People having problems with Syndicate!

[Kosta]

For all of you that can't run Syndicate from WinXP here is the solution to the most common problem - you cannot place the game into a directory (or path) that contains long file names. So, for example, C:\My Documents\Syndicate is out of the question. An example of a correct path would be C:\Games\Syndicate.
Remember, directory name must be under 8 characters and must not contain spaces or special characters!

Hope this helps!

[Danny252]

I have another prob with it. I use DOS BOX to run it, but sometimes when loading a mission it crashes. the directory names are short so help kosta our beloved Abandonia host!

[gregor]

offtopic qestuion: does your sound at syndicate work by any chance? because mine doesen't. the game works... but no sound.

[Danny252]

Nice explination Kosta on directory names, but syndicate is 9 characters, so if 8 chars is the max C:Games\Syndicate wouldn't work. :)

[preDa]

d:\syndicate here...
and not work =/

[FreeFreddy]

By the way: you can't save/load your games in Syndicate when not running the game under DosBox? Then create this new folder on the same drive the game is installed with that name: C:/SYND/SAVE and all shold be fine after that. Well, at least that was problem on my game..

[blade]

I'm sorry for an extremely noobish question, but what's Syndicate?


~Blade

[FreeFreddy]

A strategy / economics / action-arcade game from Bullfrog, available on this site. Try it out, it's worth it! 8)

[Omuletzu]

(somewhat)Similar to Ufo

[Durak]

I've always loved Bullfrog.

[FreeFreddy]

And I dislike them today since they made Dungeon Keeper 2 such a failure of a game and there was no Dungeon Keeper 3 that would make that good again... But I love Dungeon Keeper (1), which is a game of it's own kind like there's no one similar game.

[Havell]

What have you got against Dungeon Keeper 2? I like it.

[FreeFreddy]

Did you play Dungeon Keeper 1? :wink:

[Durak]

I've played 1, and I may get 2 shortly.

[Havell]

Did you play Dungeon Keeper 1? *:wink:

Yes, I did and I enjoyed it, I also enjoyed DK 2.

[snorri]

yep, the first title, a little...(not my pc)

BUT

is DosBox usable with Win98 SE ( i`m affraid to mess something), because the text mentions 2000 and XP only.

well Win98, but no sound in Syndicate :(
i did grab the abandonia-boot disk, i pressed the install button, i rebooted my pc(suggesting this to be the right way) but no help...

oh, and how to decrease the internal speaker *beeeps* in/for diverse if not centurion, only :D

[Data]

DOSBox is usuable in win98

[Anonymous]

yes it does fine!
..but doesn`t solve the syndicate-sound-bummer.

thx! for DosBox

[gregor]

one thing i don't understand is why the sound doesent' work if the sound files are there?
i once played theoriginal and it all worked more or less normal. but these win98 and this versions it's starnge... i mena how can you play an acton game without sounds????

[snorri]

reviewing other threads at this board (i`m maybe wrong, so..) i found a comment:

calibre your soundcard in the specific synd.bat. . i guess this means you have to find out your soundcards setting (my first obstacle) and then fix this inside *synd.bat*. (where i like to mention i have no idea)

this shall work...you may find the thread in the *games*-corner(favorite oldies?..)

no way to play it without sound, i never know when to open fire. i can hear no: *freeze, police!* :)

[gregor]

reviewing other threads at this board (i`m maybe wrong, so..) i found a comment:

calibre your soundcard in the specific synd.bat. . i guess this means you have to find out your soundcards setting (my first obstacle) and then fix this inside *synd.bat*. (where i like to mention i have no idea)

this shall work...you may find the thread in the *games*-corner(favorite oldies?..)

no way to play it without sound, i never know when to open fire. i can hear no: *freeze, police!* :)

already tried that but in DOS mode i dont' know either what my sound card is. i know on old computer it worked. on this one it should be 220 irq 5 dma 1
but it doesen't work.

[FreeFreddy]

Try IRQ 7, and if that still doesn't help, A 240 IRQ 7 DMA 3, or experiment with the three (try setting each one for itself, leave others like before)

[Tom]

I've Tried every thing you have mentioned thus so far and i still do not have sound when playing Syndicate through DOS BOX.

Win 2k
Sound Blaster Live
Geforce 4
AMD Athlon
DOS BOX 0.61

[gregor]

Originally posted by FreeFreddy@Aug 3 2004, 07:48 AM
Try IRQ 7, and if that still doesn't help, A 240 IRQ 7 DMA 3, or experiment with the three (try setting each one for itself, leave others like before)
your sound actually worked in this version of syndicate?

[FreeFreddy]

Nope, I didn't use this version but the one I have (and had before) on my collection-CD. There shouldn't be many differences, I guess, if at all... ;)

[anderl1969]

Has anyone experience with the onboard sound of a ECS K7S5A pro mainboard? I get no sound, neither with DOS Box nor native XP.

anderl

[gregor]

Originally posted by FreeFreddy@Sep 15 2004, 07:31 PM
Nope, I didn't use this version but the one I have (and had before) on my collection-CD. There shouldn't be many differences, I guess, if at all... ;)
the difference is that the version on CD i used to have (it was borrowed) worked on my computer.

[Sagara]

i doubt that long file names are a problem. i use winxp: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Syndicate and the game works fine...except for the occasional closing of the game when too many time bombs go off >_<

but i havent tweaked the bat file so i dont have sound as well...might as well try that

edit: and i dont use dosbox for syndicate

[Guest]

use WINUAE and the amiga port

as for the dir, on amiga it was "syn" so i would try that as the dos folder

[Murphy]

So any one have any idea on how to get syndicate sound working?

Iv tried every thing suggested and nothin works :blink: even search googl but nothing

cheers guys

[reXta]

I know how to get sound!!!!

Download DOSBox and figure out how to work it, then configure the cpu speed etc and sound will work perfect. I tried downloading vdms sound, all i got was music but no sound, then i got dosbox, fiddled around with for a while and I got syndicate working with sound within minutes. Download DOSBox and i assure you it works.

P.s I was searching for this program for syndicate for ages. It works.

[reXta]

i forgot to write that i have win xp, and before i got sound in syndicate from dosbox, i had to drag all my main folders and files from the syndicate directory and paste them in the DATA folder.

Once in DOSBox, i typed in mount c c:\Synd then press enter, then type
c: then press enter, then type
dir enter again then,
main this worked for me.

[reXta]

and, if you are sick of typing this in every single time, just go into the dosbox config file, and at the end of the text document, it will have something written like, "space below is what will be typed in when dosbox is started"
type in, "mount c c:\Synd" press enter, then "c:" enter then "dir" enter then, "main" this will work, then when you open dosbox, it will get straight into the game.

[Guest]

K now the sound works until i try to start a mission than the game crashes....what can i do against this?

[Guest]

reXta:
How did you get your sounds to work? - I tried following you instructions but they didn't seem all that clear...

Thanks

[reXta]

ok, when the dosbox starts, type in mount c c: (put the directory where syndicate is here.) and press enter. It should say something like Syndicate is now c : or something like that, then type in c: and enter, then dir then enter, then main then enter. This should work. If you still dont get it, just tell me which part you dont get.

My specs are: win xp professional, 256 mb ram, 40 gb hdd, 1.2 ghz amd athlon xp.

[Work you damn sound!]

just type in intro, at the dosbox startup screen and follow those instructions

[Guest]

i read the readme file, that taught me everything

[lonesoldier]

I'm using win xp and the sound works with VDMSound v2.1.0 though the intro and when you complete a mission is laggy a bit you just press space bar to skip it.

When I d/l the zip off this site the sound didn't work. This is because there should be only 4 files in the main dir

DOS4GW.EXE
INTRO.EXE
MAIN.EXE
SYND.BAT

Move the other files to the DATA folder


After installing VDMS right click on "main.exe" and choose run with VDMS

using the arguments

>nul: /iirq7 /idma1 /iio$220 /c0

in the advanced tab >> soundblaster emulation

change irq to 7
8 bit dma to 1
base port to 220

[Happy_user]

It seems the key to this problem is the fact that the .ZIP file does not contain a proper directory construction.

I'm using DosBOX with all defaults, and the two things that corrected this for me are:

- Editing synd.bat and replacing /iirq5 with /iirq7
- Moving files as described above into their respective DATA directory.

Problem solved.

[Tom Henrik]

I was not part of this site when the game got uploaded, but I'll try to fix the archive by placing the files where they ought to be.

Thanks to you problem-solvers. ;)

[Rogue]

Tom,
I upload before sound blaster version of syndicate, which works much better with dos box then one available here.

I can upload it again. (last time I try, for some strange reason I was not able to :blink: )

[Not a Guest]

Lone Soldier,

Thanks, bro. Your advice worked perfectly and prevented a certain headache.

[abigkidatheart]

Ok, so now sound works... How do you prevent it from crashing either when you load a mission or in the middle of a game? Dosbox is super sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow ... Did I meantion it was slow?

[Guest]

to make the game go faster you just keep pressing ctrl and F12 at the same time

[Predator]

And you need a fast machine so it can emulate fast enough, else you can forget DosBox. 1Ghz machine would do it.

[Guest]

Oh ok, all I have is an Intel P3 866, so other then using Dosbox, is there a way to prevent it from crashing. The game works great with no sound, but then I can hear the music change when I am deep in doggy doo doo..... sorry bites

[abigkidatheart]

Oh ok, all I have is an Intel P3 866, so other then using Dosbox, is there a way to prevent it from crashing. The game works great with no sound, but then I can hear the music change when I am deep in doggy doo doo..... sorry bites

[sumanai]

I've got a CD-version of Syndicate, which (as far as I could find) does not have install. I run it through DosBox, but I couldn't save in it (it simply didn't save). So I followed what was mentioned here: shortened the folder names, created save -folder. These (atleast alone) didn't help, so I changed the settings so that it was on the drive 'C:' in DosBox and now it works.
Just a pre-emptive info for those who have the same problem. Also on the CD-version it asks at the beginning the sound settings, so it's easier there.

[Grond]

Ok OK, this maybe work...
but not in my computer...

I've edit synd.bat and I moved the other files to DATA.

But I get only the music without sound effects.

My (old) computer is a Pentium I 233, 32Mb Ram, with Win 98.

Other times that I've syndicate in my pc the sounds works fine...
but Abandonia versinon are making me Crazy. :wall:

Someone Help!!!!


Grond

[dr.weasel]

lonesoldiers solution worked for me as far as sound goes
BUT
now after i complete the first level, it goes to the results screen and the only things displayed are the menu and accept buttons, execept there are no text in these buttons. anyone have the same problem or the solution?

[David]

HEY

I just stumbled upon this website, thought id offer my two cents.

Yes, syndicate does kick behind. ESPECIALLY with sound (i always had problems getting sound to work in syndicate).

But ANYWAY.... i've found the best thing to get DOS games working is a program called D-Fend... which is actually an extension of DOSBox; D-Fend needs Dosbox to work and all it does is configure the hell out of DosBox for you, and runs the game. Runs syndicate great with sound and everything, helps if you have a fiddle with the profile settings though (you'll see what i mean once you use the program)

Doxbox rocks and D-Fend makes it even cooler, i downloaded it off a CD but it'd be on the net somewhere coz im pretty sure it's freeware.

David

dhsharp@optusnet.com.au ~ I DESTROY MAIL BOTS

[Dazzle]

great game... truly a great game... i spend many and many hours playing this game years ago. Now i will try it WITHOUT cheating.. But there is one thing that really bothers me about this game. The last mission (Atlantis)... -sigh- Not funny at all and i never made it through... Not even with a lot of shield and only 1 minigun.... Maybe this time i will drop a bomb for those nasty agents hehehe that's the only thing i didn't try b4. Has ne1 ever made it through? And so, how?

The most effective weapon is the minigun.
The most sarcastic weapon is the flamethrower :sneaky:

[Dazzle]

p.s. I use D-Fend (Thx to David)... very handy proggy... i recommend it...

p.s. A little note: Fiddling with the cycles and config for sound did it for me to get this game up and running smoothly WITH music AND soundfx. Have fun!

[Dazzle]

Originally posted by Dazzle@Feb 1 2005, 04:38 PM
p.s. I use D-Fend (Thx to David)... very handy proggy... i recommend it...

p.s. A little note: Fiddling with the cycles and config for sound did it for me to get this game up and running smoothly WITH music AND soundfx. Have fun!
Edit: You can download D-Fend newhere on the net. Search for it using Google.

And yes it is Freeware.

[another_guest]

Originally posted by Dazzle@Feb 1 2005, 04:35 PM
The last mission (Atlantis)... -sigh- Not funny at all and i never made it through... Not even with a lot of shield and only 1 minigun.... Maybe this time i will drop a bomb for those nasty agents hehehe that's the only thing i didn't try b4. Has ne1 ever made it through? And so, how?
That's the only mission I never finished :wall:
Usually I got about halfway, having killed quite a few of those pesky agents, but then I ran out of ammo, and couldn't get close enough to retrieve weapons from my victims.

Though the American Revolt addon was far worse, EVERY single mission there is at least as hard as the Atlantic Accelerator in the original. :rifle:

[Kinichie]

I have found a way to get Sound and Music for this particular game

FYI here are my specs

Windows XP SP2
1022MB RAM
ATi Radeon X800 SE
EAX Sound Blaster live! 24-bit
DX 9.0c

When you download the game off the site, copy all but the 4 files listed by lonesoldier to your Data folder. For you who are too lazy to check that post:

Originally posted by lonesoldier

When I d/l the zip off this site the sound didn't work. This is because there should be only 4 files in the main dir

DOS4GW.EXE
INTRO.EXE
MAIN.EXE
SYND.BAT

Move the other files to the DATA folder


When you have done that, the sound will work but will be a little jumpy and there will be no music (if my last experiment proved to affect everyone.

The Music is the same throught the game but adds atmosphere and the sound problems annoy me aswell. Fix this by downloading VDMSound

Right click your synd.bat and click Run with VDSM. Create a custom configuration and go to soundblaster.

when i did lonesoldiers IRQ of 7, there was no sound so change it to 5. This will enable SFX and Music. For the whole of this the only change needed in synd.bat is changing the irq to 5.

As for Dosbox. Run the VDMS Sound shortcut you get (after the configuration) through dosbox and the idea CPU should be 20000 cycles (a bit extreme but it works and no lag)

Now your ready for Syndicate.

As for Atlantis, i completed that mission when i was just 8 years old. My dad never finished it. To complete it, get Agent 1, quickly assign minigun and shoot all Agents that approach. Then when they stop adancing for a second, assign the whole team and minigun slot 2 and shoot as they approach. all enemy agents have miniguns and no long range or bombs (as far as i can remember. The mission is very lengthy and you WILL need ALL upgrades for your Agents. The inventory for all 4 agents should be
-Minigun (Full ammo)
-Minigun (Full ammo)
-Minigun (Full ammo)
-Minigun (Full ammo)
-Minigun (Full ammo)
-Minigun (Full ammo)
-Health or anything to help your agent
-Health or Long Range
If that don't work, resort to smashing keyboard, mouse and buying a logitech one.

I will register on these fine forums soon. Thats when i've finished this game. for now, ciao

[Denzil]

Originally posted by another_guest+Feb 8 2005, 01:03 PM****QUOTE (another_guest @ Feb 8 2005, 01:03 PM)******QuoteBegin-Dazzle@Feb 1 2005, 04:35 PM
The last mission (Atlantis)... -sigh- Not funny at all and i never made it through... Not even with a lot of shield and only 1 minigun.... Maybe this time i will drop a bomb for those nasty agents hehehe that's the only thing i didn't try b4. Has ne1 ever made it through? And so, how?
That's the only mission I never finished :wall:
Usually I got about halfway, having killed quite a few of those pesky agents, but then I ran out of ammo, and couldn't get close enough to retrieve weapons from my victims.

Though the American Revolt addon was far worse, EVERY single mission there is at least as hard as the Atlantic Accelerator in the original. :rifle: [/b][/quote]
U NEVER FINISHED IT ?!?!?!
and U call yourself Syndicat eplayers?!? Who talking about cheats up there??? unbelivable, this IS a hard mission..but after I've finished the game, WITHOUT CHEATS, for like 15 times..it's the ONLY mission that isn't trivial... only mission that's actually FUN cause you can't complete it in a blink of an eye..
I suggest all of you that you simply NEVER USE CHEAT AGAIN..on ANY games..and then maybe you'll learn how to PLAY GAMES...not CHEAT!! :ranting:

P.S. Where can I download American Revolt?? I've been looking 4 that 4 like 10 years...

[aL BeasTie]

Arg I was having heaps of trouble trying to work out why music would't work, glad someone cleared it up. I'm running it in true dos 6.22 on a pentium133 w/ a SB16 so I expected it all to work, just moving those files to the data dir fixed it up.
Can't play Syndicate w/ out that cool music ;)

[Nyerguds]

Originally posted by another_guest@Feb 8 2005, 02:03 PM
That's the only mission I never finished* :wall:
Usually I got about halfway, having killed quite a few of those pesky agents, but then I ran out of ammo, and couldn't get close enough to retrieve weapons from my victims.
I finished Atlantic Accelerator without firing a single shot...

Just had one agent with 4 shields. If you switch to a next shield just before one runs out, not only does the first shield recharge, but with 4 shields you can stay invulnerable all the time. It takes a lot of attention though, making sure you never burn out a shield.

So then it was just a matter of running in between the other guys so they all shot eachother, and planting one bomb at the last survivor's feet :bye:

I did have to try quite some times... first I didn't have a bomb, then it crashed a few times, and plenty of times I was blown up by the bombs the enemy agents carried, or I simply burned out one of my shields and died eventually. But in the end I succeeded :D


I did disable all sound for that mission... it made the game kinda laggy, and on AA this became really unplayable with all those minigun and bomb sounds all the time.

[Fallen Templar]

Yeah, tweaking the .bat file didn't work for me either... mind you, I'm not sure where to find the info on my sound card, I jsut plugged in the numbers you suggested. As far as I know, I have a SB Live!. I also tried searching for patches or fixes on google and other search engines... but I had a hard enough time finding the game in the first place and I doubt people are going to make fixes :)

[lurker]

Hiya all, okay I can get Syndicate to run without using DOSBOX and unsurprisingly don't have working sound. That's fine, I'm taking notes from the various advice and should be able to sort that. However I can't figure out how to slow the game down. It runs at a ridiculous pace, I'm lucky if I only lose two of my guys when I encounter the first enemy agent in the first mission. If two agents turn up together I'm instantly dead. Do I need to run it through DOSBOX to be able to slow things down ? Thanks.

My memory agrees with another 'recent' poster. I used to play the Amiga version and completed Atlantic Accelerator by using multiple shields (4 or 6 per agent) and they gave near permanent shielding. After that it was mostly just a case of wading into the crowds with flamers or the occasional time bomb. Still took ages but at least you didn't have to worry so much.

[BeefontheBone]

DOSBox will slow it down and should help with the sound. you may be able to use VDMSound to get sound in XP, and there are several programs like MoSlo around which can slow things down in XP.

[The snark]

Heyyah, how do I create a custom configuration with VDSM?

[gregor]

holy googely moogely! those files are really put into incorrectl folder.
anyway i moved them to data and guess what now i have music but still no sound (effects)!
so i changed the IRQ from 5 to 7. this provided me sound in the menu. but when i start the game it crashes. :cry:

i really don't know what could be wrong. too bad there is no soundsetup file where it owuld detect my card automaticly.

[Guest]

Originally posted by lonesoldier@Dec 25 2004, 09:12 AM
I'm using win xp and the sound works with VDMSound v2.1.0 though the intro and when you complete a mission is laggy a bit you just press space bar to skip it.

When I d/l the zip off this site the sound didn't work. This is because there should be only 4 files in the main dir

DOS4GW.EXE
INTRO.EXE
MAIN.EXE
SYND.BAT

Move the other files to the DATA folder


After installing VDMS right click on "main.exe" and choose run with VDMS

using the arguments

>nul: /iirq7 /idma1 /iio$220 /c0

in the advanced tab >> soundblaster emulation

change irq to 7
8 bit dma to 1
base port to 220
Moving the files into the DATA directory except for:

DOS4GW.EXE
INTRO.EXE
MAIN.EXE
SYND.BAT

got everything working with me when i ran it with VDMSound.

Thanks for the tip! i was going crazy!

[Guest]

I did the abandonia boot disk and now i have music but NOT the sound effects. WTF is wrong now??!!?!? :ranting:

[Guest]

You'll need to setup soundblaster emulation for your soundcard then with that you can set the hardware settings and link to them from dos software.

if you have a creative card (audigy, live etc) then you'll be laughing..

or you can download VDMSound and have that do all the background emulation for you

[Guest]

So far, this thread has helped me get sound and speed the game up to a reasonable pace (I haven't tried flamethrower yet though!), but I can't F*ING SAVE the game! I click save, and it just won't save the damn game. Can anyone help me figure out how to save the game using D-Fend with DosBox? I can save the game if I run it off the CD, but then I get no sound on my XP machine, but if I run it with D-Fend, I can play the game with sound, but no save!

HELP!

[Rogue]

You have to properly set DFend to be able to save in Syndicate. Make sure that your C drive is poiting to right direction. Game that I have will create folder Synd in C drive, where all of your saves will be stored. I also keep my other files in the same folder, so that I have not to place CD rom while playing.