WC3 on WINXP SP2, 100% working solution

[ChrisReid]

IIRC WC3 limits the speed anyway, so if it seems fast, it's *supposed* to be that way. (I think its only wc1, and P2 that don't but I've been wrong before).

Only WC1 and SM1. P2 has a frame rate limiter, but it can be buggy and doesn't always work (we have a fix patch for it).

however i messed up the movie set up and now its only a small bar on the top of my screen, how do i fix that so its fullscreen?

That's pretty weird. How did you mess it up? Did you rerun the installer? Are you sure it's not a new problem issue you've encountered?

 

[Unregistered]

Everything worked great, I haven't been able to mess with this game much in nearly 10 years.

Is there a setting that I missed to enable certain controls. I can use the keyboard, but I am unable to activate a joystick. I am using a Logitech Wingman Extreme Digital that is hooked up through a gameport. The joystick works fine according to the Windows game controller setup.

Any advice/suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[AD]

Everything worked great, I haven't been able to mess with this game much in nearly 10 years.

Is there a setting that I missed to enable certain controls. I can use the keyboard, but I am unable to activate a joystick. I am using a Logitech Wingman Extreme Digital that is hooked up through a gameport. The joystick works fine according to the Windows game controller setup.

Any advice/suggestions would be appreciated.

If you were using dosbox this wouldnt be a problem, however I don't think vdm sound will emulate joystick support. So if it is a Joystick that wouldnt originally have worked with wc3 then it wont work with VDMsound.

 

[meisdavidp]

Are you kidding? VDMsound is great about joysticks, my Logitech 3D Pro worked fine. I think it must be more of a configuration issue.

Wait... just reread that, USB joysticks work, but I know nothing about gameport ones.

 

[AD]

Are you kidding? VDMsound is great about joysticks, my Logitech 3D Pro worked fine. I think it must be more of a configuration issue.

Wait... just reread that, USB joysticks work, but I know nothing about gameport ones.

Hmm, just rethought that through a bit. Is it possible this is like my old logitech wingman extreme that had two different ways to connect, one through the gameport and the second digitaly through a serial port? If so maybe make sure its on the gameport and/or make sure it's not a legacy driver problem.

 

[Darknight]

I am the Unregistered guy above.

Mine is from before they changed the joysticks quite a bit. I think that I may have used it on WC4, but probably not WC3. It seems to be connected to the gameport properly since Windows is detecting it. I will play around with VMSound and try to find some options. I was too thrilled to get to see the video sequences again. This site is great for an old gamer like me.

 

[Black-Wulf]

I have some strange problem with the Vdmsound solution from Angelli.
I made the file as he described it and ran it. then a dox screen appears and it tells me: "not enough files available.
make sure that the following line appears ion your config.sys file:
FILES=25"
what the hell...?? should I edit my config.sys file and perhaps scratch up my whole windows??

 

[ChrisReid]

Editing configuration files for a DOS emulator won't do anything for your actual Windows install, and editing your actual config.sys with Files=25 wouldn't screw it up if you did.

 

[Black-Wulf]

ok it's been a long time since I played with DOS.
would you plz explain, how I can edit my config.sys file? and where is it stored?
c:\windows?

 

[ChrisReid]

No, it'd be in the C:\ root, but you don't actually want to do that here. You're working with the emulator, right? You would be wanting to manipulate whatever configuration files VDMSound uses.

 

[Black-Wulf]

ok but...whmm...I wonder wether I am too stupid for this program...TT
but fortunately my old DOS PC is revived
So I will take the old junker and try WC3 there in it's "natural habitat". but thx for help.

 

[Kilrah]

Thank you very much Angelli! Thanks to you I’ve finally managed to play WC3 with Windows XP in my Pentium 3.

This is a great tip; it should be on the news!

Thanks!

 

[firehorse]

Hi guys,

I might be slightly off topic here, but the question for me stars with WC3 and running it on XP so here goes. I have managed to get it running fairly well with DosBox .65 - no sound yet, but I have not tried real hard on that either. My main question is can I somehow copy all the CD's to a folder on one of my hard drives and avoid switching? I would like to do this for WCIV & Prophacy as well, for a couple of reasons, 1) I am getting old and lazy (that is the big reason actually) 2) I like to jump around allot after I finally get the game completed and it is a real drag digging out the disks constantly searching for the one need, 3) I would just like to keep the disks in the box so I don't risk damaging them (yeah I know make backups & use them - see #1 I will have to do that after a good shot of geritol.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[ChrisReid]

Yeah, just copy the discs over and mount the hard driver folders as -t cdrom in DOSBox. For Prophecy, which doesn't run in DOSBox, you can do this with Daemon Tools.

 

[firehorse]

Joystick Problems in DosBox 0.65

Hi Guys,

I am really stumped, I have printed out the various posts and suggestions on Joysticks and running WCIII on a Win XP system, and I have the game performing relatively well except I am having a Hell of a time with the joystick. I just installed DosBox 0.65 and tried everything I can think of from the other posts but no success so far. The problem is the calibration I tried setting the control to Keyboard in the WCIII set up (although I still get asked to calibrate every time I start the game even with WC3 -i) the stick seems to calibrate properly, but when I get to the opening sequence to speak to Hobbs the pointer jumps to the top left and I can't control it at all. I tried (with great effort) to go to the Main computer and recalibrate but that seems to make matters worse and even harder to control . I have tried 2 sticks (making sure only one was connected at any time, and always doing the windows calibration before I start the game) an MS Sidewinder Persision Pro (connected to a USB port - could also be connected to Game port but I have not tried that yet?) and a Saitek X45 (USB only). Frankly I am stumped (not a totally unusual thing I admit ).

Here is what I can tell you about the set-up, I copied all the CD's to a folder on my D: drive and map to that as c: in DosBox ( I will include the DosBox Config to, sorry this is getting so long, but I figure if I want help I need to give you as much info as I can) I also get no sound which is no big deal for me - I am deaf so I don't miss much there - My System is a clone with an AMD Sempron 2600 @ 1.8 Ghz running XP SP2 with 512 meg Ram and an indignous Video. None of this seems to be a problem other than the joystick. Well there is one other small issue which I don't mind working around I can't seem to get the game to exit properly, when I touch Alt X to get the prompt it flashes then disapears, so I normally have to terminate DosBox from the task manager, not a big deal but I thought I would include it.

Anyway here is the DosBox Config, any suggestions will be much appreciated.

[sdl]

fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=original
windowresolution=original
output=surface
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper.txt
usescancodes=true

[dosbox]

language=
machine=vga
captures=capture
memsize=16

[render]

frameskip=1
aspect=false
scaler=normal2x

[cpu]

core=dynamic
cycles=auto
cycleup=500
cycledown=500

[mixer]

nosound=false
rate=22050
blocksize=2048
prebuffer=10

[midi]

mpu401=intelligent
device=default
config=

[sblaster]

sbtype=sb16
sbbase=330
irq=5
dma=1
hdma=5
mixer=true
oplmode=auto
oplrate=22050

[gus]

gus=true
gusrate=22050
gusbase=240
irq1=5
irq2=5
dma1=3
dma2=3
ultradir=C:\ULTRASND

[speaker]

pcspeaker=true
pcrate=22050
tandy=auto
tandyrate=22050
disney=true

[bios]

joysticktype=2axis

[serial]

serial1=dummy
serial2=dummy
serial3=disabled
serial4=disabled

[dos]

xms=true
ems=true
umb=true

[ipx]

ipx=false

[autoexec]

mount c D:\Wing_Commander_Old
mount d d:\
mount e I:\ -t cdrom -usecd 0 -ioctl
mount f J:\ -t cdrom -usecd 1 -ioctl

 

[ChrisReid]

Try the WC3 Alternate Joystick Routines patch: http://download.wcnews.com/files/wing3/wc3joy.exe There are also more specialized patches for Thrustmaster/Colorado Spectrum: https://www.wcnews.com/files.shtml#wc3

So with the dynamic core and your 1.8 GHz machine, are you finding regular gameplay pretty playable? For sound, I'd change sbbase=330 to =220 and set port 220 for the sound card in the installer (as well as the IRQ5 you've set).

I could see the ALT+X crash being somewhat related to the dynamic core, but since the game itself seems to be running, I wouldn't play around with that too much. Thanks for all the detail in your post.

 

[firehorse]

Hi Chris, thanks so much that fixed the calibration problem perfectly, now I am going to try the X45 and see if I can get the mapped keys to work?

Try the WC3 Alternate Joystick Routines patch: http://download.wcnews.com/files/wing3/wc3joy.exe There are also more specialized patches for Thrustmaster/Colorado Spectrum: https://www.wcnews.com/files.shtml#wc3

Well I might have spoken too soon on this part, actually the gameplay is still suprisingly good, better than I was expecting for this machine, but I am having some strange video issues. I am not sure where to look for that, possibly the frame skip? What is happening is I get some real funky color shifts The brightest Pink and yellow you have ever seen - , it happens in FMV clips but clears up on it's own and will appear in game play and stay like that until I get the Mission Objectives Completed then it is OK until I autopilot back to the Victory. Am I on the right track adjusting this section of the DosBox Config?

[render]

frameskip=1
aspect=false
scaler=normal2x

Oh and I changed the IRQ to 220 and there is sound, not that I worry about it you would not believe how bad a computer sounds when you listen to the world with a Cochlear Implant real voices sound like bad computer synthesized voices so you can imagine how bad computer generated voices sound - but hey it is something.

So with the dynamic core and your 1.8 GHz machine, are you finding regular gameplay pretty playable? For sound, I'd change sbbase=330 to =220 and set port 220 for the sound card in the installer (as well as the IRQ5 you've set).

I agree completly the Alt X is a minor thing I can kill DosBox and everything else seems to work so it if ain't broke I ain't gonna fix it!

I could see the ALT+X crash being somewhat related to the dynamic core, but since the game itself seems to be running, I wouldn't play around with that too much. Thanks for all the detail in your post.

 

[Christopherger]

wow, this is a great topic thread, I was just trying to figure out if it was possible to get WC III to run WITH sound in XP and here you all are talking about just this, thansk a milion and thanks Chris for answering my PM about this, i will try the suggested fix ..above. thanks a million.

I am very hopeful!

chris G.

 

[ChrisReid]

Well I might have spoken too soon on this part, actually the gameplay is still suprisingly good, better than I was expecting for this machine, but I am having some strange video issues. I am not sure where to look for that, possibly the frame skip? What is happening is I get some real funky color shifts The brightest Pink and yellow you have ever seen - , it happens in FMV clips but clears up on it's own and will appear in game play and stay like that until I get the Mission Objectives Completed then it is OK until I autopilot back to the Victory. Am I on the right track adjusting this section of the DosBox Config?

frameskip=1
aspect=false
scaler=normal2x

Frameskip just drops individual frames from having to be rendered and speeds up gameplay. I haven't really used DOSBox 0.65 much, but the new version did something with VESA support. I don't have 0.65 installed here, but if you see any options in the config file relating to that, see about those first.

 

[Mincemeat]

I was wondering if any one of you have used VDMSound with DOS WC3 with complete sucess. It is almost perfect for me except that the tempo of the MIDI music is very slow for some reason...

Athlon XP 2700+, Win XP, Generic USB joystick, Sound Blaster Live 5.1

Any ideas on what to do with it? Cheers