eXoDOS/eXoWin3x - Retro PC archives

Some of you may have looked at a lot of the old DOS and PC games I stream and wondered...

"Where does he get those god-awful games?"

Well the truth is I found the eXoDOS and eXoWin3x preservation projects a year or so ago and I realised I'd never shared it with anyone here.
https://www.retro-exo.com/

So what exactly is eXoDOS/eXoWin3x?

Well it's a collection of thousands of games from those platforms, presented through the Launchbox interface. Every game is pre-configured to run with little or no tinkering, through DOSBox.

I've lost hours just scrolling through it, downloading old games that I remember playing as a kid as well as plenty that I missed out on first time around.

The website describes it better than I can.

eXoDOS is an attempt to catalog, obtain, and make playable every game developed for the DOS and PC Booter platform. We strive to find original media rather than using scene rips or hacks. This collection uses DOSBox to allow these older games to play on modern systems. Games supported by ScummVM give the user a choice between emulators. All required emulators are included and have been setup to run all included titles with no prior knowledge or experience required on the users part.

This pack includes 7,200 DOS games. The focus is on games that were either released in English or are fairly easy to play without a knowledge of the native language. This is not every DOS game ever made, however it is a very high percentage of all commercial releases. There are thousands of freeware, homebrew, and shareware games that will continue to be added in future packs.

The games have already been configured to run in DOSBox. Games which are supported by ScummVM will give you the option at launch as to which emulator you would like to use.

Version 5 adds:
• Download on Demand: A 'lite' version of the project that just contains metadata. Games are downloaded the first time you try to run them.
• IPX\Serial Newtworking: Easy host and join multiplayer games. Scripts auto start\open your virtual ports and describe exactly what steps each game requires to lay in multiplayer. Play over 300 games with your friends!
• eXoDOS Updater: Download and auto-apply updates to your eXoDOS collection without having to wait until the next release.
• Magazine Preservation: Browse print & digital magazines from the DOS era
• Filter by Installed Games: A custom plugin that dynamically updates a playlist in LaunchBox each time a game gets installed or uninstalled
• Massive Manual Upgrades: Hundreds of missing manuals have been added or improved and we've added countless missing extra files.
• Gold Box Companion Support: D&D Goldbox games can now be launched with the GB Companion app, which features automapping and other great tools.
• New Folder Structure: All project files now reside under an "eXo" folder, with individual folders for each project under that. This will allow Win3eXo, and other future projects, to easy plug in with eXoDOS.
• Modified Launch & Install Files: Files are no longer individually coded to launch a specific game. They now figure out what game will be launched to seeing what folder they were run from. While this doesn't directly affect users much, it makes maintaining the collection much easier.
• Alternate Names: Games now have regional names added to their LaunchBox entry. This allows you to search whatever name you are familiar with, and still find it listed in the database. eg: Searching Broken Sword will now bring up Circle of Blood.
• Bug Squash-a-rama!: A new GitHub now tracks all bugs, which has increased productivity on that front.
• Over 200 new games
• New Shaders: Enjoy shaders which emulate the look and feel of an original monitor with curvature and scanlines.

eXoWin3x is the same idea, but for Windows 3.1 games and applications. It's particularly interesting if you want to see a lot of early multimedia CD-ROM titles (Stuff like Encarta for example).

The main issue with these is the size of them.

eXoDOS has a "Lite" version which only contains metadata, images etc, for the games, and it downloads them as and when you want to play them. But even the Lite version was 50+ GB when I last checked.
eXoWin3x has no Lite version at this time, which means you have to download it all. A quick check of my folder puts it at 371 GB.

https://www.retro-exo.com/exodos.html
https://www.retro-exo.com/win3x.html

There is also a SCUMMVM specific build, which I've not looked at myself, but a lot of the games there will also be found in the eXoDOS collection.
https://www.retro-exo.com/scummvm.html

RetroRGB interviewed eXo earlier this month. Well worth a read.
https://www.retrorgb.com/interview-with ... onist.html

Giving the Lite version of eXoDOS a download now.

I don't even have a PC... but that sounds like a great setup, Devlin - nice work!

SEP wrote:Giving the Lite version of eXoDOS a download now.

Enjoy it bud.

There's so much obscure stuff in there. A decent number of Trek games (Some really old ones as well) too.

When you open a game in Launchbox, if it's not installed it will take you through the download process and ask you a couple of questions. It's really quick and simple.
Once it's installed just double click it to launch, or right-click for more options (That's where you'll find manuals and things).

You can change the sorting on the left hand side as well. If you choose "Favourite" from the dropdown, then "yes" from the options underneath, eXo has highlighted a lot of great games as a place to start.

jawa_ wrote:I don't even have a PC... but that sounds like a great setup, Devlin - nice work!

It is great. Even an old laptop should be able to handle most of this stuff if you have one.

I've still got the CDs from this pack

Maybe I should use this to play star trek again as I never managed to finish it.

Victor Mildew wrote:I've still got the CDs from this pack

Maybe I should use this to play star trek again as I never managed to finish it.

I did TNG on stream last year. Still holds up.

Thanks for this, Devlin. Tempted to clear some room for exowin3x and get some serious nostalgia going.

This sounds Burlingame, will definitely check it out so thanks for sharing CD!

Victor Mildew wrote:I've still got the CDs from this pack

Maybe I should use this to play star trek again as I never managed to finish it.

The amount of time I sunk into Network Q back in the day :wub:

Would this work on a Raspberry Pi with an attached SSD or is it just Windows based?

Dowbocop wrote:Would this work on a Raspberry Pi with an attached SSD or is it just Windows based?

Just Windows. Sure you could move the games you wanted to the Pi, but not sure how to make them work.

Victor Mildew wrote:I've still got the CDs from this pack

Maybe I should use this to play star trek again as I never managed to finish it.

I had the strategy version of that bundle, comprised of Civ II, Sim City 2000 and The Settlers.

I did have Network Q Rally though, I was crap at it but I loved it.

Cheeky Devlin wrote:
Dowbocop wrote:Would this work on a Raspberry Pi with an attached SSD or is it just Windows based?

Just Windows. Sure you could move the games you wanted to the Pi, but not sure how to make them work.

Interesting, thanks for the heads up about this! I'll give it a go once I'm back off my holidays. I'm wondering whether I might try and rescue a skip bound laptop - I assume there's not much there post-1998 so anything even remotely modern would work fine.

What's a good BitTorrent client to use these days? I haven't bothered with it in a long long time.

Last one I used was Deluge I think, but it looks like the Windows version of that hasn't seen any updates in about 5 years.

Grabbed the lite version of eXoDOS, but as eXoWin3X is over 300GB I have left it. For now.

Pedz wrote:Grabbed the lite version of eXoDOS, but as eXoWin3X is over 300GB I have left it. For now.

From a (very brief) look through the files in the torrent I got the impression that the Win3X one was far fewer games and a lot more educational/activity center type stuff.

Lagamorph wrote:
Pedz wrote:Grabbed the lite version of eXoDOS, but as eXoWin3X is over 300GB I have left it. For now.

From a (very brief) look through the files in the torrent I got the impression that the Win3X one was far fewer games and a lot more educational/activity center type stuff.

The windows one does have a greater mix of edutainment and multimedia stuff as well as games.

Some genuinely weird and dumb stuff in that one. :lol:

Does either the DOS or Win32 one have Sid Meier's Sim Golf?

If it's the 2002 game, then it's a bit later than these archives cover. There would need to be a collection covering Windows 95/98 and even up to XP for that game I believe.

Apparently doing a Win9x collection is a bit harder, partially because at the moment each game has it's own bespoke DOS/Win3x installation. That's fine because they're so small it doesn't really matter. But for Win9x games onward you're talking a few hundred MB to package Windows with each game. Though they are trying to come up with a solution for the future.

Lagamorph wrote:What's a good BitTorrent client to use these days? I haven't bothered with it in a long long time.

Last one I used was Deluge I think, but it looks like the Windows version of that hasn't seen any updates in about 5 years.

Deluge is the best one. Stay the strawberry float away from uTorrent at any means.

Last edited by Ironhide on Tue Apr 19, 2022 4:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I used uTorrent to download this, will be uninstalling it today as I never usually use torrents.

eXoDOS/eXoWin3x - Retro PC archives

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