WC2 DosBox 7 Problem...

LeaderOne

Spaceman
Ok, I got the game to work (Dos Version), but here is my issue:

If I run the game normally (wc2.exe), it freezes up after the autopilot sequence (a).

If I run the game with loadfix, the game plays fine, but I lose ALL speech in the game (including cut-scene speech)!

Is there a way around this? Speech but freeze, no speech and fine.

Thanks,

LeaderOne
 
Hey,
A different problem with DOSBox 0.70 here...
My Logitech Extreme3D PRO won't calibrate properly in Armada and Privateer... It worked fine in 0.65. Other than that, both games play a LOT better on 0.70, a hell lot smoother.

Any suggestions?
 
Hey,
A different problem with DOSBox 0.70 here...
My Logitech Extreme3D PRO won't calibrate properly in Armada and Privateer... It worked fine in 0.65. Other than that, both games play a LOT better on 0.70, a hell lot smoother.

Any suggestions?

Check to see that you have no other USB controllers (gamepads or joysticks) plugged in while trying to calibrate. This seems to be an XP issue as opposed to a Dosbox specific issue. Also you might need hcls patches to get the joystick to work properly in dosbox.

Try that first, anyway.
 
Yeah, there's just the Logitech stick plugged in, apart from the USB mouse.
I think HCl discontinued the patch, now he published a modified version of Dosbox .65, and I wanted to keep playing with .70, because it's a lot faster and smoother.

But thanks for the help!

EDIT: The Armada patch is still in his site, but it won't fix Privateer... I'll try it anyway.

EDIT 2: Solved!
the problem was caused by the new TIMING=TRUE option... just set it to FALSE and the stick will work in all games

DOSbox is really cool. Even Syndicate Wars worked flawlessly on it.
 
the problem was caused by the new TIMING=TRUE option... just set it to FALSE and the stick will work in all games

For future reference, some games will like TIMING=TRUE better, especially at high cycle counts. WC3 can have issues with TIMING=FALSE at very high cycle counts (which is what led me to look into the joystick emulation problem in the first place.) Some games will only misbehave if the cycle count changes after calibration when timing is set one way or the other, so cycles=auto can be troublesome as well.
 
yes. I was thinking of changing the default of dosbox to timing is false on the next release or introducing a timed=auto which would enable timed=false on cycles=auto
 
Interesting... Well, the joystick would not work on any wc games in DosBox, and worked fine after changing it to FALSE, including WC3.
 
I have a problem myself.

I just got a Dell Inspiron 1100 and instantly installed DOSBox .70 and tried running WC2 Deluxe. I can get to the 2nd mission when at the end it crashes completely out. I've tried loadfix -32 wc2 and loadfix -1 wc2 and both of those cause it to crash out. If I don't use it the game just freezes after I kill all the kats.

I've also noticed that I'm only able to use 1 key on the board at a time. ie I can't be ABing firing and flying at the same time. I can only do any one of them.

I feel like I'm going to be having a lot of questions over the coming period as I just got this machine and need to get all my of my old collections up and running. Thanks in advance.
 
I just got a Dell Inspiron 1100 and instantly installed DOSBox .70 and tried running WC2 Deluxe. I can get to the 2nd mission when at the end it crashes completely out. I've tried loadfix -32 wc2 and loadfix -1 wc2 and both of those cause it to crash out. If I don't use it the game just freezes after I kill all the kats.

I've also noticed that I'm only able to use 1 key on the board at a time. ie I can't be ABing firing and flying at the same time. I can only do any one of them.

Both of these are kind of unusual errors. You can adjust loadfix quite a bit. No number, -64 and all kinds of steps in between. You can also try it without sound. But loadfix should do it. I can't think of anyone else who wasn't able to get around this.

For the keyboard, the game might not be able to simultaneously accept the input, but if you start shooting while afterburning, your guns should fire. The worst that should happen is that your afterburners deignite, but you should be able to input anything and have it occur.
 
I'll try playing around with the loadfix some more.

If I'm holding a key down and hit another key it will only recognize the key I'm still holding down. When I'm flying around I can't shoot until I left off the arrows (I'm getting a mouse soon thankfully). Someone else from #wingnut (I'm forgetting how right now though) was able to reproduce the problem. Hopefully playing around some more I'll be able to get rid of it, or using a mouse as well.
 
WC2 DosBox Solution

The problem is not with dosbox.

When you are at the cdrom drive prompt in dosbox and you type wc2, what loads is not wc2.exe, but wc2.bat wich then loads options (including the audio) before calling wc2.exe.

If you execute the command:

loadfix -32 wc2

You are actually using the loadfix -32 command to load the wc2.bat file which then calls the wc2.exe without loadfix.

Solution,

You will have to duplicate the entire wingcommander cdrom to your hard disk. Just create a new directory and copy the contents of the cdrom to that directory. When loading dosbox, mount that directory as the cdrom drive by typing:

mount D c:\wc2cdr\ -t cdrom

Next edit the wc2.bat file. You may notice all commands in the bat file are local to the cdrom drive, that is why you must copy the cdrom to your hard disk for this to work unless you know how to hack the bat file (I'm didn't do it because I like having it on my hard disk anyway). Scroll to the bottom of the wc2.bat file and find the line that looks like this.

:rungame
wc2.exe %1 %2 %3 %4

edit that line to look like this (note you can substitute any value from 1 to 64 instead of 32):

:rungame
loadfix -32 wc2.exe %1 %2 %3 %4

Now save the edited wc2.bat file and exicute this file from DosBox. The result should be that the edited wc2.bat file loads audio and everything else and then opens wc2.exe with loadfix.

Also, if you happen to use D-fend (as I do) you will have to uncheck the loadfix checkbox in the profile you have created for wing commander 2. If you leave it checked then it will load dosbox, mount the drives, and then exicute:

loadfix -32 C:\(fake cdrom path)\wc2.bat

That's no good.
 
loadfix -32 wc2.exe
loadfix -32 so1.exe
loadfix -32 so2.exe

all will work, but the audio is loaded by wc2.bat, so1.bat, and so2.bat

That is the reason why I edit the bat files, so that the game works with full audio support.
 
all will work, but the audio is loaded by wc2.bat, so1.bat, and so2.bat

That is the reason why I edit the bat files, so that the game works with full audio support.

Actually it isn't.

Sound configuration is saved in the WC2.cfg file in the wing2 directory. A typical WC2.cfg file for soundblaster cards will be a plain text file with a string that reads "v a904 c27" (minus the quotation marks)

Most of the stuff you are talking about can be avoided by copying everything in the "wing2" folder on the CD to the harddrive. Basically you are copying everything on the CD excluding all the stuff in the root directory of the CD. Just copy the whole "WING2" folder off the CD to a directory on the harddrive called "WING2"

You should be able to run the installer from that directory on your harddrive to set up sound without worrying about it asking for disks too, and you don't need the CD in the drive to run the game. And you will be running the game from the exe so there shouldn't be any trouble with loadfix *and* you don't need to mess around with drive images and mounting anythng other than the harddrive in dosbox.
 
Or you could just do:
Code:
loadfix -32
wc2

If you don't specify a file to execute, loadfix will stay resident until you call it again.
 
Back
Top