Wing Commander doesn't start anymore

WC4Life

Captain
Hello,

I have switched the mainboard of my old DOS PC as it didn't have a PS2-Mouseport which I would like to have as serial mouse are very hard to get these days, though no mouse is needed for WC I need it as I also play other games on that PC.

The PC has a PC-CHIPS M577 Mainboard, AMD 400 MHZ CPU (need to speed down, I know that) and 128 MB of RAM. SoundBlaster 16 CT4170

I had to change my old Config/Autoexec files and I have configured everything as good as possible.

Config.Sys
DOS=High, Umb
Switches /F
Device=C:\DOS\Himem.sys /Testmem:Off
Device=C:\DOS\EMM386.exe Ram
Files=40
Stacks 9,256
Devicehigh=C:\DOS\Gscdrom.sys /D:MSCD000 /v

Autoexec.bat
@Echo Off
Prompt $P$G
Path=C:\DOS;C:\NC
Set Temp=C:\DOS
Set Sound =C:\SB16
SoundBlaster Mixer Settings
Set Comspec=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM
Rem C:\DOS\SmartDrv.exe /x
LH C:\DOS\MSCDEX /D:MSCD000 /M:2048
Keyb Gr

mem results
Total Used Free
Conv 640 40 600
High 91 89 2
Reserved 0 0 0
XMS 65381 565 64816

Total Mem 66112 694 65418
Below 1 MB 731 129 602

EMS 33152 EMS free 32768

Max Avail. Mem 600 KB (614464 Byte)
Largest free block... 2 KB (1856 Byte)


That's my complete setup, now whenever I want to start WC it starts normally but instead of seeing anything the computer reboots. And I don't know what the problem is. WC2 works fine, sound, speech, everything. I cannot figure out what the problem is.

Also I find it strage to only have 91 KB of high memory. I also tried Memmaker on Express and Manual settings and it always stops, claiming not to have enough memory, so I must undo the settings.

I know about DOSBox, I hightly appreciate any help! Many thanks in advance! More information needed? Let me know.

Luke
 
For starters, is there any specific reason the XMS manager has the flag testmem=off?

Also you have replaced the mainboard, but have you also reconfigured it's onboard options such as the onboard IDE controller, and LPT ports, since they might conflict with your soundcard. (and i actually miss the "SET BLASTER Axxx Ix dx Txx" line...
 
For starters, is there any specific reason the XMS manager has the flag testmem=off?

Also you have replaced the mainboard, but have you also reconfigured it's onboard options such as the onboard IDE controller, and LPT ports, since they might conflict with your soundcard. (and i actually miss the "SET BLASTER Axxx Ix dx Txx" line...

Sorry, I have been searching the web while I typed this from my notes, The SoundBlaster is A220 I5 D1 H1 P330 T6 (the standard SB16 settings), must have accidentially missed that line. As SB16 uses IRQ5 the printer IRQ7 is free, also no printer installed.

I like to use the Testmem:Off flag as it is speeding up the system boot by disabling the test. IDE and other ports are also set correctly, same settings as on the other mainboard for IDE/COM1/COM2/LPT. No conflicts there. Also all needed IRQs are assigned to PnP/ISA in BIOS. Haven't tested every game yet, but from my experience it must be something linked with EMM386/HIMEM.

Other games also had this issue with the old board, but I always managed to get everything working. With this mainboard I cannot even start programs like Memmaker or QEMM (tested meanwhile), both fail to finish the optimizing process. QEMM just hangs itself while Memmaker at least gives back an error like 'Not enough memory to perform...'. I forgot the rest of that line. With my Pentium Pro board which only has 32MB RAM installed everything was fine. Memmaker and QEMM were able to perform optimizations til the end.

Also this low amout of 92KB upper memory doesn't make sense for me.

Has anybody of you tried to configure one of these AMD K6-boards for DOS. Maybe it is just too new and simply not compatible.

I am not wanting to open up a new thread, but in case you wonder why I chaged the board, I really want to have a PS2-Port for mouse, which my QDI P6I440BX Commander 3.0 board doesn't have. The board has pins for an aditional PS2-bracket on board. I do also have the manual so I can tell you the configuration of the cables, but I cannot find a fitting bracket.

Help is highly appreciated, I am willing to pay all shipping costs, in case anybody of you has a fitting bracket.

Thanks in advance.

L.
 
Try this alteration:
Device=C:\DOS\EMM386.exe 3072

This should limit the amount of memory you convert to EMS to 3MB.

An optimized autoexec/config for WC 1 you can find here: https://www.wcnews.com/webmirrors/tech/gamefaq/wc1.html

Has anybody of you tried to configure one of these AMD K6-boards for DOS. Maybe it is just too new and simply not compatible..

I used a comparable board(identical chipset) for 6 years, the game should run fine, you can use the "turbo" function on the board to limit the CPU to running at 10Mhz. And ofcourse it might be an option to re-run the WC sound configuration by running install.exe from your c:\wing (or whatever you used) folder.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks for all replies so far. I have managed to get it to work, actually I switched the boards back and forth and suddenly some flaws that were present earlier were gone.

I also reinstalled Wing Commander to be sure. But also the SoundBlaster is recognized better (some games were not accepting it, don't ask me why, used Adlib there) and the Upper Memory which was at 91 KB suddenly changed to 126 KB, also no explanation to that as I didn't chance any Bios settings nor used different hardware. Now I can loadhigh all drivers and have plenty of conventional memory available.

Sometimes computers are a mystery. Anyway, thanks a lot for your quick replies. The Wing Commander forums are really great.
 
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