Question about Running two games
 

Okay, I have both Menzoberannazan (I think I may have butchered that) and DarkSun on CD, but I can't get them to play in dos box or on WindowsXP

Darksun says I need xxxx more conventional memory while trying to run in WinXP (and it just crashes dosbox)

I can't remember exactly what Menzo says as it has been a while since I have tried it.

Can anyone tell me how to get these to run, preferably in dosbox?

Which version of DOSBox?

Then please check. Without knowing the exact error message, we can't help you solve the problem that's causing it.

Okay, the version of dosbox is 0.70

I will have to get back to you on the Menzo message, because I have to find the CD and I have quite a few of them to go through, then I have to reinstall the game.

EDIT: Found Menzo, was the second CD I picked up...

Okay, it nearly crashes my computer when I try to start it out of dosbox, it uses so much mem that I had to shut down my computer as I couldn't do much else.

When I try to run it in dosbox I get two errors:

Gravis Native Mode Installation Error: Native Mode is not supported by revisions of the Gravis Software Less than 2.00

Contact Gravis to obtain an update of their software...

AND: unable to open resource file and it appends the dosprompt on that.

I have screenies of both errors if you think that will help.

1: install dosbox 0.72, you don't need to deinstall older versions, will install in its own folder and create its own startmenu items.
*Don't copy your old dosboxconfig into it should you have your mounts added or such, they're not compatible cross-version, edit the new one manually( IF needed).*
2: Did you INSTALL the game in dosbox?
3: rerun sound setup in dosbox and choose SB or better instead of Gravis. If you use autodetect disable GUS in dosboxconfig first.


4: Still problems? More details, your mount lines (ALL of them), inputs, config choices ... etcetera.

Don't use Gravis, as stated in the dosbox readme, it's the worst choice you can make. Dosbox does NOT include GUS drivers out of the box.
Game doesn't find the files it needs.
Sounds as a borked mount, do you mount a folder as virtual C and then cd gamefolder?
How do you mount your CDdrive?

As Dosraider mentionned, I think your best bet would be to install those games directly from DOSBox. The tricky part is, of course, that if you don't mount your hard drive(s) directly (not recommended if you don't know what you are doing) then you will need to mount the drives exactly in the same way than the installation process the next time you'll want to play.

Always aim for SoundBlaster (the older, the easier for DOSBox to detect... But I usually use SoundBlaster Pro fine with most games) when you install the game, and such "modern" games will all have an autodetect feature anyways. Use that first, tweak as needed if it doesn't work.

If the games still don't work then post back here. There is probably some special memory tweaks to do in DOSBox for them to work well, and I suspect that Menzoberanzan is likely to need some.

Okay, I hadn't realized they came out with a newer version, I have been playing other games lately. I will do that. No I installed the game through WinXP because I hate going through the mount process for my CD rom. I run dosbox with the normal config, I don't edit it as I am not quite sure what I am doing.

I will rerun the sound setup, for both games, when they finished installing through WinXP they did the sound setup and found Soundblaster, I NEVER selected Gravis, nor did I even see that as an option. I always use Soundblaster as my sound, or pc speaker if Ican't find soundblaster...

I use mount c c:\
and the C:
and then go to where the games are, I have MOST of the games in a folder called dosgames on my desktop, but menzo and darksun both installed themselves under C:\

I don't mount folders because I am not sure what games I am going to play at times, and so it is easier to mount c and then go from there (I grew up on dos and rememember enough of it to not mess my computer up)

I will try those tomorrow, thanks for the help, and see if they work.

Like I said before I always use Soundblaster as well, and that is what my computer always autodetects. I don't know HOW it got to gravis...

I will try reinstalling the games through dosbox and then doing the sound detection through dosbox and see if that will work for menzo. Dark Sun says it needs more conventional memory, so I am not sure this will work for it..

Thanks for all the help, and I will let you know if that works for me :D

mount d x:\ -t cdrom
That's it, not that hard I would think.
x:\ = your real CDdrive letter under Win.
Always mount your CDdrive as D, some games will only accept D as CDdrive, and always install your game IN dosbox. If it looks for a CD it will find it then, some store the CDdrive letter in a whatever.cfg file

XP has a basic SB emulation, problem is that the config params aren't the same as the SB emulated in dosbox.

For Darksun it runs best in dosbox configured as:
Run sound to configure sound params,
Answer no when asked if you want to use two soundcards and choose:
SB PRO 16 ASP
Do NOT accept default settings but choose:

adr 220
IRQ 7
DMA 1

Seeing you say your computer is peaking on the mem usage: Could you post the specs of your pc? DOSBox is resource hungry, and if your pc is at the low end, that might explain a few things.

I have attached a jpg of my system specs box, let me know if you need something else. I just didn't feel like typing everything in (sorry about that :( I have a headache right now)

It isn't hard to do, it is hard for me to REMEMBER, then I have to go through and find the readme or find the instructions in the help and then try to remember (I have a VERY bad memory) I will also try to install both the games in dosbox, and the thing is I tried with menzo today (but not from CD so it wouldn't complete) and I didn't get any red on it, it said my system was okay, yet when I did it under XP it said I needed more extended memory

I will try doing this with them and seeing if I can't get ONE to run at least, though today I was distracted by lands of lore.

Thanks again for the help, and I will try what you have suggested tomorrow (if I can tear myself away from Lands of Lore long enough) and get back to you on whether that works or not. I have just been wanting to reply DarkSun and I never got to finish Menzo from what I rememeber, I don't know why.

Well, your computer is officially twice as good as mine. Anyway, Menzo won't say you have enough extended memory if you are running it in XP, as XP doesn't give DOS programs extended memory, only expanded memory (or vice versa).