DOS Games Discussion

[Kilo Bravo]

I finally had the courage and initiative to open my game library (a closeted room where games are shelved) and began to rebuild a new inventory list while resorting each genre by age (and preference by favoritism ).

Until I came across the dominantly green box of this oldie-but-a-goodie. It may not be known very well as opposed to Duke Nukem 3D and System Shock, but it is a damn good game. I have continued to play the game on a dedicated DOS system for years before 2004 to help remind me of what a game really is all about. The DOS system died in early 2004.

The golden formula (if one does exist) to get D. W. Bradley's classic (one of the few game designers I do respect for a game well done, not a game well rendered) has been elusive for me for quite a while now. Origin must be very proud in getting a game to be amazingly great and so equally frustrating to run.

So before I request that someone add this to the WinXP Compatibility List as a treasure that could be lost forever, I'd really like to ask: Has anyone even succeeded in getting this to run? Please, share your blessings!

[dosraider]

My neighbour country Germany has forbidden this game, it's prohibited to sell over there (: .
Anyway I always found it to be a minor mix between Doom and Hexen, or Doom and Heretic.

About running the game:
Once again the same answer, VPC with MSDos6.22 or Freedos does the job, flawless.
You can get it to run directly in XP but ... the sound isn't working (at least not on my AC97 onboard, maybe if you have a soundcard. But even with a soundcard I doubt you will get sound out as it needs an IRQ and DMA, and by now we all know how XP reacts on such demands -> back to desktop.
You're better of using VPC as it emulates a SB and avoid all those problems.

[Kilo Bravo]

Ooohh...VPC. I've downloaded SP1 of this enigmatic software but never got round to actually installing it. Perhaps it's because I don't know exactly what it does to "virtualize" a different operating system "instance". Heh heh.

Online resources are rather vague on how it works. Either that or my comprehension is. Would you care to enlighten me?

Thanks for the reply. Thought CyberMage would die an undeserved...abandonment? More power to you!

[dosraider]

VPC2004 is free now, download it at MS.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/downloads/sp1.mspx
Even if it will give an error message in XP home it runs in XPHome, no problems.

VPC simply creates a VirtualPC in your XP. It uses a 486 BIOS
So run the prog and install the OS of your choice in it.
It runs all MSDos, W1.X-W3.XX and Freedos versions flawless.
If you ever could work in MSDos you will love that program, really.

Difference with dosbox is that you work in a fully emulated and virtual PC, it's the closest I know to a real 486 or early Pentium PC. Even the harddrive is virtual, so you are completely safe regarding your main PC, whatever you do or screw up in your VPC environment does not affect your XP .

You can also run W95/98/NT/2K/XP and even Vista in it, also most Linux distros. Drawback there is the emulated S3Virge vidcard, excellent for dosgames but no real hardware or 3D support. Doesn't matter for games that are able to run in software mode, so you even can get QuakeII running in VPC with W98.
A bit slow for all that's above W98 however.

[Kilo Bravo]

Thanks for all your suggestions.

Apparently all the solutions have worked under certain conditions. VPC has grabbed the golden formula bag, however. I can finally run CyberMage in all glorious high resolution 640 x 400 with high resolution animations and sound, and it runs smoothly, too. It does have a few quirks though, including the fact that input seems to be unresponsive at times. Sound does skip quite a bit, too - plus the movies don't seem to have sound either.

I also like the fact that UNIVBE recognizes the ViRGE. I haven't got this little utility to recognize anything since...ever?

Thanks again. I intend this solution to be only temporary. I can see myself shopping for old hardware again by next week.