Photoplay Hardware alternatives
On this page you can find various hardware alternatives for each version of the Photoplay hardware, official or not. Do note that the most part of the effort is finding alternatives that are able to make the software run as well as possible, mainly in the Motherboard, Graphics Card and Sound Card areas. Accessories like web-cam's, coin acceptors and similar are not researched (for now at least).
PTS-DOS
The PTS-DOS version of the software is the more forgiving one, as mostly no checks are made on the hardware apart from the dongles (one is parallel and the other is an iButton present in the Multi-IO ISA Card).
Motherboards
| CPU Type | Chipset | Model | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 486 class | SiS 85C496/497 | Lucky Star LS-486E Rev. C
Zida Tomato 4DPS |
Both official Photoplay boards.
Other boards based on the same chipset should work. |
| 486 class | Other chipsets | Should also work (maybe need some tinkering). | |
| 586 (Pentium) class | SiS 5598 | Chaintech 5SFV0 | Official Photoplay board
Other boards based on the same chipset should also work. |
| 586 (Pentium) class | Other chipsets | Should also work (maybe need some tinkering). | |
| 686 (Pentium II) class | Intel 810 | Chaintech 6WEV0 \ 6WEV2 | Both official Photoplay boards for the later versions of IGO.
Other boards based on the same chipset should work. |
| 686 (Pentium II) class | Other chipsets | Should also work (might need more tinkering as sound chips might differ) |
Graphics Cards
Most Graphics Cards should be compatible as the games do not use anything non-standard to run.
| Slot | Chipset | Model | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCI | Cirrus Logic CL-54xx | Various | Official Photoplay Video Card |
| PCI | Other Chipsets | Various | Should also work. |
| Integrated | Intel i810 (i752) | Various | Officially supported on later version at least. |
| Integrated | SiS 6326 | Various | Officially supported. Note that PCI versions of this card exist. |
| ISA | Various | Various | Untested. |
Sound Cards
Sound cards are trickier, as the sound drivers needed might be large enough that not enough memory is left for the menu\games to run.
| Slot | Chipset | Model | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISA | ESS 1868 | PP IO-CARD | Officially supported. Present on the ISA Multi-IO Card. |
| Integrated / PCI | CMI8738 | Various | Officially supported on later versions. Sound chip of the 6WEV0/2 board.
Note that PCI cards with this chipset exist and can be often bought for cheap from AliExpress for example |
| Integrated / ISA | ESS 1869F | Various | Officially supported. Sound chip of the 5WEV board.
Note that ISA cards with this chipset exist. I believe other ESS chipsets to be highly compatible between them. |
| ISA\PCI | Others | Various | Other cards with DOS drivers should work, taking in consideration their memory usage as they might not leave enough memory for the menu\games to run after they're loaded. |
Touch Screens
Whenever we refer to touchscreen's we do mean just the touch interface controller.
| Connection | Brand | Model | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Serial (DB-9) | Microtouch | SMT2/SMT3 | Officially supported |
| ISA | Microtouch | SMT2/SMT3 | Officially supported |
| Serial (DB-9) | ELO | IntelliTouch: 2310, 2300, 4002
AccuTouch: 2210, 2200, 140 DuraTouch: 280 |
Officially supported |
| ISA | ELO | IntelliTouch: 4035, 4025
Accutouch \ Duratouch: 2201, 141 |
|
| Others | Various | Various | Untested |
NG
Not much has been done with NG as it's a pretty short-lived version for which ultimately ended to be the Update versions.
UPDATE
TBD.
SYSTEM (AIO)
Motherboards
Since SYSTEM versions are Windows XP based, most hardware capable of running Windows XP will be able to run SYSTEM versions. However, there are some boards (released later in XP's lifetime or even after it was discontinued) that can not boot it due to lack of drivers for the SATA controller in the AIO Image.
Note that both the installer and the game itself have a motherboard check that needs to be bypassed (patched) for the game to be able to run on non-official boards.
| CPU Type | Chipset | Model | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atom 2XX
Atom N2XX Atom 3XX Atom D4XX Atom D5XX Atom N4XX Atom N5XX |
945GC
945GSE Tigerpoint |
Intel D945GCLF
Intel D945GCLF2 Intel D945GCLF2D |
Officially supported motherboards
Other boards with the same chipset \ CPU will work with a patched image. |
| Atom 330 | nVidia ION | Zotac IONITX-A-U and others
ASRock A330ION ASUS AT3N7A-I ASUS AT3IONT-I Jetway NC63-330 |
These boards will run with a patched image. |
| Various | Various | Kontron 886lcd-m/mitx
MSI MS-7438 945GSE (Unknown Model) ASRock P4i65g Kontron ETXExpress-PM Kontron KT690/MITX |
These board models are present in the System AIO installer source-code.
They should work. |
Graphics Cards
Most Graphics Cards should be compatible as the games do not use anything non-standard to run.
| Slot | Chipset | Model | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Integrated | Intel GMA900/950 | Various | Graphics Chipset of some of the Official Boards |
| Integrated | nVidia 9400GS | Various | Graphics Chipset of the nVidia ION-based Boards. |
| Various | Others | Various | As long as they have Windows XP Drivers, pretty much all graphic chipsets\cards should work. |
Sound Cards
Most Sound Cards should be compatible as the games do not use anything non-standard to run.
| Slot | Chipset | Model | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Integrated | Realtek ALC6xx/ALC8xx | Various | Graphics Chipset of some of the Official Boards |
| Various | Others | Various | As long as they have Windows XP Drivers, pretty much all sound chipsets should work. |