Help Needed : Privateer 2 - The Darkening

[JMW]

I am currently running Windows XP on a 2.8 GHz intel , 256mb Ram and am running Privateer 2 : The Darkening using DosBox 0.65. I have followed your directions for running it from , https://www.wcnews.com/techsupport.shtml#p2 , and it seems to run fine other than a little choppyness. The problem I am having is that it would seem I cannot run it without re-installing it from the CD every time. If I run it from "c:\dark\dark.exe" it does not detect CD2 when when I put it in after being prompted. Running it from my cdrom drive works fine and the cd change is not a problem, but again, I must reinstall every time. I save a copy of my saved games to a temporary folder and just cut and paste every time however, I was hopeing there was a way to just run from my CDrom without reinstalling. Anytime I enter (from the d: prompt) 'dark' it says I must install it, even though it is installed.

The only changes I made in the config file for DosBox are:

core=dynamic
ems=false
mount c: c:\
mount d: e:\ -t cdrom -ioctl


Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks for your time.

 

[JMW]

I have since fixed the detection issue problem, heh, but thanks anyway. Any tips and tricks about the choppyness would be appreciated though.

 

[Deacan]

I've never used DOSBOX, but I ran a 2-systems-computer, clearly WP and Win98 on two harddiscs. So I've never run into problems...

Deacan

 

[ChrisReid]

I have since fixed the detection issue problem, heh, but thanks anyway. Any tips and tricks about the choppyness would be appreciated though.

You should always let us know what you did to fix it so other people can benefit from the solution later. It sounds like you might have needed to press the spacebar after inserting CD2.

To address the speed, you have to play with the frameskip and cycle level to customize it to your system. The values we have in the tech support section are just samples. Try flying around other ships and finding a comfortable framerate, and then pointing at a planet and finding a good framerate. You can adjust between the two, or settle on something in the middle there.

 

[JMW]

Sorry about that.

The problem seemed to be that after I had progressed to the second disk and saved it I could no longer insert the first disk to start ; which I had been doing instinctively and then running from the 'd:' prompt in DosBox. I resolved the issue by loading dark.exe from 'c:\dark\dark.exe' with disk 2 inserted. This solved the issue. A foolish mistake with a simple solution.

Moreover, I cannot find a suitable framerate for my computer, if I go above 21000 it just gets worse and if I go below 10000 the result is the same (very slow). This is only in space. The stability seems somewhat lacking as it crashes every couple planets I visit. (I adjusted the core=dynamic back to normal to avoid this but it had no affect)

I had previously tried the windows patch which works perfectly (aside from the sound being terrible) and the rate of speed of the game is far superior. I would prefer to lose the sound and gain the speed but it does not detect CD2 when I am prompted for it. If anyone has a solution for this instance or a link to another thread where this question was addressed please respond. I will continue looking. Again, thanks for your time.

 

[AD]

Moreover, I cannot find a suitable framerate for my computer, if I go above 21000 it just gets worse and if I go below 10000 the result is the same (very slow). This is only in space. The stability seems somewhat lacking as it crashes every couple planets I visit. (I adjusted the core=dynamic back to normal to avoid this but it had no affect)

Did you turn on the dynamic core? You can turn up the cycles quite a bit higher if you turn it on in the dosbox.conf file.

 

[JMW]

I have changed the config file to Dynamic, however, my in space flight still seems very very slow. On the other side of that, my on planet activities are very fast. Oh well. Right now anytime it asks me for disk 2 I use dosbox and get past that part , which is just a movie, and save it, and then open it up in the windows patch and copy and paste the saved game. A lot of tediousness but oh well.