Does FDSloader work on VDos and a Parallel to USB Adapter?
Most likely not. :(
I heard someone actually getting it to work in a virtual machine with Windows 98 DOS, but that's very unusual. Parallel to USB will absolutely not work I think, you will probably need a real parallel port installed.
I think FDSloader is highly unlikely to work at all, even with a real parallel port and DOS. Few people got it to work at all (I got it to half-work once on a laptop with parallel port).
FDSStick does what FDSloader does much better so I don't really see any point in trying to get this nowdays useless thing to work.
Thank you :)
An old laptop is handy for stuff like this.
I'd say the cheapest solution is to get an Fdsstick. It's an amazing product.
Quote from: Hamburglar on January 02, 2019, 02:59:40 am
An old laptop is handy for stuff like this.
I'd say the cheapest solution is to get an Fdsstick. It's an amazing product.
If you're going to be playing ROMs off of a flashy-device then an Everdrive might also be a good solution. It has new firmware that is supposed to fix problems with FDS audio.
EDIT: I found a video someone posted to the everdrive forums comparing the N8 OS v20 sound to the FDS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW3Yj6f4IEk
Lower volume but otherwise sounds pretty good, on my Famicom the Everdrive still sounds like crap though. I doubt the it has the hardware to make expansion audio sound authentic. It has other shortcomings with FDS too, like unwanted disk side swapping.
FDSloader or FDSStick should be 100% authentic as long as you have a RAM Adapter. Well on the FDSStick's new firmware there is a built-in game menu on startup, so if you want it to be truly authentic you need to flash only one game into the memory, which should bypass the boot loader.
Quote from: P on January 05, 2019, 11:41:02 am
Lower volume but otherwise sounds pretty good, on my Famicom the Everdrive still sounds like crap though. I doubt the it has the hardware to make expansion audio sound authentic. It has other shortcomings with FDS too, like unwanted disk side swapping.
What firmware does your Everdrive have?
Anyways, I feel like I never fully answered OP's question, so my bad - but fdsloader should work with an emulated parallel port on something like KVM on linux, or maybe Virtualbox. It might be wise to invest in a PCIe parallel card if you don't have one, they are pretty cheap and as long as your OS sees it as a parallel port, your VM software should too.
The Everdrive may be the better choice for the AV Famicom or the GPM/VCCI Famicoms because the volume levels from the Everdrive are in line with these Famicoms. The FDSStick is the better choice for the older Famicoms, the Everdrive just cannot compete without stronger amplification circuitry.
The Everdrive now as of OSv20 rc7 has the ability to delay the disk swap, so now you can see the full intro to Zelda or Doki Doki Panic.
I know there are other modern solutions, but I found the FDSStick's menu to be absolutely perfect in terms of its presentation.
For $14.99, you really can't go wrong with the FDSStick.
I don't own an FDSStick, but from what others are saying here it seems like the conclusive best option for this use case, yeah.