Wing Commander Games and Windows XP - A Summary

Regular DOSBox 0.63 has the dynamic cpu core option. It wasn't explored much in the past because enabling it caused other Wing Commander games to go break, but it helps with WC3. Change core=normal to core=dynamic in the dosbox.conf file.

Yeah, USB joysticks are what you use for all WC games in DOSBox.
 
Good news. Alright, my WC3 is in the mail. Wait a few days and I shall post the results!
 
ok now what? I am running it in dosbox, BUUUUT it is soooooo slow, no matter what I do it runs really slow, what should I change to make it run faster?
 
orangefen said:
ok now what? I am running it in dosbox, BUUUUT it is soooooo slow, no matter what I do it runs really slow, what should I change to make it run faster?
Click to expand...

Probably your PC?
What specs do you have? No matter what settings used, DosBox IS extremely resource hungry (and so is VDMS sound).
 
orangefen said:
ok now what? I am running it in dosbox, BUUUUT it is soooooo slow, no matter what I do it runs really slow, what should I change to make it run faster?
Click to expand...

Like chris said, First thing to make sure is that you "Change core=normal to core=dynamic in the dosbox.conf file". If you've done that have you tried adjusting the CPU cycles?
 
oh sorry bout that last one, Imisread some if the info on it, I thought that the recommended cycles was 2000 to 3000, when they actually meant 20000 to 30000, ~~~ and I actually thought that increasing the cycles would slow the game down, however now it crashes all the time, it doesn't crash at any particular point, it seems to be at random
 
Well, 20,000 is too high for any normal computer to run. You're looking at 6-10,000 for most computers. Increasing cycles beyond the maximum your computer can handle will choke the computer, slow it down and create instabilities.
 
If you can set up VDMS sound program properly then you can run Wc3 on the command prompt (P.S. usb joysticks work cuz i used one; no gameport on my pc anyway). It runs the game alright with sound running well enough. I don't remember much crashing, a lil freezing maybe but not crashing once i really got into it. Questions then plz mail or post me. Thanks!
 
ChrisReid said:
Well, 20,000 is too high for any normal computer to run. You're looking at 6-10,000 for most computers. Increasing cycles beyond the maximum your computer can handle will choke the computer, slow it down and create instabilities.
Click to expand...

Not for the dynamic core. It should auto adjust the cycles. The cycles set only act as the UPPER limit for the dynamic core.
 
Okay, everyone says to install the Win95 patch for WC4 and I plan on that, but I can't get through the game install. When I finish the going through the system tests, sound tests, etc. and go to actually install the files it crashes and tells me "Not enough space on drive for Swapfile. There must be 15 Mb free on this drive."

I will note that I'm running in DosBox because when I try to install in WinXP Home I get a message saying "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\AUTOEXEC.NT. The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications."

I can get through the setup process in DosBox but I get kicked out of the install after that, before any files are written to the drive. Am I missing something here? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I need help!
 
Luck said:
Okay, everyone says to install the Win95 patch for WC4 and I plan on that, but I can't get through the game install. When I finish the going through the system tests, sound tests, etc. and go to actually install the files it crashes and tells me "Not enough space on drive for Swapfile. There must be 15 Mb free on this drive."
Click to expand...

Maybe this is a stupid question but obviously you mounted the CD-rom drive, but did you remember to mount the Hard drive too?
 
I did mount my hardrive. And actually, after playing around a little, I got WC4 to run straight from windows XP but it crashes when it goes to load the first flight sequence after the opening movies I get a message saying "Application files could not be found on the local hard drive or on any CD ROM drive. The game CD is either missing, invalid, or may need cleaning."

I think that w/ some help from you guys I can get it to work from here. Everyone else seems to be able to run this but I'm having a lot of trouble. The game is patched w/ the Windows 95 patch and the Windows 2000 upgrade patch. Again, I'm not playing it in DOSbox now and it's running perfectly smooth then just crashes. Any advice?
 
Are you running the computer in win 95 compatibility mode? If you right-click on the execute file (.exe file) and set the XP system to run it in compatibility mode for windows then it may solve that problem.
 
Yes I am. The problem seems to be that it's not reading the CD-ROM. Any other games I play work fine but for some reason WC4 really doesn't want to. I'm getting pretty frustrated cause it runs smooth and perfect until it goes to load the first flying sequence. Then it suddenly stops and gives me the aforementioned error. I'm going to keep toying around w/ it but I'm at a total loss for ideas on what's wrong.
 
Hah! Don't know what happened but the game is working...just trying to figure out how to get the setup program to reconize my mouse and joystick. I can use them on the menu screens in-game but not in-flight because Setup.bat doesn't pick them up for some reason. I'm running it in Win95 compatibilty also so I'm still a little confused about what's going on.
 
Luck said:
Hah! Don't know what happened but the game is working...just trying to figure out how to get the setup program to reconize my mouse and joystick. I can use them on the menu screens in-game but not in-flight because Setup.bat doesn't pick them up for some reason. I'm running it in Win95 compatibilty also so I'm still a little confused about what's going on.
Click to expand...

Going to the options screen inflight doesnt help? (ALT-O) YOu Should be able to access the same options from the terminal in flight control though as well. It might be that the game has defaulted to keyboard control. But switching it there should work if you can use it everywhere else except inflight. (as the game is obviously detecting the mouse and joystick just fine)
 
Is it possible to run KS WC3 on a modern computer without having to alt-tab out every now and then and set priority to normal to prevent it from freezing?
 
I was having trouble with my KS WC3 game on winXP. I could get past the intro movies and into the game... but once I started trying to go around on ship or talk to people it would freeze up. So I went back and uninstalled the game. When you intall it you have three options of either normal, better, or best performance. I had originally set it at best. I reinstalled it at the better performance level and now it runs great. At least so far it does.... Hope this helps anyone having trouble with theirs!!
 
Well, as stated by Edfilho in the very first post, WC4 should work fine on WXP machines as long as the W95 patch is used.

I just bought the bare CDs on ebay (no box, no manual & one scratched CD!!!) and I feel unable to make it work. First of all I try to configure it and I'm unable to hear any sound (SBpro) or even make the mouse work.

Can I applay W95 compatibity on exes which are on a CD? Have I to download anything else? Should I better try DOSBox?

Thanks to you all, as always!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top