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[The Fifth Horseman]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest_The Wolf_* @ Mar 31 2007, 01:23 PM) [snapback]285620[/snapback]</div>

What score must I have for the teleporters to apear? Cause i wanna see those things. [/b]

Geez. Just use the stun raid trick to rack in thousands of points worth of score and you'll eventually get them.

I tried to install X-com 3 in my computer. I'm using a win xp so I install dosbox. I have the game in an old cd so I took the folders of my cd to a carpet in the dosbox and I installed. The installation program suggest a mistake with the cd speed but I could install it.
Nevertheless when i put xcomapoc.exe in my dobox it told me...
"DOS/4GW professional protected mode run-time version 1.97
Copyright © Rational Systems, Inc. 1990-1994"

And it doesn't run, what I have to do?

[The Fifth Horseman]

Apocalypse needs a bucketload of CPU power to run well. I've got a Sempron 2500+ running at 1,75 Ghz, and set DosBox to dynamic core, 24 000 cycles plus frameskip 2 - and that still gets choppy at times.

What are your machine's hardware parameters?
Are you trying to run the game DosBox' default settings? If not, please post a copy of your CONF file.

I've been playing Apocalypse again lately, so I might help.




(to other participants of the discussion) So yes, you've heard it right. I'm playing Apocalypse again after a 1,5 year break (since the failure known otherwise as Abandonia Apocalypse).
Started a game on Medium, and am using the usual stun-raid trick to gather tons of quick cash.
So far, I'm in third week and the only problem is I was a bit too late to stop Cult of Sirius from being overtaken but this doesn't mean I take no pleasure in constantly raiding them and demolising their temples with Devastator Cannons.
When I started using these babies I was a bit cautious, but they turned out much better than I thought - now all my Workshops are chucking them out at a constant rate, to have one for each of my agents. This kind of firepower is something I really enjoy tossing around.
And I think I found something that might be a Personal Teleporter.

If you have found a personal teleporter please tell me what score have you got and what have you researched so far.


I destroyed 2 buildings in the alien dimension so far and i still haven`t found that teleporter. It is so anoying.


If someone needs help about the game maybe i could help.

[Eagle of Fire]

If you didn't find a teleporter on a dead Alien yet and you're already fighting in the Alien dimention, it's most likely that you won't see it at all in that particular game.

The Aliens do need their buildings for production and reproduction. They mainly concentrate on UFO's, so if you shoot them all down they tend to scale down everything else. Once you're in the Alien dimention, I've realised a few times that they mostly concentrate on heavy weapons to try to drive you out (and, incidentaly, give you all the explosive mines you need to complete most of the missions... <_<).

[The Fifth Horseman]

If you have found a personal teleporter please tell me what score have you got and what have you researched so far.[/b]

I think my score is about 25000 now, and I researched about everything I got my hands on.
However, turns out that this artifact actually wasn't the teleporter at all.


And, I just tested the latest version of DOS32A with the game... The version I tried two years ago not only made the game completely unstable but also tinted all screenshots green (!!!). The newer one is a bit better, but still not sufficient to play the game.
Everything runs about 2-3x faster than it did with DOS4GW - the graphics display, scrolling etc go silky smooth without any lags - but the unfortunate thing is that after a few minutes it just freezes and doesn't accept any user input anymore. I also get some error messages when tryng to start tactical combat.

Guess that's something to report to the author of the program and I'll just have to stay with DOS4GW for the time being. Shame.

[UfoMan]

XCOM3 - XCOM APOCALYPSE v1.00 WORKING UNDER DOSBOX 0.70 ON WINDOWS XP SP2

Okay, this required like about a million steps to get it right and hours of experimentation. This may not work for you, and you may have to spend hours or days trying your own experiments to find what works for you. But, this is what worked for me!!

1) I started by finding the XCom Apoc CD that I bought long ago. Mine is the original DOS and Win95 stand-alone version. I got it 10 years ago.

2) I used windows explorer to create a folder called c:\xcom3i

3) I copied the contents of my Xcom Apoc CD to this c:\xcom3i folder, and I then went into that folder from Windows XP Explorer and right clicked "INSTALL" and told it to run in Windows 95 Compatability mode.

4) Then I installed the game from Windows Explorer. It complained about a few things but allowed me to install. I installed to the default C:\XCOMA subdirectory. I'm installing from the hard drive to the hard drive. It goes rather fast, and you don't have to worry about CD speeds or any of that.

5) I then while inside the install program, I used Setup to set the sound - SOUNDBLASTER 16/AWE, BASE 220, IRQ 7, DMA 1 -- what DOSBox defaults to. Ended up going with SOUNDBLASTER PRO, as SB16 didn't provide any sound at all.

6) Lots of problems here, actually. You have to guess right to get the sound right the first time, as it took me days to figure out how to run SETUP.EXE from XP. First of all, if you choose incorrectly, I was able to actually run C:\XCOMA\SETUP.EXE from Windows Explorer after I had created a PIF that set the program to run in Windows 95 Compatibility mode.

I soon found myself right clicking each XCOM3 program that I wanted to run and setting it to run in Win95 Comapability mode, using the compatability tab.

7) After I finally got XCOM3 running way down below on step 15, I actually had to go back in and set it to SOUNDBLASTER PRO, BASE 220, IRQ 7, DMA 1 -- the SB16 mode gave no sound, but I did get sound out of SOUNDBLASTER and SOUNDBLASTER PRO.

SOUNDBLASTER is mono sound, though, no stereo, so I eventually ended up going with SOUNDBLASTER PRO as my final setting. I mention that here just in case you want to select SOUNDBLASTER PRO from the start and save yourself the trouble.

8) Now, you have the core installed in C:\XCOMA, but that is only the beginning.

9) Notice that your XCOM3.CFG file has this in it "<space>C:\XCOM3I\". It is extremely important that the <space> be there before the path name or you won't get music. It looks like this " C:\XCOM3I\", whenever you edit XCOM3.CFG.

10) Now you got to download goodies to fix the video and crack the CD copy protection, or you can't get it to go. I was never able to run the APOC game on XP from the XCOM3 CD that I purchased 10 years ago! It just won't work for me.

11) http://www.xcomufo.com/x3dl.html

This one here was an important link.

FORGET about the xcom3fix.zip. It never worked for me no matter what I tried, although it has a good batch file that might come in handy later.

What you need on this forum is the x3svga.zip file. Download that one! It fixes the VGA problems so that you won't get black screen of death. Unzip it.
Follow the instructions. Copy the two patches to the appropriate folders TACEXE and UFOEXE in C:\XCOMA.

These patches won't run from DOSBox. You have to set them to Windows 95
Compatability, and run each one of them from Windows Explorer in Windows XP.
There, now your video should work, when you finally get all the rest of the stuff done.

12) You have to download DOSBox 0.70 from here:
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/download.php?main=1

Install DOSBox 0.70 to the default directory.

I found that to get ALL of my purchased DOS games to run right under DOSBOX
0.70, I had to go into START, ALL PROGRAMS, DOSBOX 0.70, DoSBoX.conf, and edit that file so that cycles=max.

Iirc, it set cycles=auto, and that just plain makes everything stutter and lag and music choppy. BAD!

Go into dosbox.conf and make cycles=max, and save. Then all seems to be well.
This was a tip that my son taught me. And, it made all the difference between DOSBoX 0.70 being total crap to sheer perfection!

Then you want to copy the DOSBox shortcut from Windows Explorer, rename it do DoSBox X-Com Apocalypse, right click on it, Select properties, and then copy this into Target:
--
"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.70\dosbox.exe" "C:\XCOMA\DARXCOM3.BAT" -fullscreen -conf "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.70\dosbox.conf" -exit

--
The quotes have to be there. It won't work, yet, but now you are ready with a shortcut to run the thing in DOSBox!

Make sure you have a space before every –command and a space before every line as it all becomes one line.

13) Now, it's time to break that copy protection, as it won't run otherwise.

http://www.megagames.com/cracks/html/c34825_0.htm

Select the X-Com Apocalypse v1.00 YCG - no CD. That's the one that worked. I tried the others, but they didn't work for me.

The same crack was found here as well:

http://www.gameburnworld.com/gp/gamefixes/...pocalypse.shtml

I'm not even going to debate the morality of the cracks. The fact is that this method that I'm listing here won't even work for you unless you have an original CD. You have to copy and get the install from an original CD.

But, after you have installed from the original XCOM3 CD that you have purchased and own, then it still won't run in DOSBox or in WIN95 compatability or with anything until you crack the copy protection. Cracking the protection is essential to break its dependence on the CD, so you can run from the hard drive. And, even with my orginal CD in the drive, I could never get anything to recognize that CD ever again. It's an anchor that has to be gotten rid of, if you want to have any hope of running XCOM APOC on Windows XP. There's something there on the original CD that just simply kills the running of XCOM3 on XP. I have never been able to run the X-COM Apoc CD from XP, never ever.

Okay, follow the instructions in that crack you downloaded.

You must find and copy the SMK folder to C:\XCOMA. That folder is on your CD under XCOM3 folder, or over there in C:\XCOM3I that you created. You also copy the MUSIC file to C:\XCOMA. And, you either copy the MAP folder from your CD or from C:\XCOM3I. You have to get the two missing maps copied over, or it will die when it comes time to go to the alien dimension. There's more mentioned about that here:
http://www.xcomufo.com/x3faq.html

NOW IT'S TIME TO CRACK IT.

I ran the CRACK program in Win95 compatability mode, and it didn't give me much feedback, but I could sense errors. That crack program won't run right from Windows Explorer. That's my guess, although I didn't get to see the feedback long enough to know for sure.

So, I ran it from DOSBox.

Copy the CRACK files to C:\XCOMA.

Run the original DOSBox prompt.

Inside DOSBox type these

MOUNT C C:\XCOMA

C:

Run the CRACK.BAT. It should then tell you that it succeeded and that you can now run "XCOMAPOC.EXE SKIP" to get it to work. It's important to use the SKIP command, but still it won't work.

14) I was unable to run XCOMAPOC.EXE SKIP from my DosBox shortcut. It gives the black screen of death.

So, I had to do one last little trick. I had to go into C:\XCOMA and create a batch file. This is where copying some other batch file comes in handy, so that the thing is set as a batch file in Windows Explorer.

Anyway, find a 'working' batch file, the old CRACK.BAT will do, rename it to
DARXCOM3.BAT.

Then you can set DARXCOM3.BAT to Win95 Compatability mode, by right clicking on it and doing the Compatability tab, but it wasn't necessary, so I didn't set this one to win95 compatability.

Right Click DARXCOM3.BAT from Windows explorer, select Edit, select ALL and delete it all, and then copy the following into DARXCOM3.BAT:

--

@echo off

xcomapoc.exe SKIP

--

That's all.

Then save it. Okay, your DOSBox Xcom Apocalypse shortcut was set to run the batch file DARXCOM3.BAT, if you run that DOSBox XCOM APOCALYPSE short cut now, you should come up with a running X-Com Apocalypse. Of course, your mileage may vary, and maybe it won't work for you. But, it finally worked for me!

I can't run "XCOMAPOC.EXE SKIP" directly from DoSBOX 0.70, but I could run that DARXCOM3.BAT batch file just fine from a DosBox shortcut, and it calls what you need and runs XCOM3 just fine for me.

In fact, I was able to run XCom Apoc from Windows Explorer just by clicking DARXCOM3.BAT, by this point in the process. Of course, the music doesn’t work and the mouse is a bit jittery. But, it runs. Run from DOSBox shortcut you created if you want the mouse stable and want it to play the music right from XP.

15) You may need to run the SETUP.EXE in win95 compatability mode a bunch of times and run your DOSBOX Shortcut to XCOM3 to get the sound right in the XCOM APOCALYPSE game. I have a Soundblaster Live 24-bit card in my machine. And, like I said, I had to use SETUP.EXE and set XCOM3 to SOUNDBLASTER PRO, B220, I7, D1, in order to make it work. SB16/32AWE didn't work, although that has worked for other DOS games I installed and created DoSBox shortcuts to.

16) Again, like I said, this is what finally worked for me. The first time I have ever had XCom Apocalypse running on XP, despite years of try. It only took five years for me to finally get something that worked on XP! Hope that it doesn't take you as long.


17) When I was done, I went in to C:\XCOMA and changed XCOM3.CFG to this:
" c:\xcoma\".

It is very important to have that little space in there. If not, no music will play. That's "<space>c:\xcoma\" inside the XCOM3.CFG, where <space> is the space key. I hope that it stays there for you.

Now, if you were able to follow all the instructions and apply the crack and get all the missing folders and MUSIC copied over to C:\XCOMA, it will now run from your DOSBox shortcut out of the C:\XCOMA folder just fine, and give you sound and music just fine and the mouse will be at a tolerable speed, and all will be well.

Now, you can safely delete the C:\XCOM3I folder that you had installed from as now the C:\XCOMA\XCOM3.CFG file with its space up front is now pointing to " C:\XCOMA".

You shouldn't need the C:\XCOM3I folder any more.

18) Hopefully, it is working for you. This is where that XCom Apocalypse manual that you purchased ten years ago should finally come in handy. Hope it worked for you too! It only took me five years to get something that worked for me. Hope it’s a lot less time for you. Realizing that the XApoc CD will never ever start up on XP was the key. You have to move on to the hard drive and work from there. Hopefully, one of the cracks will work for you.

--
||
--

SECOND MESSAGE:

The DoSBox Forum and Mark's forum refers you to the various cracks as well.

You are going to have to crack it in order to get XP and DoSBox to recognize it. I found no other way.

I tried everything I could think of to install without the crack, and nothing worked. Once I cracked, then up it came, in both DoSBox and Windows Explorer.

The CD itself breaks Windows XP and prevents XP from running.

I don't have the Windows Collector Edition, I have the original 1.00 CD that came with the original game 10 years ago, along with the nice manual. That original CD just won't startup or autoplay or run right on XP.

But, a crack can fix it so that you can skip the CD and just run from the hard drive, which seems to be essential to getting your original copy of XCom Apoc to run under DOSBox and Windows XP.

It only took me five years to find something that finally worked. Now, I can actually play XCom Apoc on my Windows XP machine. It's been a long time in coming!

--

Mine was the original v1.00 X-Com Apocalypse that I purchased 10 years ago. That CD has something on it that breaks XP so that XP cannot run it with the CD. Even if you crack the CD and try to run from th CD, it still doesn't work. You have to run from the hard drive! And, to run from the hard drive, again, you have to crack the CD. I found no other way. The original CD that came in the box with the game just won't AUTOPLAY or startup in PLAY or work at all on XP. It has something there that is broken when XP tries to run it. Crashes every time. The only way is to run off the hard drive. Then DOSBox works wonderfully!


I'm not trying to promote the cracks. They have been around for years and never worked.

When it comes to the original X-Com Apocalypse, the key to it all is to get it all onto the hard drive, as there is something on the original 1.0 CD that prevents XCom from running at all on Windows XP.

Even if you crack it and try to run from the original CD that you purchased, it still won't run. The CD breaks it or prevents it from running on XP. The Play button isn't offered as part of Autoplay, even after you have installed from the CD. The Autoplay is broken for XP or doesn't run with XP or isn't compatible with XP. So, running from the original CD is impossible!

You have to be running it all from the HARD drive.

That's why the Windows Collector's version worked for some people, as it apparently all ran from the hard drive. Then you didn't encounter the Autoplay thing on the CD that broke it.

For those of us with the original version, the only hope is to get the whole thing onto the hard drive and running from the hard drive. And, to do that, you have to crack it. I found no other way.

If you find a way to do it without cracking it, let us know. But, every place that I went to made it clear that the only people who got it to run were running with Window's Collector Edition and running it all on the hard drive.

There is a way for those of us with the original XCom Apoc v1.00 to run on the hard drive too, but it requires the crack to break the dependence upon the CD and to get it to run without encountering the thing on the CD that breaks XP compatability.

You have got to get past the CD, as the original Apoc CD is not compatible with XP, no matter what you do with it.

Hopefully, they will let this stay up here, as it would have saved me days and years of grief if I would have known from the start that I was never going to be able to get it to run on XP from the original CD.

[UfoMan]

--
||
--

THIRD MESSAGE:

In the subsequent time, I found that the default "cycles=auto" in DoSBox 0.70 dosbox.conf file might actually work a bit better on some of the machines that "cycles=max", when it comes to X-Com Apocalypse 1.0. This was the only game though, where the default 'cycles=auto' appeared to work better than 'cycles=max'. All the other games required 'cycles=max' to run their best.

It's a simple exercise to create a custom dosbox.conf file in the C:\XCOMA folder and adjust the shortcut to point to it. Just be sure that you make a copy of the real dosbox.conf file and not the shortcut that is on the start menu. If you do the one on the start menu, that's the shortcut, and it will have you modifying the real thing.

I actually have two separate X-Com Apocalypse shortcuts now, one for the default cycles=auto and one for my updated master cycles=max that I use for MOO, MOM, Empires Deluxe, X-Com, and TFTD.

I have also taken the results of this whole thing and put it on two other XP SP2 machines in the house here, and XCom Apoc runs just fine. I don't need to play X3 right now, but my son is done with college and in between tasks, and he has been playing my copy of X-Com on his XP machine with DOSBox 0.70, and I wanted him to be able to have a go at my copy of Xcom Apoc. Anyway, the gist of this is that XCom Apoc is now working on my son's WinXP SP2 machine just fine now. And, I also backed it up onto my secondary WinXP work machine that I have in the office, and again, it ran just fine.

So, the process seems to work on more than just my main XP machine. Good news.

It seemed like a whole bunch of the guys here had the original XCom Apoc and could never get it running on XP. There were pieces of the puzzle, but nothing that ever combined the whole complex mess into something that worked. Hopefully, they will now be able to take their CD and get it going, if they so desire.

The key to it all is that you have to get it all onto the hard drive and running from the hard drive. If you don't, if it the startup or Autoplay accesses the original CD even for one second while starting the game, it will crash every time on XP. Only Win 95 and Win 98 and Win ME could seem to access the original CD without it crashing. It's as if the XCOM APOC CD startup checks the operating system, and when it runs into XP, something that it has never seen before, then it just automatically quits to the prompt and you are done before you start.

I was pleased at how nicely it ran under DoSBox 0.70 on XP, when I got it all on the hard drive. The music is still a bit choppy at times, but then XCom Apoc music was always a bit choppy and weird, even running from the CD. You can turn it off if you want. Or you can make cycles=auto in dosbox.conf. You will have to experiment around to see what works best.

Also, so far, none of the other XP machines that I have tried this on worked for SB16/AWE32 emulation. None of them. The other machines had onboard sound. My main machine is the only one with a Soundblaster card. I had to set them all to SOUNDBLASTER PRO. I tried to see if any of them would work as SB16. No go. There's something broken there too. Other DOS games will run SB16 mode under DoSBox 0.70, just not X3 Apoc.

But, they also all work with the SOUNDBLASTER mono setting too.

XCom Apocalypse is the hardest one to get going on XP. It had a dozen different bugs and glitches that all interfere or intervene to prevent it all from running right. It's like you need to line up all the dominoes just right in order to have it run. Maybe now you can imagine how shocked I was the first time that it ran and ran right. I was stunned. I sincerely believed that I would never be able to crack the thing or figure the thing out.

But, I did. It's working really well, and the process has now been tested on other machines too.

I also played around with the xcom3fix.zip thing to see if I could somehow get it to run from the CD. I never could get it to run from the CD. I don't think xcom3fix.zip changes anything. It isn't really a CD crack but a CD substitute, but it didn't work for me. That's another part of the process that I never mentioned, as I don't think it did anything, but I mention it now, just in case one of you goes through the whole process and discovers that it still isn't working for you.

Tried to be thorough.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Actually, the cycles=max setting is not the best idea either - it uses an autodetection script to figure out the maximum cycle count your machine can handle.
The script itself is far from perfect, so it's better to gauge the optimal value by yourself (maximize the game with resource monitor running in the background, then use trial and error to find the value where CPU usage is just below 100% in fullscreen mode). Increasing frameskip (I use Frameskip=2 for this game) also can increase the speed, as can do disabling the scalers and using [b]output=ddraw

Also, since v 0.70 DOSBox can use multiple config arguments:
"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.70\dosbox.exe" -fullscreen -conf "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.70\dosbox.conf" -conf "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.70\XCOM3.conf" -noconsole
This means that dosbox.conf will be loaded first, after which XCOM3.conf will be loaded and any settings in it will override those of dosbox.conf (so XCOM3.conf doesn't have to include all the content of DosBox.conf, onyl the differences). -noconsole will disable the status box, so that DosBox runs only in a single window.

umm any one know when ESA will release apocalypse again??

i tried to use the guide above to install my cd version of it but,

i use vista and you all can guess what the result were... :angry: