Witchaven

[Cable]

Hi, everyone. First-time poster, long-time lover of classic gaming. I've stumbled into a little problem; I've got the bug to play a game I loved as a kid but never beat. So:

I'm just wondering if anyone has had any luck getting Witchaven (1) to run in Win XP. I can use D-Fend to bring up the play screen, but there's no sound. Any tips? I'm not too sure how to set the sound options for the game. Any advice, directions, or anything at all, really, would be appreciated.

[The Fifth Horseman]

First of all, DON'T use D-Fend.

Second, default DosBox sound settings are Sound Blaster 16, IRQ 7, DMA 1, 220h.

[Scatty]

And sound rate of 22050. Some games have problems if the output rate for sound is set higher than that, some again get better sound if this rate is set to a higher value. You can modify the output rate in dosbox.conf file.

[Cable]

I've actually had some really good luck with D-Fend (the Ultima games play beautifully with it!). And DOSBox is such a pain in the behind to set up every time you want to play.

I can get the setup menu to play sound and music by using the setup option under D-Fend, but the sound card I choose to get it to play sound clearly isn't a Sound Blaster setting (I believe it's a Roland that plays sound clearly using the "test" option). The Sound Blaster 16 option plays sound in a rather stuttering, jittery way, but, then again, using that option under the D-Fend sound settings still gives me no sound in the game through D-Fend. Any ideas?

And thanks--I really do appreciate it. Ah, nostalgic gaming!

[The Fifth Horseman]

DOSBox is such a pain in the behind to set up every time you want to play.[/b]
I disagree. Once you get around to using [Autoexec] section of Dosbox.conf and some customized batch files in addition to it, it's quite easy and convenient.

If you have problems with Sound Blaster 16, switch the soundcard to Sound Blaster Pro 2 (SBPRO2 in dosbox.conf).

[Cable]

I tried that and no dice. The game just doesn't seem to like the Sound Blaster options--or at least like them well enough to play the sound without the choppiness. Still, when I load up the game I'm not hearing a thing. Are there other (perhaps downloadable?) sound options for the D-Fend frontend?

[The Fifth Horseman]

Nope. D-Fend cannot do anything more then DosBox can.

If DosBox won't work for you that well, try VDMSound.

Also, did you run the game's own sound configuration?

[Cable]

I forgot about VDMSound! Gotta give that a try. And yeah, I ran the game's original sound configuration (through D-Fend--it's one of the options) and that's when I'd hear perfect sound through the Roland (or whatever it was) selection and the choppy sound through several of the Sound Blaster choices (the selection screen has that "test" option so you get a sample of sound or music).

Thanks, by the way--much appreciated. I'll let you know.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Make sure you configure IRQ correctly, that's often what's responsible for sound problems.

[Cable]

How do I configure that properly? Especially when running something like D-Fend or VDMSound. Actually, I just took a look at the game with VDMSound, and it plays, but the screen flickers, there's no sound, and the controls get stuck after just a few seconds of playing. Dang it.

[The Fifth Horseman]

During the sound configuration, the game will ask you for the IRQ (or Interrupt, 's the same thing).
Make sure it matches that in DosBox.conf (default value is 7).

Oh, and I stronly suggest to drop D-Fend. From what I know, it may cause severe incompatibilities every now and then.
Also, most of its functions are pretty much obsolete when you can create two or three DosBox shortcuts firing different config files, drive mounting can be automatised by using the [Autoexec] section of the conf file, and Norton Commander provides a nice and convenient GUI (Windows it aint, but once you get familiar with it you'll find NC much more powerful).

In DosBox.conf, to change the soundcard emulation from SB16 to SBPRO2 - that's for Sound Blaster Pro 2, which as a slightly older model may also be more compatibile.