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[The Fifth Horseman]

Open Dosbox.conf and you'll quickly notice fullfixed and something called fullresolution or something like that (it's next line after fullfixed, I think). Fullfixed=false should be changed to fullfixed=true, and the other to 640x480.

[A. J. Raffles]

Alt + Enter (or was it Return?) also works.

[Ludomeister]

I'm playing RoA 3: Shadows over Riva right now, but this is the only forum I've found that is addressing this series of games. And since Riva is a refined version of the Star Trail engine, I'm hoping that my questions are directly relevant to players of both games. Most RPG forums where this topic is mentioned simply draw a "huh?!?" :blink:

At any rate, there are some play issues that the manual really doesn't address.

1. When one of your magicians does the wand ritual, it drains a *lot* of his or her AP's. The only way I know of to gain those back is simply to sleep for several days. You can also cast a healing spell on the magician, Rest the Body, Rest the Mind, so that the magician accumulates the AP's quicker, but still you *do* have to sleep it off. That said, is there any penalty for not getting on with the game as quickly as possible? Can you spend days just exploring the town, calling on every residence in the hope of getting that important clue (or an NPC), with impunity?

2. The manual also states that magicians get "house spell" bonuses, which are typically +2-3. But it doesn't state what the plus is! Is it the "to hit" roll? Damage? Reduced Astral Point cost?

This game is, believe it or not, the first RPG I've played since my pen-and-paper days back in the early 1980's. I got the game based on Tom's rave review herein, and also here: http://www.geocities.com/ataniel/arkreview.htm

I kinda like the way the engine is *not* capable of showing everything the way a modern game would, as the text that pops up when something occurs is very similar to having the DM describe things to you. Makes for an atmospheric game. And the music is beautiful and already I can see that the story is going to be quite involved, which to me is the main reason for playing an RPG. If it's just hack 'n slash, I'd rather play a good wargame. Enough rambling.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Ludo

[Ludomeister]

Originally posted by Gamefreak@May 8 2005, 05:03 PM
Shadows over Riva won't even work well under DosBox, as it's too slow there. It needs at least Pentium 100 to run smoothly and DosBox emulates only up to an 486DX4 100 with the more fast PC's today, speak at around 14000 CPU cycles maximum, which isn't fast enough for Shadows over Riva. Well, unless you the entry in the dosbox.conf from core=normal to core=dynamic which should allow to at least double the CPU cycles. Didn't try that yet, though.

You are absolutely right about 14,000 being about the max cycles you can use with Riva on DosBox. (I'm using DosBox 6.3 with the D-Fend front end.) Just to get it to 14,000 I had to bump the frameskip to 2.

Unfortunately, however, you can't use the dynamic core to boost your framerate. At least on my rig with 0.63, the cpu core had to be normal for the game to even work. Now the game is indeed playable using the above configuration, but it's a little slow and choppy in the 3D world (which, btw, is quite a bit better than the one in Star Trail).

So don't use DosBox, use VDMSound instead! Using VDMSound the game plays perfectly smoothly in WinXP.

Ludo

Thanks for having this here!
I'm currently considering buying it...again....

But...
The version downloaded is behaving strangely.

In (any) combat, after a handful (10?) of turns, the graphics just get totally messed up (hard to describe, but kinda like the computer was too fast or something, everything except the checkered 'board'/floor dissappers, and when I move my mouse, bits and pieces are drawn again, etc etc....)

Anyway, when I somehow manage to give the controls to the computer/autofight the fight finally ends, after some partially invisible fighting. BUT, afterwards we all die - even if we won the fight(!), sometimes one is left alone, but im unable to do anything but wait for him to die too, and then game ends.....

Believing my computer was too fast or some strange RAM problem I tried on other machines:
-My current celeron 566, win98 - no go, no matter what setup I use in-game or on shortcut
-A Pentium-200, also win98 - same happens.
- and the final letdown, a Pentium100 PURE DOS with all the legacy hardware, which I KNOW this game has worked on before (sold it....) - NO GO......


So, a reasonable question would then be - is this 'release' bugged ???
I've only installed, and then 'cracked' it. Don't remember if 'patched' (patch.exe)...

I'm NOT using Dosbox, BTW, but that shouldn't matter ? I get sound, normal gameplay etc in win98 (and DOS is DOS, right ?), only fighting gets *meep*d up...

.... :whistle: ...guess who feels a bit daft right now....

After some finer reading of the previous posts (11 pages), there's a tip about 'fix.com' programme, which is enclosed with the download....

Testing this (extracting from the zip/rar-file) and running in the installed program folder, everything is fine and dandy !!! No more garbled battles !

oh well, read/try before u buy..... :blink:

granted, I first tried finding alternate version for a while, and just happened to start reading this topic from scratch, just in case I'd missed something (LOL)

I'm like SO stuck in Shadowes Over Riva... can someone help me?

[MrBackAlleySka]

Shadows Over Riva huh? Hehe, lucky. That game is so rare to find.... I have been looking in stores forever. (EB, Gamestop, Funcoland, those things) Did you buy it? Or is it abandonware? If so, where did you download it? If it's not abandonware, Please don't send it to me. I love the screenshots, and I been dieing to play Shadows Over Riva. But i'll buy if need be.

Plz help! I've just downloaded this game and try it with Dosbox.
But whenever I take an action in battle mode even talk to anyone in town my screen always turns in to pinky blur screen!
Although the game is still running but I can't play with the pinky screen. I don't know what cause and how to resolve this, please help!

[The Fifth Horseman]

Redownload and see if it will work properly then.