WC3 Digital/Music Card Startup Problem

A

alxsml

Spaceman
Hello folks, I would really really appreciate anyone who could help me anyway. Heres the situation. I got the WC3, 4 CD set and stuck it into my 933 Mhz Pentium 3. Well ... I can run the installation right off the CD but it doesn't get past the first screen and it returns to windows without doing anything. So then I figured how to use DOSbox just to run the installation, and after installing, I can run the program from windows, and it seems to run fine. EXCEPT ... i have no sound at all for the movie. After the movies done... i have gotten it to where I do get audio for the game ... like when i'm on the carrier etc. If i play around with the different music card or digital card options... most of them give me an error message at startup saying that it can't start my digital card or music card. Actually at this point, the only way i can seem to get the thing to work again is to have No music/digital card selected at all.

During installation, for the music cards .... none of the Soundblaster options give me clear sample music ... but the option "MIDI M4PO1" or something gives me beautiful music at the sample. For the digital cards, I haven't been able to get any to play a good sample. The only thing is that i might have the wrong I/O, IRQ, DMA options? I could play around with that but that would take me years with all the different combinations.

At this point, I'm even ready to go into the past and try to assemble a Pentium 75 just for this game!! ... but its maddening to be so close and yet so far!! HELP!

Any questions, please ask because i do realize that my whole post could be totally confusing and incoherent. Thanks!
 
We need more info on your computers specs to make any kind of educated guess here. First off, what kind of soundcard are you using? Or is it an on-board solution? Do you have it's latest drivers? Also which Operating system are you runnning (as this can make a big difference)

For WC4 did you apply the win95 patch and then set the executables compatability moe to either win95 or win98?

THe midi option will only be usefull for wc3 though (and only for the music. Infact that's probably the better choice for your music)
 
The sound card thats it says i have is SB Audigy Audio [1880]

This is all the sound related devices I have listed under Sound, Video and Game controllers in my device manager.

Audio Codecs
Creative Audigy Audio processor (WDM)
ESS Allegro PCI Audio (WDM)
Legacy Audio Drivers
MPU-401 Compatible MIDI device
TASCAM US-122
US-122 WDM Interface

The Creative Audigy is what I am currently using ... it is an add on sound card I put in not too long ago, so the drivers have to be current. The ESS allegro is what my computer orginally has (I think). i dont know what or where that legacy thing came from. The Tascam US-122 is an external sound card i use for recording.

By the way I am talking only about WC 3 here not 4 .... but if I specify the midi MPU-401 as the music card, at startup it says again that it cannot start this music card... even though at the installation the sample music it plays is PERFECT.

I have windows XP pro. Computer has 933 Mhz and 128 MB Ram
 
I read something online which said that this problem is probably because my sound card is not setup right or is not 100% compatible with any of the the choices in the game. I find that hard to accept because one of the choices is Soundblaster/Compatibles ... but anyway ... i just ordered an SB 16 sound card .... which is one of the choices on there ... you guys think that would be worth a try? Would that sound card even work on this computer?
 
Hmm, well the MPU-401 actually refers to your joystick port to wich you might possibly have a synth attached, but there is no attached(i presume)

i think the ESS alegro is an onboard chip(integrated in your mainboard)
if that is the case, consult your mainboard manual about something called
"legacy audio"or similar. this should provide information how to handle your
soundcard through DOS(not windows)

(I do not Think DOSBOX can handle WC3 on a pentium 3)

if you have found the driver, try to make a "boot disk", a floppy
from which your system starts, loads only the sound drivers and
support for your CD-rom player, and gives you the old "A:\>"
then enter your WC3 directory, and reconfigure sound and graphic
options and run the game.

better, assemble your pentium 75, equip it with 32MB EDO,
andMS-DOS 5.0 or 6.22 ;-)
 
Yeah, Mace is right. A 933 MHz computer is too slow to emulate WC3 in DOSBox. You should be able to install it there fine, but then your sound options when you drop back out to normal windows could be drastically different. Without any sort of legacy drivers, it might not be possible at all to get your card to play the sound correctly. You could get an old computer, or alternately, get a brand new one and stay completely within DOSBox.

The default DOSBox sound card settings are Soundblaster, IRQ7, Port 220, DMA (low) 1, DMAHigh 5.
 
Mace said:
Hmm, well the MPU-401 actually refers to your joystick port to wich you might possibly have a synth attached, but there is no attached(i presume)
Click to expand...

Only sort of. It always was the old MIDI output port which just happens to be the same and usable as a gameport. So what happens is that setting your music to it in dosbox or windows with newer wavetable soundcards the signal automaticaly channeled to its wavetable instead of an external synthesizer. Usually General MIDI is a better choice over choosind MPU-401 as the rolands sound fonts dont necessarily match up quite right with the way Windows will handle the midi file.
 
I do have the legacy drivers. I see them in my device manager. How do i use this to make it work? If i'm supposed to make a boot disk like Mace said, could someone walk me through how to do that? I used to know a long long time ago but can't remember for the life of me! My computers user manual is totally useless as it was meant for people who have never seen a computer in thier lives thus is extremely basic and had no advanced info whatsoever.
 
Ok this is infuriating! I tried this game on my laptop ... which isn't anything super ... but its failry newer. Its a Celeron 2.8 Ghz with 224 MB Ram. With DOSbox the installation starts up fine... the test video looks great! BUT I HAVE THE SAME AUDIO PROBLEM!!!! It can't start up any of the Soundblaster digital or music cards. This laptop has Conexant AMC Audio.... and on device manager, I see that it has the legacy audio drivers.

But i can't beleive i have the same exact problem and error message. What am I doing wrong?? Or like error says ... could i really just have a bad CD? Another hint that this might be the problem is that even if i choose none of the music or digital cards ... it still gives me a different error saying that it could be a bad CD read error.
 
You still haven't addressed the IRQ type settings. What are you doing for that? If you're configuring things to work in DOSBox, then switching to windows, then the sound settings must be set to work with your legacy drivers.
 
If your pentium 3 has an ISA card slot, ebay up a functional gravis ultrasound extreme, i usually run into them for 10 euro's and for DOS-games it's the best soundcard i ever had.

this comes with native DOS drivers, and emulaters for sounblaster and roland cards.
too bad gravis stopped soundcard development :confused:
 
Allright my friends! I have gone off the deep end and am actually considering assembling a Pentium 75 computer (the things people do for a game!). Like i mentioned before ... i sorta know my way around computers innards ... but something tells me i'm gonna be learning a lot more in the near future! For anyone who would like to help me set this up, any input would be greatly appreciated!

6816828603 is the ebay item number for the motherboard I got. Basically its a 75 Mhz motherboard with 64 MB ram... onboard video- S3 Trio 64 SVGA card and 1 MB of onboard SVGA video memory.... and plenty of open PCI and ISA slots. And i have an SB 16 sound card on the way.

Now if I am right ... i need a power supply ... a hard drive .... a CD-ROM drive ... an operating system and a case to hold it all together right? Am i missing anything? Would i need a floppy drive?

Anyway ... if you guys could tell me specific keywords to search for on ebay for each of those items (and anymore things i'd need), i couldn't tell you how happy I'd be!!
 
alxsml said:
Now if I am right ... i need a power supply ... a hard drive .... a CD-ROM drive ... an operating system and a case to hold it all together right? Am i missing anything? Would i need a floppy drive?

Anyway ... if you guys could tell me specific keywords to search for on ebay for each of those items (and anymore things i'd need), i couldn't tell you how happy I'd be!!
Click to expand...

Definitely need a floppy drive. The majority of the software you'd want to run on a Pentium 75 would be on floppies. Make sure the soundcard and CD-ROM have drivers or that you can get drivers for them. Hard drive might have to be under 2 gigs. Not sure what the power connector would be.
 
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