DOS Games Discussion

Scise · Guest

Attention! Scroll down a bit to read the solution to get Bio Menace working, in the second post by 'emmzee'!!!

I just downloaded Bio Menace, one of my favorite shoot-em-all-to-get-the-prize-games and i blasted a slime when, BOOM! My dos went back to windows saying "The program performed an "ilegal" operation and has been terminated. I read the help file and it said, if you get lockdowns (Whatever that means.) Then go to CONFIG.SYS on your computer, and add
STACKS=9,256 I have no idea to get into my Config.sys thing on my computer, i have a windows 98, and is there anyway to fix this without altering my config thingy? Please help!!

A Frikkin Cuccoan

Wally*Won_Kenobie · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2004 4:41 am Post subject:

biomenance should work fine with Dosbox

emmzee · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2004 11:29 am Post subject:

EDIT: The solution to getting Bio Menace working has been found, scroll down a bit past this message to my next post!

It should work in DOSBox, but it seems that either it never worked properly or they broke it in the newest version of DOSBox (0.61). I just tried it and it locks up when I shoot the first enemy. Too bad cuz it plays really smoothly. I've made a post about it on the DOSBox page:

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/comp_list.php?showID=1345&letter=b

Anyways, one solution may be to try downloading the old version of DOSBox, 0.58:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=52551

(Get the one that says "dosbox0.58-win32-installer.exe")

If that doesn't work ... usually there is a file called "config.sys" in the root folder of your hard drive (which is 99% of the time your C: drive). If there is no file called "config.sys" in your C:\ folder then just create one (in notepad or whatever) and put the line

STACKS=9,128

in it. Then reboot so the change will take effect. I have no idea if that will work but it's worth a shot. Good luck Happy

Let us know if you get it working A Frikkin Cuccoan

486 player · Gaming Demi-god Joined: 18 Sep 2002 Posts: 1022

If DOSBox uses same memory address than smartdrive, it sure locks up. (Bio tries to work load here.)

emmzee · Posted: Sun Mar 07, 2004 5:08 pm Post subject: BIO MENACE WORKS FINE IN WINDOWS!

Solution found Happy

Here's how to get it working ...

I decided to search around the DOSBox forum to see if anyone had figured a way around the lockup problem with Bio Menace, and found that one of the DOSBox authors released a patch. Download it here:

http://www.dosgames.com/biopatch.zip

Here's the overly-specific instructions, copied from the included text file I wrote up (yea I'm really bored today Tbbbbbth!

)

How to "patch" Bio Menace so that it works in Windows XP:

1) Download and install DOSBox. It's a free DOS emulator that helps you play DOS games.

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net

(Note: If you haven't already downloaded, unzipped and installed Bio Menace, do so now. You may need to use DOSBox in order to install Bio Menace.)

2) Download biopatch.zip from dosgames.com

http://www.dosgames.com/biopatch.zip

3) Unzip biopatch.zip into your Bio Menace folder.

4) Start up DOSBox.

5) Before running Bio Menace, run biopatch.exe. It should give you a message to let you know it worked.

6) Then run Bio Menace (in the SAME DOSBox window!)

Should work, seems to work fine for me in DOSBox 0.61 in WinXP. Note that you must run the patch EVERY TIME before you play the game!!!

----------

Patch by: Finster (DOSBox Author)

Original post on the DOSBox forum about this patch:

"hell, [bio menace] games are buggy... they do some weird things with the interrupt table (comparing things that dont make any sense). I have attached a small patch which has to be started in dosbox before one of those games are executed. it's a simple fix writing the value 0000 at the memory address 0000:0006. Works with all three bio menaces. stupid games..."

----------

Enjoy Wink

Bio-Freak · Guest

I have tried EVERYTHING that you guys have mentioned. None of it seems to work. I have tried changing the config.sys line, STACKS=9,256 and STACKS=9,128. I have tried DosBox, but to no avail. DosBox simply crashes when I jump in the game, and operates at a very slow speed that I can't even change with CTRL+F12. I have tried changing the 'FILES=10' line in config.sys, one particular site recommended I change it to FILES=60, but that didn't work. I have tried making a DOS boot disk, which worked perfectly, and I even managed to get sound, until I shot an enemy. I have Windows ME (I know, I know! Meh

) and it has no trace of DOS at all except for a Prompt, which sucks. I then moved the files to my Windows 95 machine, and installed the game there. It worked fine the first time, then I shut down and went back later and it didn't work. I then restarted and ran from DOS, it gets to the title screen and then exits to DOS, telling me I am out of memory. Can anyone at all help?

PS: A DOS boot disk may work for some other people, so I will describe how to make one. (We will assume BM is installed in the dir "C:\MENACE")
1. Format a floppy disk, and then obtain the files COMMAND.COM and IO.SYS from the directory "C:\Windows\COMMAND\EBD\***.***"
2. Copy these 2 files to your disk, and then restart your computer with the disk IN the drive.
3. At a point, you will get a command prompt. In this prompt, type
cd:\menace
4. You will then access your BM directory. Type the name of the executable game file (mine is "bmenace1.exe") and hit 'Enter'.
5. The game should now run.

If anyone can help with my problem, that would be great! Congratulatory

emmzee · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 3:12 am Post subject:

Did you use the DOSBox with the Bio Menace patch I posted? It works perfectly for me in Windows XP ... if you did try it but it didn't work, what error(s) did you get, or how was the game messed up?

Bio-Freak · Guest

Yeah, I did try it with the patch and DosBox but even that didn't work. I just get an 'Illegal Operation' error, which comes up down the bottom right corner of the screen. It varies every time with the code it says. Any ideas?

Frenkel · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:00 am Post subject:

It works for me in Dos if I don't have the line DOS=UMB in my config.sys.

Bio-Freak · Guest

This is the exact error message I get and when I click 'Details' I get a set of numbers in the format ****.**** and the numbers vary each time.

As you can probably see I really want to play this game!

kaza · Guest

does any 1 ave a visual game boy if u ave put some games on this thing
Laughing

ComputerWolf · Newbie Joined: 16 Jul 2004 Posts: 4

The patch worked for me, but is there a way to make the patch so that as soon as it loads it runs the actual game file? it would be nice to only have one file to run. If this is possible please let me know, but otherwise awesome job!

emmzee · Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2004 5:10 pm Post subject:

You can make a DOS batch file ... open up a text editor and type in both commands, ie:

Exenteth · Guest

http://www.dosgames.com/biopatch.zip does not work, any other links out there?

emmzee · Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 10:36 pm Post subject:

The link works now. Sorry 'bout that. The site moved to a new server recently, I forgot to upload that file, but I just uploaded it:

http://www.dosgames.com/biopatch.zip [2k]