services for installing/setting up emulator/ROM
      3. Developed Software must be GNU GPL-compatible
5. We play the games in their original form with highest accuracy
   1. No Upscaling of internal resolution
   2. No Texture Replacement or such patches
   3. No Adding Quality of Life features like automappers, rewind and such
6. We commit to maintain open dialogue and strict adherence to the RGA

E-Mail: vamp898-rga 'at' ikaros.space

This is the List of all Data you can currently find on the RGA Share

General means, the best in general. Nothing gets better than this. The other rows shows alternatives for RetroArch and/or Android.

For Android, it is always highly recommended to either get the App from F-Droid or the Github of the Project, _not_ Google Play Store. You don't cut a steak with a plastic spoon

Version: 0.8.16

DOS (Disk Operating System) is the Operating System invented for the IBM Personal PC. An insanely stripped down and simple OS suited for the low power Hardware of that time.

The issue these days is not just that you need DOS, DOS was made for a type of PC that practically no longer exists. Your CPU is too fast, has too many features, your RAM is too big, your HDD too, you need a specific GPU, a lot of things changed from the 80s to now.

So what you need is an Emulator. Something that acts like its an old piece of junk so games made for that old piece of junk run as intended.

DOSBOX is exactly that. An System Emulator that does the most important things you need to play Games.

But even it is an one fits all solution, it is important to understand that DOS was used from 1981 up until ~1998 (That is where most Games finally shifted to Windows).

That means a lot of Games were released in that time for completely different Hardware.

DOSBOX can emulate most of this Hardware, but where one game wants an System that is comparable to an 30 MHz 386 CPU, another game might want an 300 MHz Pentium CPU. So you have to make settings that match the game.

Most games scale well though. So you probably will able to play most games with one single configuration file and only need some fine tuning every once in a while.

Sounds silly but while there was only one Software called DOSBOX in the past, there are no several Software Packages that are called DOSBOX.

The original DOSBOX from https://www.dosbox.com/ is basically dead, its no longer really in Development and it is not recommended to use it.

There is an so called soft-fork, so an project that continues exactly where DOSBOX stopped. That one is called DOSBOX-staging

https://www.dosbox-staging.org/

That is what you want. Lots of bugs fixed, lots of features added, higher compatibility with a lots of games and so on.

When you start DOSBOX-staging (From now on only called DOSBOX) for the first time, it will create an configuration file called dosbox-staging.conf or so.

This is already pretty okay, but it is recommended to change the following settings in it

glshader = sharp

core = dynamic
cpu_cycles = 25000
cpu_cycles_protected = 200000

midiconfig = 128:0

What? Synthesizer? Why would i need that to play DOS Games? Aren't they made to make music? Well yes and no, not only. You absolutely need an Synthesizer, or there will be no Music to begin with. Why you ask? Let me explain

Instead of creating sound with an Instrument and recording it, which would have taken way too much data, especially in the 80s/90s, an Synthesizer does what its name imply, synthetically creates music based on math.

Instead of recording the Instrument, you give an Synthesizer the command to play Instrument X at note Y for Z seconds. So instead of saving houndrets of megabytes of sound, you only save a few kb of text.

You ever heard of MIDI Files? That is that. A file containing commands for an Synthesizer to create music. Imagine it like a note sheet.

Humans play an Instrument, look at the soundwaves and then create a math formula that creates an good enough similar soundwave. You tell an Synthesizer to play the sound of an Piano and it creates soundwaves based on math that sound similar to an piano. It sounds okayish but most Synthesizer sound… well… very synthetic. Human brains instantly notice, its not the real thing.

Because the human ear/brain detect most of the instrument information in the so called attack, so the very first initial sound, of the instrument, when technology advanced, Synthesizer extended by so called samples.

The attack of an instrument gets recorded and the sustain (The Sound after the attack) gets created by math. That way you only need insanely short sample (recording) of the instrument and produce the rest with math.

This is very effective, the human brain is easy to trick. But Synthesizer that used Samples and sophisticated math have been very expensive, i am not kidding. Calculated for inflation, such an Synthesizer would have cost you easily 2000 $.

Hence Soundcards in PCs did not have that and/or only an very very simple version of that. Even though a high quality Soundcard in the DOS Age would have clocked in at 200 $, its only 1/10 of the price of a real Synth.

So musicians created the soundtracks for those 2000 $ Synthesizer and then made an watered/dumped down Version for PC Soundcards and that is what most people know.

But we live in >=2026 now, we can just emulate those 2000 $ Synthesizer and trust me, you want that. It makes a lot of games Sound like they were made in this year. It lifts your gaming experience to a whole new level and finally lets you hear the Soundtrack, how the artist intended it.

You don't trust me? Listen here

Monkey Island 1 Soundtrack for an average DOS PC Soundcard
Monkey Island 1 Soundtrack for the Roland MT-32

In the DOS era, mostly two very famous Synthesizer were used by composer to make Music.

For the Roland MT-32 (Mostly used by games in the 80s), you need an Emulator called Munt. Most Linux Systems have them in the Repository of their Distributions, Windows Users can get it here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/munt/

MUNT Emulates the Hardware, but not the Software. You need ROM Files for the original Roland MT-32

You might get them here: https://nextcloud.ikaros.space/s/CsNbaMdtT5AWGpg

When you start MUNT, it will create an virtual MIDI Hardware Device on Port 128:0 that, surprise surprise, is the Port we configured in DOSBOX earlier.

For everything that is not Roland MT-32, so for example Roland SC-55, SC-88, General MIDI and so on, just use Fluidsynth. Like MUNT its OpenSource.

Every Linux Distro has this in the Repo, Windows Users can grab it here: https://www.fluidsynth.org/

Fluidsynth needs an so called Soundfont (That is the file that contains all the Samples/Recordings from the Instrument).

The best Soundfont to use with DOS Games that makes it sound as close to intended as possible, but uses modern, high quality recordings/samples, is GeneralUser-GS.

Grab it here (Scroll to the Bottom –> Download –> Current): https://schristiancollins.com/generaluser.php

Inside the ZIP Package there is an *.sf2 file, give that FluidSynth and it will be happy.

Fluidsynth generates an MIDI Device at, you have guessed it, 128:0. So don't run MUNT and Fluidsynth at the same time, you can't run two devices at the same Port.

When you install/setup/configure the Game (inside DOSBOX! Most games have an setup or install command), you have to Choose Roland MT-32 for… well… Roland MT-32

For Fluidsynth, you choose Roland SC-88, SC-55, Roland SoundCanvas, Roland GS, General MIDI (Whatever the game offers, check in that Order. So if SC-55 is available use that over General MIDI)

Sometimes the Game offers several options, i will list the one that the compose used to make the Game here, as that is the recommendation

This section will contain information and recommendations about DOS Games in later releases of this Guide