Run All Old WC Games in DOSBox Walkthrough

[Edfilho]

Sounds like an incompatibility between the settings, dosbox and your sound card. Try more configurations in the installation menu. SB/Pro/16 can all work differently. DOSBox defaults to IRQ7 I believe.

Does dosbox detect the joystick as it's booting up? You need to make sure windows is detecting it properly as well. WC1/2's recognition of joysticks is pretty standard, so if dosbox sees it, they should work.

I'll try the different sound setups next weekend, I'll be spending the next 3 days in a city called Vitória (Victory working, away from my computer...

BTW, the joystick problem was Armada's fault, it made the joystick disappear from windows. A reboot solved the issue.

BTw, I played Privateer last night... I mean I REALLY played it, using the settings Wuqed posted above. I almost wept from emotion... It is the best game ever.

 

[Tempest]

Yes, DOSbox is a beautiful thing. Quick question to the folks playing Privateer out there, though: Running it I'm fine with. I got past the joystick calibration by calibrating a joypad and them replacing that with the joystick in game (since the calibration really didn't like my joystick and failed every time) and it works fine when replaced. Flawless. I'm curious about the cycles people are playing it at. I find so far, like has been stated, 10,000 seems to work well, but there is still the briefest bit of choppiness in the music. Anyone found a perfect number? (or are cycles and the music even related? )

 

[THE_WUQKED]

that number depends on your pc. - If you got sound-probs try out lowering cycles ingame in window-mode, till your CPU-usage (see task-manager) is always under 100% (or ~ under 50% for PIV HTs / Dual CPU/core systems). That's at least how I find out perfect numbers for each PC...

 

[criticalmass]

@Tempest: Try CTRL-F11/F12 to step up/down the cycles in small increments while playing the game.

If you fiddle around with that for a couple of minutes, you get the ideal number of cycles pretty quickly (or until the next time some background process is started in you Windows session).

 

[Tempest]

Perfect. Thanks, guys.

 

[criticalmass]

will someone reply to my above post please??

Sinidrax (or whoever you are), I understand your fascination with WC3 - it seems that the game has grown in the community's liking during the last couple of weeks.

Nonetheless, your questions are a bit complex. Let me get them in order.

ok i am trying to install WC3 and i did the ems=false and all. is there anything else i should change?

WC3 is pretty tricky to get to run on modern systems - what works with some people doesn't seem to work with others. If you have installed DOSbox, mounted the CD drive, mounted your harddisk, did the adjustments to it as mentioned above, you're on a good way. Other settings may depend on your hardware (Number of cycles depending on the performance of your machine, sound emulation depending on your soundcard, etc.)
If it doesn't work - whatever doesn't - you have to be more specific in trying to solve the problem. Check the Tech support forum, and search for WC3 threads, there have been quite a bunch of them in the last weeks, maybe they help you along.

also how should i save it?

If your setup was successful, the game should be able to save to its intall directory without much of a problem.

what should i save it to?

Your Harddisk. You need to tell DOSbox first that there is a harddisk in your machine, and how to address it. If you've done that, it should work just fine.

do i need to change dosbox after i have installed it?

Yes and no. DOSbox ist just an emulator, you need to tell it how and what to emulate. The easiest way of "setting up" DOSbox for each game you want to play with it is to use a so-called frontend, like D-Fend for instance. You can set up the DOSbox options for your game in a windows application, run the game from there, and DOSbox works it out for you in the background. Well, almost.

lastly how does one play the game without having to go through the installation process everytime and will i be able to actually save my game.

I suspect that I have answered that in the last question - otherwise I do not understand your question. If you've gotten the DOSbox setup right, you install WC3 just like on any other old DOS PC. If it's installed, you can run it, save your games, exit and come back later. If you're talking about saving the DOSbox setup, I'd recommend a frontend.

Have fun.

 

[THE_WUQKED]

I'll try...

1.) You should know, that for running WC3 via Dosbox at Ok-speeds you need at least 3Ghz (imho even my 3.2Ghz PIV @ 3.6Ghz isn't enough for close combat. But no idea how well the AMd A64 perform in Dosbox)
2.) The easiest way to save time is to create a new wc3.conf with the following content: see post 12 under Wing Commander III
3.) make sure you change the directories under autexec.bat (last point!)
4.) Also you should change core to normal instead of dynamic, cause dynamic is quite instable
5.) Now you can create a shortcut that always runs the wc3.conf:
EXAMPLE:
C:\Programme\DOSBox-0.63\dosbox.exe -conf "C:\Spiele\Dosbox\wc3.conf"
6.) Always keep in mind that WC3 still doesn't run perfect (quitting is difficult, for example ^^). You maybe need to fiddle arround some more with the dosbox settings yourself to get better results (like frameskip, cpu cycles etc). If you find your Pc being too weak for WCIII under Dosbox, you might want to give VDMS a try as well...

EDIT: Lol, started writing just before you replied ^^

 

[Unregistered]

well, the thing is i was having trouble playing it after i first intalled it. like i would have to go through the whole process of picking a sound card and all the other cards, i would then try to save it but it wouldnt let me... i'll try some of the stuff you said and if i cant figure it out i will write something in more detail.

ok how do i run the game after it is installed?

i installed the game played it, then saved it.

but now i dont know how to start the game directly. should i use the C: drive instead of the cdrom?

 

[criticalmass]

*Sheesh*

I'd recommend perusing the DOSbox FAQ for normal and advanced operation:
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php?page=Basic+Setup+and+Installation+of+DosBox

 

[Unregistered]

NVM i got it WORKING!!!!!! now i just gotta tweak the sound and all!!! THANK YOU FOR ALL THE HELP GUYS YOU HAVE MADE MY LIFE REALLY HAPPY!!!!

BTW my name is Mike, i think i shall register now

 

[Unregistered]

ok how do i run the game after it is installed?

i installed the game played it, then saved it.

but now i dont know how to start the game directly. should i use the C: drive instead of the cdrom?

no you can still use the d: drive it works just fine

actually what i did was this

mount d D:\ -t cdrom
UNIVBE.EXE
then do
WC3

it will work and your saved file will be there

 

[RZetlin]

I figured out how to get the CD Privateer running in DOSBox using D-Fend V2.

1) Copy the files from the CD into the desire directory. (Eg. c:\privater)

2) Run the install.exe to configure the music and speech. For music choose the general midi. For speech choose the soundblaster. Save the install.

3) Open the Priv.cfg file. Change the existing line to just =priv.tre.

4) Open the rf.cfg file. Change the existing line to just =rf.tre.

5) The reason why the cfg files had to be edit is to prevent the "CD not detected" message when the game is run.

6) For some reason the priv.exe is in a directory called instal. Move all the files from the instal directory and place them into the main directory c:\privater.

7) The reason this is done is to prevent this error:

'Memory: Original Current Used
'NEAR 0 31334 -31334
'FAR 0 374204 -374204
'HIGH 0 0 0

Error #1910

Filename=..\..\DATA\MOUSE\pnt.shp
Length =0
Position=0
Mode =READ
Program halted by code.
JEMM Unloaded.

8) Install Dosbox DOSbox 0.63.

9) Install D-Fend V2

10) In D-Fend use the wizard to create a new profile and point to the priv.exe.

11) Use the following settings: XMS=enable. EMS=disabled. Cycles=3000 (This will vary) Memory=32

12) The game should start up. Though there are still a few glitches. I find that the game freezes up during the intro movie, but this can be bypass by pressing enter to skip to the main screen. The game flight speed is so-so.

Does anybody know a better setting for DOSbox?

 

[ChrisReid]

I figured out how to get the CD Privateer running in DOSBox using D-Fend V2.
Does anybody know a better setting for DOSbox?

Turn the cycles up to about 5000-6000. It's not really necessary to use UIs like D-Fend.. only one tweak is usually required in dosbox.conf (set ems=false).

While I'm here.. I went through and deleted a bunch of posts in this thread. We want to keep the general discussion out, so people browsing the stickied threads for technical support can get to the information they need. Unregistered posters that do double-postings need to register so they can just go back and add in the relevant information.

 

[Unregistered]

sound

when i run on THE_WUQKED's configuration for WC3 my sound is choppy, what can i do to fix this? Is there a certain sound and digital card that i should pick exactly?

 

[Dragon1]

I just got WC3 to run with DOSBox, but during mission play, the DOSBox application just suddenly and randomly crashes. Their is no error message or hang-up, it just quits. What's the deal?

 

[THE_WUQKED]

when i run on THE_WUQKED's configuration for WC3 my sound is choppy, what can i do to fix this? Is there a certain sound and digital card that i should pick exactly?

You need to lower the cpu-cycles to stop the choppy sound till CPU usage is under 100% (under 50% for HT/dual CPU). - But then again even the cycles I posted aren't enough for smooth play. So I guess your CPU is slower than 3Ghz/3000+? If so, you should not expect that much
Anyway, try fiddling arround with the cycles to fix the sound probs

EDIT: To the crashes: Like I posted before, dynamic core is very instable and cuases such crashes. So if you use it, go back to normal core to fix the crashes. Only downside will be that you can't use that high cycles anymore without getting choppy sound - IF you are on normal core already and suffer under crashes, I got no idea, sorry

 

[RZetlin]

Turn the cycles up to about 5000-6000. It's not really necessary to use UIs like D-Fend.. only one tweak is usually required in dosbox.conf (set ems=false).

I find that if you increaes the cycles the game slows down (Eg. Music shutters).

 

[cff]

There is a certain magic number. Below it the emulator willingly sloes down the game. Above that number your CPU is too slow to do everything in time and the emulation stutters. You have to find the top number your CPU can handle (or use dynamic core).

 

[Edfilho]

THe funny thing is that in armada, for example, the magic number varies. I have to make it slower when it's just me and one enemy fighter, but I have to make it go faster when there are carriers or more fighters. PRiv is always the same, with a bit of slowdown inside jumpspheres.

I tried Strike Commander CD the other day. It ran fine. But I kinda didn't like the flying part much. the hud resolution is too bad. and the view distance too short. It was kinda flying blind... Is there any higher res mode???

Ultima VII played th intro like a dream (I REALLY like the spoken speech from the Guardian) but then crashed after I tried to start the game. MAybe it is a matter of doing loadfix or EMS= something.

I couldn't install Ultima 8 because the stupid EA 1 CD (the one with SCCD, Synd and WC2) didn't understand the size of my HD. Drat.

Fortunately both games are playable in winxp with a few utilities.

Synd won't work

WC3 runs too slow (My machine is "only" 2800GHz...)

System Shock CD is also "runnable" in XP...

Any other suggestions of GREAT games from those days that I should test with DB?

 

[Unregistered]

joystick

Is their a way to just skip the joystick calibration. I don't have one and never used one to play privater before.