Run All Old WC Games in DOSBox Walkthrough

Im having a few problems installing WC2. When I rin the install exe it all seam to be going fine untill it reach's a screen saying 'copy from which drive?'. At this point it seams to be doing nothing and the only thing that I can do is hit esc which come's back with the message 'Installation interupted by user'

I have tried folloing the instructions on the tech support page. I did what was listed under 14 A-E. this seams to go through the install very fast but when i try to run WC2 it comes up with a message saying 'Failed to load Origin-FX drivers'.

Any help would be apprechated as im at a total loss.
 
Therein said:
Im having a few problems installing WC2. When I rin the install exe it all seam to be going fine untill it reach's a screen saying 'copy from which drive?'. At this point it seams to be doing nothing and the only thing that I can do is hit esc which come's back with the message 'Installation interupted by user'

I have tried folloing the instructions on the tech support page. I did what was listed under 14 A-E. this seams to go through the install very fast but when i try to run WC2 it comes up with a message saying 'Failed to load Origin-FX drivers'.

Any help would be apprechated as im at a total loss.
Click to expand...

Are you installing from the CD version. Try copying the "WING2" directory only to the harddrive. Forget all the bat files and other stuff in the root directory. Then run the game from your harddrive. You will need to run "winstall" to set up the sound card (from the WING2 directory on your harddrive" but it shouldn't ask to copy anything over.
 
No sound support y?

ok i just got a WC3 it took me a while to run the game but now i can run the game but without sound WHERE IS THE FUN IN THAT???
 
Unregistered said:
ok i just got a WC3 it took me a while to run the game but now i can run the game but without sound WHERE IS THE FUN IN THAT???
Click to expand...

I suggest you doublecheck your sound settings. Even if you have your soundcard set to IRQ5, dosbox default to telling the game your soundcard is on IRQ7. So unless you changed it in the dosbox.conf file you need to choose IRQ7 in the sound setup.
 
To be honest, I haven't read all the pages to this forum string so I apologize if these questions are already answered somewhere in the 9 pages of posts.

1) Where/How do you access the 0.73 dosbox config file? The only setup info file type in 0.73 dosbox is the zmbv file (with the gear symbol on the paper icon). I'm using XP.

2) In game for Wing Commander II, my cursor is stuck pulling to the lower right corner of the game screen. I know this is a joystick problem because I've had this problem in another game, but all I had to do before was go into the game options and disable the joystick. I'm not sure how to do that in WC2... Btw, I am trying to play with a keyboard and mouse and other than a microphone, no other interactive objects are even plugged into my computer.
 
Unregistered said:
1) Where/How do you access the 0.73 dosbox config file? The only setup info file type in 0.73 dosbox is the zmbv file (with the gear symbol on the paper icon). I'm using XP.
Click to expand...

Apparently they changed the way the config file works slightly in 0.73. here's how you do it:
11. The Config File:
====================

A config file can be generated by CONFIG.COM, which can be found on the
internal DOSBox Z: drive when you start up DOSBox. Look in the internal
programs section of the readme for usage of CONFIG.COM.
You can edit the generated configfile to customize DOSBox.

The file is divided into several sections (the names have [] around it).
Some sections have options you can set.
# and % indicate comment-lines.
The DOSBox configuration file contains the current settings. You can
alter them and start DOSBox with the -conf switch to load the file and
use these settings.

DOSBox will parse configuration files that are specified with -conf. If
none were specified it will try to load "dosbox.conf" from the local
directory. If there is none, DOSBox will load the user configuration
file. This file will be created if it doesn't exist. The file can be
found in ~/.dosbox (Linux) or "~/Library/Preferences" (MAC OS X).
Windows users should use the shortcuts in the startmenu to find it.
Click to expand...

It still works essentially exactly as before but it's not really visible if you go to the dosbox directory yourslef. Instead go to the dosbox section in your start menu and there should be a subfolder called configuration and in that folder is a program called "edit configuration." Running that will open te dosbox.conf file in a text editor.


2) In game for Wing Commander II, my cursor is stuck pulling to the lower right corner of the game screen. I know this is a joystick problem because I've had this problem in another game, but all I had to do before was go into the game options and disable the joystick. I'm not sure how to do that in WC2... Btw, I am trying to play with a keyboard and mouse and other than a microphone, no other interactive objects are even plugged into my computer.
Click to expand...

If you have a joystick, I suggest trying to plug it in and then calibrate it in windows itself. Then, unlug it and run the game and see if it still does it. Alternately you should be able to disable joystick support in the config file for dosbox.
 
Afternoon ladies and gentlemen,

I have set my dosbox up so that things are running without any real problems. I have a variety of games working well.
I have been plaaying WC2 using dosbox and am finding a small problem. THe game is actually work, using the loadfix -32 it works well. However, when I am in combat with a number of bad guys the whole things just runs really slowly. Altering the cycles makes no differences, all that acheives is a really fast game when I reduce the number of ships a little.

Any help with this would be great.
 
How fast is fast? WC2 has a frame rate limiter, so the game shouldn't run any faster than it was intended. ALT+ and ALT- can adjust this manually though.

Getting the speed working is a matter of finding the right combination of cycles and frameskip that will work with the above. There is also core=auto which has the game adjust this to its best guess depending on what's going on.
 
WC3 save game directory

first off,great site :)!!!i'm having problems with the installer in WC3.everything goes fine, until i want to set a save game directory,it says that it cannot create a save game directory.i can't even copy files to HDD!please help
 
Unregistered said:
first off,great site :)!!!i'm having problems with the installer in WC3.everything goes fine, until i want to set a save game directory,it says that it cannot create a save game directory.i can't even copy files to HDD!please help
Click to expand...

It sounds like you haven't mounted your harddrive correctly. Have you followed the suggestions in our tech support walkthrough here?
 
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yes i tried it again and it worked but now when i want to start the game it says:
wC# could not startup your digital sound card.PException 13 happened....etc
 
Just a quicky (probably gonna get shouted at for posting here but couldnt realy see any other place to post without starting new thread and search came up empty) how well does WC3 play in dosbox as im debating weather to fork out for kilrathi saga or go for the cheaper option of getting the old dos versions of WC1, 2 and 3.
 
All the DOS games play just fine. Nowadays, it's actually easier to get the DOS versions running over KS. If you notice there are quite a few threads about trying to get KS to run correctly. The old DOS versions run really well in DOSbox, so if you are wanting to save a few bucks, just get the originals.
 
hi,i've been having some problems with running wc3.i've configured the .conf file so that dosbox opens with the path to wc3.i've installed it but now i can't get into the game because it says that there is a problem with digital sound.so can anyone help me how to go to the settings menu to fix it???
 
Wc3 no dosbox

I have had good success running original CD version WC3 on XP Home without Dosbox. Runs just by clicking on the executable from CD, but with poor digital FX sound. Music sound works fine using MPU-401. I am using VDMS 1.0.1.0 beta 5 to correct the sound problem.

When installing, using a soundblaster/compatibles a220 i5 d1 setting results in choppy digital sound- guns, explosions, chirps, and all movies. Very unsatisfactory.

Thanks to old messages on this forum I tried VDMS, and have been successful after minor troubleshooting. Perhaps some of the problems I encountered will be useful to others:

VDMS likes to save its parameters in a file in the same directory as the executable you're running. Naturally, it can't do this for the CDROM version of WC3, so I created a simple .bat file in the c:\wc3 directory that simply calls the executable, then run it using the batch file. VDMS then saves its settings to that directory.

(Non-dos people: A batch file is simply a text file with the extension .bat which contains a series of dos commands. When you run a batch file, all the commands are executed in order. Use notepad to create a file c:\wc3\wc3.bat containing f:\wc3.exe where f is the drive letter of your CDROM. Save, then run the .bat file (by right-clicking on it) with VDMS. VDMS will apply its settings to the dos window in which it runs the batch file. The batch file merely calls the game's executable, so the game runs with the VDMS settings you applied to the batch file. Thereafter, you will not have to change settings, merely double-clicking on the .bat or the VDMS config file will start the game using VDMS.)

Error loading .iff file: the error could specify one of 2 .iff files (that I ran into). Solution was to enable low-level CDROM support (MSCDEX) in VDMS using the advanced button, compatibility tab.

Opening video works, in game videos lock up, esc works: enable VESA support in VDMS.

Hope this helps. Glad to know there are others like myself (and unlike EA) who still appreciate these great games.

I would be interested in running a downloadable version of wc1 and 2, but am not a wizard with dosbox. Any possibility of running either or both without hours of trouble?

Corona
 
WC3 crashing in videos after first mission, joystick problems

Hi all, hope someone here can help me out. I am running Win7 32-bit and have successfully played through WC1 and 2. WC3 starts ok and I can watch all the intro videos and talk to everyone on the ship just fine. However, there are two problems.

When I play the first mission, my joystick doesn't work correctly, even though it calibrated fine and will move my cursor outside the mission (while on the Victory) just fine, it won't steer my ship. I can fire by pulling the trigger and speed up/slow down by using the throttle, but I can't steer unless I use the mouse. This is the first problem, but the second one is more critical.

If I beat the first mission using the mouse, then I can return and land just fine. However, any video I try to play after that, such as talking to Hobbes on the flight deck or Vaquero in the bar, will hang DosBox and often my entire machine completely. Does anyone have any ideas, or a DosBox config file that is working for them under Win7? I have tried various DosBox options, disabled ems, set the cycles to fixed 30000 etc, but nothing seems to solve this problem. Thanks in advance for any help!!
 
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