Origin Games in DOS

WC4Life

Captain
Hello there!

First of all, yes I am serious, I still do own a DOS computer.

It has specs as follows:
Pentium Pro 133 Mhz (already slowed down by multiplier, actually it's a 233 Mhz processor)
32 MB RAM (could add another 64, but no need for that)
MS-DOS 6.22
Creative Labs SoundBlaster
CD-RW
Mouse

All in all it is a good system for playing games, I also still have old Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files and all other software which I need, even Windows and Word. The only problem which should occur should be too high speed, for that I have Moslo.

However I also recognized another problem... many games had problem with my old Creative Labs SoundBlaster 2.0 Pro (8bit), the sound/music was always distorted as being played too fast, it even continued to play too fast after I slowed everything down by Moslo or disabling L1/L2 cache. So... I just thought I get myself a different SoundBlaster. I got another 2.0 Pro, just to make use mine was ok, and I found the same problem to happen again.
Alright, I got myself a SoundBlaster 16 with ISA interface. Now I don't know what it is, but since I turned off the computer last time (a couple of months ago) the sound is not ok anymore, Privateer always crashes, giving me the error which I described in another post here, some other games also suddenly don't start anymore 'sound selection not matching hardware'. This actually cannot be as I know what I built into that computer and also installed all drivers which are needed.
I will first return back to my 2.0 and check if Priavteer or other games then, I know the 2.0 so I am sure I could solve most issues, unless the playing too fast thing.

I have another question... I know many people here also play Wing Commander games (esp. Privateer in this case) on older computers which also likely have SoundBlaster 16 under the hood (PCI interface this time) I also got 2 of these, but when I tried to get them to work it somehow didn't work out. I either had no sound or crashes. With the PCI version you even cannot manually select settings, only dumb presets, which actually don't even match Privateer, if I remember right. Now I wonder if some of you also have or had problems with PCI interface hardware or not? I'd like to find out if these issues I had are common or if it is just some settings wrong again? I guess I tried every possible configuration, all drivers present.

I must say that I have only installed the drivers from the original driver disc, I know these might be buggy, likely Creative Labs issued updated versions years ago, but right now there is no support available anymore for such old hardware from them, I have also checked the web for updates, but didn't find anything. If some of you might have updated drivers, or even know how to solve my problem

Hoping for replies. Any helpful comments appreciated. Privateer doesn't work on DOSbox on my other computers, tried everything suggested in the tech section here, but I never got sound. Maybe it's the onboad SoundBlaster of my other older PIII 933Mhz computer, I don't know. As I still own a good DOS PC I'd like to get everything to work on it.

DOS ain't dead...

WC4Life
 
I just played around with my old Pentium again, and for some odd reason I smoked my SCSI harddisk... the power connector always fitted very boldly so I just removed the plug and the connector in one piece. The drive actually only had 340 MB so I will get myself an IDE 10 GB drive now and will also have some more space.
I figured one thing... when I added an IDE Plug & Play SoundBlaster 16 my SCSI HDD didn't boot up anymore, before I accidentially 'removed' the power connector. This is strange. I tried to change BIOS settings to make it work, without positive result. I just started to wonder about one thing... it might be possible that the SCSI HDD caused the problem as its controller uses a different IRQ and memory than IDE. I still wonder why it worked for me a couple of months ago, on a non PnP SoundBlaster...
Will try to solve the problem, I think I will take the HDD from my Windows ME computer, format it, install DOS and drivers to see what happens. I already plugged it in, DOS only recognized about 10 GB of it's capacity, but it worked. I hope sound will work then, because then it will be clear that some kind of issues were caused by the SCSI interface... keep your fingers crossed for me, people.

I will post my results here asap.
 
Speaking based on my own experience here, I find it's much easier to run any DOS WC games on DOSBox then trying to fiddle with real "DOS era hardware"... Especially now that even keeping those old cards and stuff alive is getting harder. Once you have the dosbox config down to a pat, it's just a matter of double clicking and playing. Privateer, for instance, the game with the most arcane mem manager ever, runs easily and awesomely on DOSBox.

And why the heck do you have a WinME machine? 98SE was a lot more stable, especially for DOS gaming.
 
Well... speaking about DOSbox I must say that I cannot get Privateer to work correctly, I get no sound, even if I use the config layout which is available here and working for most of you, on my 933 MHz P3 I never get sound... on this XP computer (2700+ Athlon) I am also unable, not a clue why.

Since I have a lot of knowledge of DOS from my past days I somehow prefer it. DOSbox would be easier to get all things running, but sound is a feature which I don't want to miss. If you or anybody has an idea why the sound won't work, tell me. The P3 has Creative SoundBlaster 128 PCI onboard and the Athlon has nVidia nForce onboard sound...

I started having problems with DOS only when my old 486 board died.
 
It's me again...

Have to say that I have been playing Privateer on my old DOS computer for a several hours now. Everything is working, no errors, just one crash.

Last night I plugged in my Win ME computer's harddisk and installed DOS and Privateer. Since I didn't change the configuration I have now found the reason for Privateer crashing. I have tested all soundcards I have here, therefore I can be pretty certain that the error was caused by my SCSI harddrive. Don't know why exactly, doesn't make sense at all. As far as I know Origin didn't write anything about not working on SCSI hardware. Maybe the drive was slowly dying, who knows.

Anyway... DOS is not dead... all works fine now. God knows how long it would take to get DOSbox to work. Somehow I prefer my bigger DOSbox here.

WC4Life
 
Anyway... DOS is not dead... all works fine now. God knows how long it would take to get DOSbox to work.

If I was there, I would probably say a few minutes, but congratulations on getting it going. Did you follow our tech support walkthrough and match up the irqs? Depending on your hardware configuration, if you try to get something like WC2 going, it might still be easier to get everything going in dosbox (full sound requires 582 k free).
 
If I was there, I would probably say a few minutes, but congratulations on getting it going. Did you follow our tech support walkthrough and match up the irqs? Depending on your hardware configuration, if you try to get something like WC2 going, it might still be easier to get everything going in dosbox (full sound requires 582 k free).

Yes, I matched up the IRQs. Concerning WC2 I must say that I had some problems with my CD-ROM Version, I couldn't install the main game from the CD, but I still have the diskette version as well... I think the installer insists in CD-ROM being drive D:\ ... mine is F:\ (having 3 partitions in DOS, 2 GB each). After that I just needed to slow down using Moslo.

So far I am up to date with the replay... finished WC 1 and 2 incl. all addons... WC3 works fine... classic gameport joystick (Gravis Analog Pro)...

Privateer and all other games work fine aswell... already got my Centurion again, flying a Tarsus is boring, no dog fight abilities...
 
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