Privateer Problem - A broken record...

F

Farfel

Spaceman
Well, surprise, surprise, i have a Privateer problem. It seems that no matter WHAT I do in terms of editing the config.sys and autoexec.bat files I continually get the nagging message of "Insufficient DOS Memory to run this program. Please consult manuals, blah blah."

I've tried freeing up all my memory to EMS, that didn't work. I've tried the XMS setting (In the manual it gave an XMS Config file example...except the only difference between it and the EMS was the EMM386...anyways)

Does anyone know what in the holy hell is causing this problem? Just in case you need my Config and Autoexec files, i've pasted them below:
--------------------------------------------------------

Autoexec.bat
------------
PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\
PROMPT $P$G

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET CTSYN=C:\WINDOWS
C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\SBLIVE\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM

C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD000 /M:12 /V /L:P

C:\MOUSE\ctmouse.com

SET COMSPEC=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM
C:
------------

Config.sys
----------
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM 16384
Code: 
       //Note - I tried with the /I parameter too..same results.

DOS=HIGH,UMB
FILES=30
BUFFERS=30

DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\EBD\Oakcdrom.sys /D:MSCD000 /I:0

SHELL=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM C:\WINDOWS /P
-----------


Mem.exe
-------
Code: 
Memory Type          Total       Used       Free
----------------  --------   --------   --------
Conventional          640K       120K       520K
Upper                 123K       123K         0K
Reserved                0K         0K         0K
Extended (XMS)     65,349K          ?   260,612K
----------------  --------   --------   --------
Total memory       66,112K          ?   261,132K

Total under 1 MB      763K       242K       520K

Total Expanded (EMS)                   64M (67,108,864 bytes)
Free Expanded (EMS)                    16M (16,777,216 bytes)

Largest executable program size       520K (532,896 bytes)
Largest free upper memory block         0K       (0 bytes)
MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.


Hehe, I love the code tag. Oh, BTW, above it says 64 for the Total EMS. In dos, that number changes, depending what I put in for the value in the config.sys file (which you know of course!)


[Edited by Farfel on 03-03-2001 at 10:38]
 
Fix?

Doing a mem /c/p shows you which TSRs and device drivers are loaded and how much memory they are taking up. Try copying your priv.tre and/or rf.tre files from your Privateer CD (assuming you have the Privateer CD ROM?) to your Privateer game directory on your hard drive. After that, edit the priv.cfg and rf.cfg files using a simple text editor, such as Windows Notepad or the DOS edit command, and change the target directory for the two files that you have just copied to your hard drive:

original priv.cfg
=================

=D:\priv.tre

Change this to:

=C:\privater\priv.tre

Or wherever you run Privateer from and repeat that process for the rf.cfg file.

That should take up roughly 160MB of disk space, but you will no longer need the CDROM device drivers for DOS (put REM before the lines containing MSCDEX in your autoexec.bat file and in front of the Oakcdrom.sys in your config.sys file). That should free up an additional 30k of conventional memory.

In addition to that, you might remove the SET COMSPEC= line in your autoexec.bat and the SHELL= line in your config.sys.

Here are my configuration files:

Autoexec.bat
============
SET BLASTER = A220 I5 D3 T4
SET SOUND=C:\WINDOWS
LH AU10DOS.COM
LH C:\CTMOUSE\CTMOUSE.EXE

Config.sys
==========
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM 16384
DOS=HIGH,UMB

My DOS sound driver takes up approximately 26k of conventional memory. Combined with the other device drivers and TSRs, I have 590k of conventional memory and enough expanded memory in order to run Privateer very well. The only problem I have is that my digital audio is nothing but screeching. But that is probably due to the fact that my Sound Blaster Pro emulation driver doesn't properly handle itself as a legacy ISA device.. that shouldn't happen to you. Have fun.
 
Farfel:

You'll need expanded memory in order to get sound on the SBLive!.

Here are the most important things to do to clear up more conventional memory:

Change DEVICE to DEVICEHIGH on your CD-ROM driver line (or get rid of it entirely, as per Dok's suggestion)...
Change FILES to FILESHIGH...
Change BUFFERS to BUFFERSHIGH...
Add /I=B000-B7FF to the EMM386 line
Add /E to the MSCDEX line in Autoexec.Bat

That should do it.
 
It works...somewhat

Well, the good news is it worked. It was a convential memory problem (Oakcdrom.sys and msdex were taking up a wopping 70K!).

It starts up fine, plays the midi music great, but freezes up whenever there's speech longer than 3 or 4 seconds. I think this has happened to other people here also. What can be done?
 
Two possibilities here that I'm aware of:

1) Too much EMS; be sure that the number in the EMM386 line is 16384 or below.
2) Wrong IRQ specification; check your card's IRQ setting and re-run the Priv installer.
 
phooey

Well, in reply to the 1st suggestion, it screws up at 16384 and all other values, above and below.

And i've messed with all possible irq combinations (220, 240, etc) and DMA settings.

The sound DOES work fine, but it only last 3 or 4 seconds before the computer freezes up (In the intro, it freezes after the pirate says "Well what is it hound?....")
 
Well Stinger, I can't explain this. If I switch the EMS memory to certain values such as 3072 the game will not freeze up until 1:56 minutes into the entro (when the missile hits the green alien ship). Another odd thing is if I don't load my mouse driver, it freezes up right away! Certain ammounts of ems seems to screw with Privateer...

And if I disable midi then the sound will work perfectly and the game won't freeze up. Vice versa with sound.

And on top of that, I can't get my joystick to respond...i'm thinking I should get a new (old) sound card
 
Privateer Hates PCI...

The only time I was able to run Privateer smoothly and without any problems whatsoever was when I had an ISA sound card. The motherboard I'm using right now only has PCI/AGP expansion slots.. c'est la vie.
 
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