Wing Commander Privateer in XP

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How on earth can it be done?!

i'm not the most technical of people, so an idiots guide would be good...!
 
You could make a startup disk from a Win 95/98 computer and boot it in DOS. Do you know how to do that?
 
Make sure you have a FAT32 partition before however. If all of your HD is NTFS your are quite out of luck
 
ok...i'll try the first with help from mates, but i have no idea what the second post means!!! my girly tech-devoid brain doesn't understand!

thanks!!
 
Well, what cff meant is that my solution won´t work if your Winchester is formatted in a mode called NTFS, which is likely.
 
Unregistered said:
ok...i'll try the first with help from mates, but i have no idea what the second post means!!! my girly tech-devoid brain doesn't understand!

thanks!!
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One system of arranging data on a hard disk is called NTFS, which, if your computer was set up with Windows XP right from the start, your hard disk is likely to be set up under.

There is no way of running Privateer under XP. None. Nada. However, you *can* boot to DOS (or some equivalent) by various means. The problem is, DOS doesn't understand NTFS. That means, as far as it's concerned, you don't have a hard disk. Kinda hard to play games if they aren't installed ;)

So, what you need to do one way or another, is find a program which will let you partition your hard disk into more than one drive. I'm assuming that, at the moment, all your data is on the C drive, right? You need to get it set up so that, using some of your free space, you've got a D drive as well (or whatever, the letter isn't important). What matters is that this new partition has to be set up so that it's file system is FAT, not NTFS. That way, DOS can see it and do stuff with it. FAT is a different file system to NTFS.

Still with me? Now, you'll need some software that you can use to partition your hard disk. I used this (incidentally, I used it to do exactly what you need it for ;)). This has to create a boot disk. You boot off this thing's disk, and it'll boot into a program that lets you partition stuff. I didn't have mouse support for this (probably because my mouse is a USB mouse) so I had to ue the keyboard. I don't remember exactly, but the interface isn't really that complex (as they go). If you can work it out, create a new partition using FAT32. The size will probably default to all your remaining space, and you probably don't want that. I'd sugest maybe 800mb or so. Well, it depends whether you want to install anything other than Privateer; if you're sure you only want Privateer then only allocate enough for it (well, a bit more for the saved games). Mine's 1.5gb.

Anyway, I hope that helps. If you don't want to do this yourself, find someone technical and rope them into doing it for you ;)
 
partition magic is a cool program that you can use to change your partition stuff.

i currently have a dual boot winxp/redhat9 system, but since i've not been using RH i'll probably just try to figure out how to delete it and then use that extra space for a win98 boot (just for old games)
 
Even if you manage to run privateer under DOS, at least in my case, the following message appears;

Protected mode driver is not responding to EMS function calls.
Make sure your EMS driver is not configured with the NOEMS option. If it is, replace the option "NOEMS" with "RAM".

This happened to me even when i did not have XP, I remember that message exatly like that, some years ago, and then my father came, spent a night touching 'system.ini' and finally managed to make it work. Unfortunately nowadays that is a bit difficult.

Any ideas?
 
Starkey...I haven't heard Winchester in years. I think I've still got a Winchester card from the mid eighties sitting around that has a stamp on it: made in West Germany. :D
 
Yeah, I guess I´m getting old... I´m one of those guys who actually owned a Commodore 64 and a PC XT when they were *new*.

About the emm386.exe, you don´t need to use the "devicehigh" setting. Emm386.exe is what enables high memory, so it won´t be stored in the high memory. Just use the "device=<path>\emm386.exe..." setting.
 
Here is what I did - First off, copy all three CD's (just a straight up copy) to your hard drive. Next, put back in the first CD and recopy the file labeled 'cd.' After that, install not from the CD, but from your hard drive. The reason this is imporant is because the game might have major issues finding the CDROM drive (like it did mine) so transfering everythign to the harddrive fixes that. The reason you copied the 'cd' file over again is to make sure the game reads the director as 'cd1'

After that, download/install a program called 'moslow.' That will make it playable on a fast windows XP system. If you still have trouble with memory (i can't remember if I did or not) simply go to dark.exe then click properties, then memory, and set everything on auto. Voila, a working copy of privateer 2. In order to get it to run, you are going to have to play it via an old command prompt to get moslow to work, but the how of that is all covered in moslow's directions. The only thing that I havn't been able to do (which i just registered on the forums so hopefully I can find out) is get a joystick to work. I've fuxed with the dark.cfg file for hours, and nothing I can do can get it to work..grr:( anyways, hope this helps!

levi
 
Wing commander privateer works in XP, the first one at least.

Go download a program called DOSBOX, the newest one dosbox.sourceforge.net).

In "Dosbox.conf" you will see a line that says "ems=true". Set this line to "ems=false" (yes, I know it's supposed to need EMS, but apparently in the emulator it messes it up like that!)

Then, you need to run dosbox. Mount the program directory like so:

mount c c:\priv
for example, if your c drive had a directory called priv where privateer was, it would show up.

Then, type c: <enter> to switch to the virtual c:\priv drive.

Finally, run the install program. Make sure to have ONLY SOUNDBLASTER (not 16 or PRO) set to the sound. It should have an IRQ of 7.

Once that is accomplished you should be able to type "priv" in dosbox to run the game :)

If you have a fast computer and it runs too slowly, try overclocking dosbox by pressing ctrl and f12 until it runs smoothly, but be careful with this.
 
Yea but if you wait a moment the lines go away and the game starts, it take about 30 seconds. The game is rather slow though in DosBox, But it does work!
 
bob mcdob: did you set it to use the lgpl video bios?

and it does take about 30 seconds -- it's not slow if you go in and turn up the clocks to 7500 - it still hangs on disk access but comes back to life soon as it's done accessing the disk [i think it's on cdrom access - writing doesn't hesitate, could just be that im using my DVD-+RW[
 
wow...

Holy shit, I have periodically tried to get this game to run again for like the last 10 years and with win XP I thought it would be even more impossible. This topic right here is the only place on the entire internet that has the answers to how to do it.

I still can't get it to run off the hard drive and I have to reinstall it through dosbox every time i want to play (the I move the saved game file to the freshly installed folder) and wala...yeah pain in the ass but better than nothing.

Thanks guys... BTW Kazan im from CR too, its a small world isn't it?

BTW are there any new games out there anyone would reccomend that are similar to Privateer? I like the freedom of it...you can do the missions, upgrade ships all that stuff I love...my favorite is to go and prey upon merchant ships and become a pirate and make lots of money.

BTW again...does anyone know how to get that saved game cheat to work...the one where you move some digits in the saved game folder and it gives you a million jillion credits?
 
I get this error when using dosbox:

Protected mode driver is not responding to EMS function calls.
Make sure your EMS driver is not configured with the NOEMS option. If it is, replace the option "NOEMS" with "RAM".

Any ideas?
 
Yeah I was at that stage too for awhile. I forget how I got around it but I will tell you some of the important clues that I do recall. I do remember that it deals with a code in the config.sys file which is talked about about dealing with this same error...the problem is that Win XP does not have a CONFIG.SYS file...but the code you're looking for is in the CONFIG.NT file in the section on "EMS" memory. But don't go messing with it too fast--in fact there is probably nothing you need to change. If you run a search on google you will find more about that error. I do remember that the microsoft page dealing with this error was correct when it says that the error message is misleading. The cause for the erorr has nothing to do with changing something from "NOEMS" to "RAM". But sorry I don't remember exactly what DID fix it...maybe this will help a little though.
 
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