Trying To Run WC In OS/2 Warp (February 16, 2005)

[ChrisReid]

Man, that McDowell cast is creepy. Anyhow, akula65 has discovered some interesting settings for Wing Commander buried in the OS/2 Warp operating system. More than just a compatibility mode for running old games, there are preset configurations included for specific titles.

I recently re-installed IBM's OS/2 Warp Version 3 on an old machine with
a 486 motherboard, and I found out that this version of OS/2 Warp has
some interesting support for the DOS versions of early Wing Commander
games. OS/2 Warp Version 3 has a built-in DOS/Win3.1 application
settings database what is installed as part of the OS. If an
application is installed which is listed in the database, then the OS
automatically uses the settings listed under that game for execution in
a DOS session. Here is the excerpt from the settings database file
C:\OS2\INSTALL\DATABASE.TXT for the Wing Commander games:


Wing Commander II Special Operations 1 Origin
NAME SO1.EXE
TITLE Wing Commander 2
TYPE DOS
ASSOC_FILE WC2.CFG
DEF_DIR \WING2
SESSION_MODE FULLSCREEN
DOS_BACKGROUND_EXECUTION OFF
DOS_HIGH ON
IDLE_SECONDS 60
IDLE_SENSITIVITY 100
HW_ROM_TO_RAM ON
HW_TIMER OFF
INT_DURING_IO OFF
VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION ON
FOLDER GAMES

Similar profiles exist for Wing Commander 1 through Academy. If you use OS/2 and need some help running older Wing Commander games, you might want to look into this. I suppose this would fall into the "Other" category in our current Poll.

--
Original update published on February 16, 2005

 

[ChrisReid]

Here are the complete profiles:

REM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
REM Wing Commander II Special Operations 1 by Origin
REM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME SO1.EXE
TITLE Wing Commander 2: #1
TYPE DOS
ASSOC_FILE WC2.CFG
DEF_DIR \WING2
SESSION_MODE FULLSCREEN
DOS_BACKGROUND_EXECUTION OFF
DOS_HIGH ON
IDLE_SECONDS 60
IDLE_SENSITIVITY 100
HW_ROM_TO_RAM ON
HW_TIMER OFF
INT_DURING_IO OFF
VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION ON
FOLDER GAMES

REM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
REM Wing Commander II Special Operations 2 by Origin
REM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME SO2.EXE
TITLE Wing Commander 2: #2
TYPE DOS
ASSOC_FILE WC2.CFG
DEF_DIR \WING2
SESSION_MODE FULLSCREEN
DOS_BACKGROUND_EXECUTION OFF
DOS_HIGH ON
IDLE_SECONDS 60
IDLE_SENSITIVITY 100
HW_ROM_TO_RAM ON
HW_TIMER OFF
INT_DURING_IO OFF
VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION ON
FOLDER GAMES

REM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
REM Wing Commander by Origin
REM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME WC.EXE
TITLE Wing Commander
TYPE DOS
ASSOC_FILE INSTALL.EXE
DEF_DIR \WING
SESSION_MODE FULLSCREEN
DOS_BACKGROUND_EXECUTION OFF
DOS_HIGH ON
IDLE_SECONDS 60
IDLE_SENSITIVITY 100
HW_ROM_TO_RAM ON
HW_TIMER ON
INT_DURING_IO OFF
VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION ON
FOLDER GAMES

REM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
REM Wing Commander II by Origin
REM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME WC2.EXE
TITLE Wing Commander 2
TYPE DOS
ASSOC_FILE WC2.CFG
DEF_DIR \WING2
SESSION_MODE FULLSCREEN
DOS_BACKGROUND_EXECUTION OFF
DOS_HIGH ON
IDLE_SECONDS 60
IDLE_SENSITIVITY 100
HW_ROM_TO_RAM ON
HW_TIMER OFF
INT_DURING_IO OFF
VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION ON
FOLDER GAMES

REM ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REM Wing Commander Academy by Origin
REM ------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME WCA.EXE
TITLE Wing Commander Academy
TYPE DOS
ASSOC_FILE WCA.CFG
DEF_DIR \WCA
SESSION_MODE FULLSCREEN
DOS_BACKGROUND_EXECUTION OFF
EMS_MEMORY_LIMIT 2560
HW_TIMER ON
IDLE_SENSITIVITY 100
XMS_MEMORY_LIMIT 0
FOLDER GAMES