Run All Old WC Games in DOSBox Walkthrough

Not working in DOS box

(Same guy as in last post)

I got the DOS version of the game installed via DOSbox but it doesn't run. Freezes during the transition from the ship crashing into the building to the waking up scene every time. Someone else seems to have reported that problem on DosBox 0.73 on Dosbox website, but I'm using 0.74.

Followed all the instructions on the tech page here, also installed the patch. Any ideas?

I know the CD is good because you can actually straight up install and run this game in W7, but then you need to run CPU throttle program.
 
Issue resolved - W7 > DOSBOX for Priv 2

Same guy as last two posts here.

I sorted out my freezing issue by following the last tip in your helpful tech section for installing the game - chose Sound Blaster 16 instead of Roland for the music and now the game loads past intro.

But for the same reason someone else noted in DOSBox, it's pointless to place this game through the utility.

There is a huge framerate dip when you are facing planets and, presumably, large ships, so you have to constantly fiddle with the cycle rate. That, in turn, throws off the joystick calibration. In short, the game is unplayable this way because mouse control is worthless.

The good news, again, is that you can play the game in Windows 7 with a CPU slowdown tool like CPU killer, though that doesn't mitigate all the speed issues.
 
My apologies for the pointless post, but you have posted 3 times with no response!

I've not tried getting priv2 running in dosbox (or indeed in windows xp or above) but it sounds like you might need to tweak a few settings in the dosbox cpu section, make sure it's on auto or at least dynamic, and also make sure your pc is up to the task of emulating the system!

As a general rule, a system needs to be around 10 times as powerful as the thing you're trying to emulate, so at least a 2ghz system is really needed for priv2 (especially given the fairly heavy graphics for it's time).

If you want to post your dosbox config file and let me know your specs I'll have a glance at them and see if there's anything glaring.

Otherwise, priv2 seems to be the hardest wc game to get working properly, not least because of the lack of frame limiter... there was a patch made some time back to fix it for faster systems but i believe it's worthless now as it merely made the game pause between frames. - also it only works on the windows version - anyway check it out here:
https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/4807
the speed fix mentioned is also available here:
https://www.wcnews.com/files.shtml#wcpriv2

On an unrelated note, to anyone who can fix it, the "midnight editor" link there is dead.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sorry, I've registered now.

My machine is pretty fast already: Intel i5 @ 3.8 ghz. I was using default Dosbox 0.74 settings, because Dosbox 0.74 is supposed to automatically guess the game speed, right? Is there some advantage to playing with the various CPU-related settings in dosbox config (not that I would know the logic behind what variables to change)? I did play with the cycle rate using Ctrl+F12/F11, but as noted, it's a tedious exercise to have to always change cycles mid-combat.

I do have a separate question though:

I'm playing WCIV in Windows, thanks to the WC CD-to-DVD patch, but I can only play in a small window. Manually dragging the window doesn't make it larger; it stubbornly stays small. Fullscreen magically disappears my mouse cursor. Is there a way to set a fixed window size or make my mouse reappear in fullscreen mode?

I don't have this problem in fullscreen when I play via Dosbox, but of course I then lose out on the DVD quality FMVs.
 
Matrices, I found the p2 demo to run stupidly fast in dosbox - so maybe you should choose manual cycle speed (cycles=fixed 10000) and use ctrl+f12 and f11 to find a nice balanced speed? but again, I found a slight lag when i faced something, probably the sudden need to load stuff! If there was a show-fps setting in p2 it would be easier to find a nice balance.

Looks like that dosbox is like gulikoza's quite old dosbox compile. Does the mt-32 support include the roms though? Eitherway, the glide support and fact that it's a modern build is pretty useful!
 
Yes it does include gulikoza's updated dx and opengl addons but it does include a gui embedded on the top bar that saves a great deal of time with .conf editing. I personally haven't used the mt-32 but it does come from the munt project I usually use gus in emulation but my dos machine uses either an awe 64 with a roland wave blaster (scb-55 i think) or the simm ram addon adapter with an awe 64 wth a 28mb soundfont file. The other main useful addition is the savestate function in the gui that operates like many emulator's save functions
 
Unregistered said:
I loaded DOSBOX in order to run my old Wing Commander Series -- but when I try to copy the files to a directory I made on my Hard Drive it says WC3 is incompatible with 64 bit versions of Windows I tried WC 3 and IV and received the same warning anyone know how to fix this -- my e-mail address is boudreaujr@pcisys.net -- any help would be appriciated thanks Armand
Click to expand...

It sounds like you're trying to run it in Windows. You need to follow the mounting instructions in the Tech Support section and run it from withing DOSBox, unless you're using the Kilrathi Saga or Win95 versions of these games.
 
Hi guys, first post here so I hope this is the right place!

I'm running WC3 on dosbox 0.74 and thanks to the guide on this site I got it all up and running to my great surprise, I'm normally hopeless with anything that resembles DOS! My only problem is its a bit slow, I used the recommended dosbox options on the guide to installing the game but it doesn't seem to have done me much good.

The game is playable (I'm just on the Behemoth missions at the moment) but it slows right down if there's a lot happening on the screen. Taking off from the Victory, close fighter combat and trying to take down cap ships and corvettes are particularly affected. Running the game windowed seems to help a little but the gameplay is still slow in those places. What can I do to make things run smoother?
 
Welcome.

Emulation in DOSBox actually requires substantial processing power and WC3 is a pretty CPU-intensive game. It's possible that your computer might not quite be enough to play WC3 smoothly. I don't yet have experience of WC3 in DOSBox, but if you post your system specifications, others may remark on whether or not your machine is sufficient for playing WC3 at a reasonable frame rate.
 
Wedge009 said:
Welcome.

Emulation in DOSBox actually requires substantial processing power and WC3 is a pretty CPU-intensive game. It's possible that your computer might not quite be enough to play WC3 smoothly. I don't yet have experience of WC3 in DOSBox, but if you post your system specifications, others may remark on whether or not your machine is sufficient for playing WC3 at a reasonable frame rate.
Click to expand...

Hi Wedge, sorry for the late reply have had a busy few days! My specs are AMD Turion Duel-Core RM-70 2.00 Ghz processor and 3 GB RAM

I have also started a game on WC4 but I'm finding movies particularly are a bit choppy and the gameplay can be very smooth one second but stuttering the next. Are there any WC4 specific fixes for this?
 
WC4 will run fine in Windows XP, you shouldn't need to run it in DOSBox. I don't know about later versions of Windows, though.
 
I'm on Vista, but I thought I'd try running it without Dosbox since you mentioned that possibility, I can't get it to run using Vista's command prompt because the command prompt doesn't seem to want to let me select the CD drive, whilst double clicking the run WC4 icon in the cd drive returns the error that the system does not support full screen mode.
 
Leper Messiah said:
I'm on Vista, but I thought I'd try running it without Dosbox since you mentioned that possibility, I can't get it to run using Vista's command prompt because the command prompt doesn't seem to want to let me select the CD drive, whilst double clicking the run WC4 icon in the cd drive returns the error that the system does not support full screen mode.
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You are running the DOS version? If you already installed the game in dosbox, then apply the Win95 patch to the game and set the compatability mode on the exe and run the game. If you haven't installed it, likely you need to install the game using dosbox first and then as above install the patch.

IF you want to continue running dosbox you will probably have better success switching off the cycles=auto and putting in a figure like 30000 or so. Experiment with the exact figure if it's still sluggish, though older PC might choke if you put the value too high as well.
Core should be set to either auto or dynamic.
 
Found the solution after all this time

Unregistered said:
Hey, someone replied back! I did not think of that, but then again I do not use DosBox much. I will try that and see if it works.

It is very strange though because that is the only key that will not work.
Click to expand...

So I stopped trying to find an answer for awhile because of classes but now that I am not taking college summer classes I decided to come back and try to get Privateer to work right and I finally did! My issue was that these symbols +. ~, -, etc were not working correctly. It turns out that this is a common issue for Win7 and Vista users involving Microsoft eHome Infrared Transceiver. This issue and the solution to solving this issue also applies to Oblivion and other PC games.

Note, in my case, reassigning the DOSBox key mapper did not work.

Second, there are two possible solutions:

You can disable the infrared port by disabling all of the hardware that controls it. Open Device Manager and choose 'View - Devices by connection'. Expand 'Consumer IR devices' and select 'Microsoft e-home infrared transceiver'. Right-click and disable 'HID-compliant consumer control device', 'HID-compliant device' (there may be more than one) and 'HID-compliant mouse'. Reboot and the port should be disabled. To reenable, reverse the procedure and enable all of the hardware. (Source:http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...nsceiver/22f18eeb-fae0-45f9-88a7-ed25e9777cbe)

OR: (This one worked for me)

1) Open Device Manager
2) Click on "Keyboards" to open the tree.
3) Right-Click on "Microsoft eHome MCIR 109 Keyboard" and choose "Uninstall", then click "Ok".
4) Right-Click on "Microsoft eHome MCIR Keyboard" and choose "Uninstall", then click "Ok".
5) Right-Click on "Microsoft eHome Remote Control Keyboard keys" and choose "Uninstall", then click "Ok".
6) Click on "Human Interface Devices" to open the tree.
7) Right-Click on "Microsoft eHome Infrared Transceiver" and choose "Disable", then click "Ok".

You do not have to reboot.

Now if you ever DO get a keyboard that uses Media Center, you can then go back and Enable that device, which will reinstall those keyboards again after rebooting. (Source: http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=24072)
 
quick question I'm trying to install wc4 through the dosbox but when I hit install it won't let me select a install directory.
 
yeah firgured out what I did wrong there. Thank you. Just one more question when I try to install it to my c drive it says it doesn't have enough space but I have like 60 gigs free any solutions other then creating a partition?
 
Unregistered said:
yeah firgured out what I did wrong there. Thank you. Just one more question when I try to install it to my c drive it says it doesn't have enough space but I have like 60 gigs free any solutions other then creating a partition?
Click to expand...

You could try creating the directory you want to install to ahead of time. That might do it. Otherwise, make sure you have the right mounting lines and that you aren't trying to mount your harddrive like a CD-ROM and vice versa.
 
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