Forums - Panzer General And Vesa480.dll

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I'm positively aching to play Panzer General on my laptop...but everything I've tried failed.

Mostly, it errors out on startup with "Failed to load @:\lib\drv\VESA480.dll"

It runs on a Dell Latitude D610 (Intel Mobile 915GM video). It does not run on a recent Dell XPS. I wonder if this is because the XPS's video card only goes down to 800x600, not 640x480???

Here are some things I've tried:

- Dosbox. Still get the VESA480.DLL error

- downloading a VESA480.DLL from the net and sticking it in my System32. Still get the "failed to load" error...likewise, putting it in \lib\drv in various locations doesn't make a difference

- I have VMware Workstation 5 running on this laptop and I built a Windows 95 VM. Still get the VESA480.dll error! Even if I run the windows VM in "dos mode". Does seem to matter what video mode I use.

Any other ideas!?!?

You should search the forum before starting a topic... :)

http://www.abandonia.com/forum/index...howtopic=15040

Edit PG.BAT and remove the line reading "univbe".

NOTE: The admins should fix the download, I think the game worked fine with previous versions of DOSBox but no longer with 0.70.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Jun 25 2007, 09:54 AM) [snapback]296221[/snapback]</div>

Quote:

You should search the forum before starting a topic... :)
[/b]

I did, but no one mentioned VESA480.DLL ;-)

BTW, my PG.BAT does not have any line that says "univbe". I am installing it from a "20 Classic Wargames" CD. I'll try the download here I guess.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Andrew @ Jun 26 2007, 01:17 AM) [snapback]296366[/snapback]</div>

Quote:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Jun 25 2007, 09:54 AM) [snapback]296221[/snapback]

Quote:

You should search the forum before starting a topic... :)
[/b]

I did, but no one mentioned VESA480.DLL ;-)

BTW, my PG.BAT does not have any line that says "univbe". I am installing it from a "20 Classic Wargames" CD. I'll try the download here I guess.
[/b][/quote]

Sorry, confused sites, no download here ;-)

BTW, this fix did not work.

First, it doesn't appear in PG.BAT. But it does appear in PGV.BAT. Removing the call to univbe makes no difference. Calling pg or pgv makes no difference...doesn't run in dosbox, Win XP, or Win95 in VMWare.

That univbe line is the only difference in the two. Here's the .BAT file. Anyone have other ideas!?!?

Code:

@echo off

cd exe

rem --------------------------------------------------------------------------

rem .** game.bat

rem .

rem .** This is a batch file to load the Gravis Ultrasound in Native mode.

rem .** And start the game...

rem .

rem .** Author:******** Ralph Thomas

rem .

rem .** Revision:****** 1.0**** 1/24/94

rem .****************** 1.1**** 2/7/94**Fixed to accomodate the loadpats

rem .********************************** program detecting the GUS software

rem .********************************** revision...

rem --------------------------------------------------------------------------



rem Detect card



IF "%ULTRADIR%"=="" goto NO_GRAVIS

GOTO GUS_LOAD



:GUS_LOAD



rem --------------------------------------------------------------------------

rem If loadpats fails it means that the user has an old revision of the Gravis

rem software and will need to contact Gravis for an update to make this work...

rem --------------------------------------------------------------------------



loadpats

IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO OLD_REVISION



goto RUN_GRAVIS



:OLD_REVISION



rem --------------------------------------------------------------------------

rem Set the environmental var to NULL so the sound installer will not "detect"

rem the Gravis

rem --------------------------------------------------------------------------



set ULTRASND=



cls

echo ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ»

echo º****** Gravis Native Mode Installation Error******** º

echo ÌÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ¹

echo º**************************************************** º

echo º**ERROR: Native Mode is not Supported by Revisions** º

echo º******** of the Gravis Software Less Then 2.00****** º

echo º**************************************************** º

echo º******** Contact Gravis to Obtain an Update of****** º

echo º******** Their Software...************************** º

echo º**************************************************** º

echo º**********Voice (604) 431-5020********************** º

echo º**********Fax** (604) 431-5155********************** º

echo º**********BBS** (604) 431-5927 V32bis****************º

echo º**************************************************** º

echo º**********Compuserve: GO PCVENB (71333,350)**********º

echo º**********FidoNET: 1:153/978************************ º

echo º**********InterNET EMail: tech@gravis.com************º

echo º**********SBCNET: 13:900/3************************** º

echo º**************************************************** º

echo ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ¼

pause

GOTO NO_GRAVIS



:RUN_GRAVIS

cls

panzer.exe

goto END



:NO_GRAVIS

cls

panzer.exe

goto END



:END

cd..

I'd say your copy is missing a file.

What other EXE, COM and BAT files are in the game directory?

Now I see I've got that file in the LIB\DRV subfolder of the game folder (old games were self-contained). Maybe you don't have it or it's corrupt. Have you tried placing the file you downloaded there instead of SYSTEM32 or elsewhere? If it doesn't work I can upload the VESA480.DLL I have because it works in DOSBox.

By the way in DOSBox you'll be using Sound Blaster 16 so you don't need all that since it's for Ultrasound, you only have to run SOUND.EXE to configure the SB16 and PANZER.EXE to play. Both are in the EXE subfolder so you may want to use a .BAT to play but the only lines you need from there are:

Code:

@echo off

cd exe

panzer.exe

cd..

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Jun 26 2007, 12:32 PM) [snapback]296436[/snapback]</div>

Quote:

Code:

@echo off

cd exe

panzer.exe

cd..

[/b]

OK! I think I have it...here are the steps I went through:

- You can download a version of Pg from [SKREEE]. That's the one I used here. I haven't tried my version from the "20 Classic War Games" CD yet.
- I unzipped it in C:\PG
- I put the VESA480.dll in C:\PG\LIB\DRV
- DOSBox does NOT seem to work in full screen for me, but windowed works so far
- I mounted it in dobox as "mount d c:\PG" - one of the BestOldGames tips was to mount it on D: so PG thinks there's a CD
- removed the univbe line in pg.bat (even with this removed, it won't work without the VESA480.DLL)

I'd like to try your VESA480.DLL, if you can make it available...perhaps full-screen mode will work then.

And I hope others find this of use, too! My favorite old game.

Sorry, forgot to add - using PG.BAT at all didn't work for me, but cding to the EXE directory and running PANZER.EXE works.

Link removed. At the current point our data informs that Panzer General is still sold - ergo, all links to downloads are considered forbidden.

I don't think the fullscreen problem is due to that file anyway if it works windowed. What's the problem, when you press Alt+Enter the image is small at the centre surrounded by a black background? Most likely fullscreen will work if you edit dosbox.conf. The easy way is enabling aspect correction I think ("aspect=true"), but I've got it disabled so that pixels aren't stretched and I've got "fullresolution" set to "640x480" instead.