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| 13 OCT 2002 at 3:16am |
gf_ripperIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 27
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Online | If you right click and go to advance and click on make sure other dos programs do not detect windows should get most of them to work.
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| 13 OCT 2002 at 11:13am |
CerberusPrivate Detective
Posts : 417
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | You might also need to mess around with the memory settings for some older games (Right click on the .exe file, go to the memory tab).
Check with the games documentation it will usually say whether it needs a certain amount of XMS or EMS memory or whatever.
Then of course you should probably use a program to slow down older games on fast, modern PC's (do a google search for MOSLO and you'll probably find something).
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| 13 OCT 2002 at 1:11pm |
sennebecGuild Master
Posts : 3334
Joined: 15 NOV 2004
Location: US, maine
Status : Offline | thanks for the help
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| 14 OCT 2002 at 9:03pm |
ZolyIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 7
Joined: 14 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Actually, I have some kind of a weird perversion towards DOS games (probably 'cause I grew up playing them) so if you have a specific game in mind... maybe I can help.
Z
Zoltan Ormandi&&[url=http://www.adventure-hall.com]The Adventure Games Hall of Fame[/url]&&
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| 15 OCT 2002 at 1:04am |
sydIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 14
Joined: 11 OCT 2002
Status : Online | ZOLY!!!! How the heck are you, where've you been? [you can run but you cannot hide] bwaha-hahahahahahahaha
syd :-* :-*
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| 15 OCT 2002 at 7:45pm |
ZolyIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 7
Joined: 14 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Hah! Syd! Hi'ya Junior. It's been a long time. I heard the forum was opening up (again) and... well, you know how it is. It's hard to stay away from the geek corner for long and when I saw that DOS thread - ah, home sweet home. Should've known I'd run into you here.
So are you planning on hangin' around? It would make for a fun time when I come up for some air from work.
Z
Zoltan Ormandi&&[url=http://www.adventure-hall.com]The Adventure Games Hall of Fame[/url]&&
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| 15 OCT 2002 at 8:13pm |
sennebecGuild Master
Posts : 3334
Joined: 15 NOV 2004
Location: US, maine
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Zoly (14 OCT 2002 9:03pm)
Actually, I have some kind of a weird perversion towards DOS games (probably 'cause I grew up playing them) so if you have a specific game in mind... maybe I can help.
Z
hey zoly...
specific games in mind ??? but of course :-[
i have no mouth...
darkseed
litil divil
i'm running win98/pentium4...
do you think you can help :-/
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 2:06am |
sydIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 14
Joined: 11 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Hi ya senior I'll be around [however I think I made Randy some vague promise to behave myself but since I'm old and senile and so is he, neither one of us will remember it]
I'm glad to hear you're still a member of the working class - about time that education paid off <g>
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 2:31am |
sydIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 14
Joined: 11 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Hi sennebec
Here's what I did to get Darkseed to work (you can use the same method with I Have No Mouth)
After the game is installed onto your hard drive - find the execute file and make a short cut to desktop
Then right click
Properties
Program
Advanced
put a check mark next to "Prevent MSDOS program from detecting windows".
Now try starting the game.
If you have a P4 you may also need a slow down utillity like Moslo or Turbo. Also your sound card could be a problem - do you know what it is?
And it appears I've repeated what two very astute people have already said to do [this being old is the pits]
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| 16 OCT 2002 at 7:29pm |
ZolyIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 7
Joined: 14 OCT 2002
Status : Online | And if the above don't work, you could always try starting the game from DOS. (Real DOS, not a DOS window in Windows.) There are a couple of ways to do that, none of them particularly difficult, imho.
I have Dark Seed (or is it Darkseed?) and No Mouth and both of them work fine in DOS. No slowdown app was needed for either one. (But then again, I only have a P3.)
Z
Zoltan Ormandi&&[url=http://www.adventure-hall.com]The Adventure Games Hall of Fame[/url]&&
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| 17 OCT 2002 at 1:18am |
sennebecGuild Master
Posts : 3334
Joined: 15 NOV 2004
Location: US, maine
Status : Offline | hey sid and zoly !
thanks for taking the time to help a hopeless "OS-illiterate"....
i'll give it a go
wish me luck
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| 22 OCT 2002 at 9:38pm |
CathieIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 13
Joined: 14 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Hi folks, First let me hasten to say I'm old too, however I've only been playing games for about two years and have very little experience with DOS based games. I have been able to install and very successfully play Gabriel Knight 1 & 2 lately and now I'm trying to play 7th Guest. The scenario is
I cannot load the game under a true DOS session but I have been able to "successfully" load from a DOS session under Windows 98.
If I try to run the game from a true DOS session it immediately crashes.
If I run the game from a DOS window the game starts and I get graphics and sound IF I start with disk 2. I get a screen that tells me to insert disk one. This screen has a cursor that I can move freely. It is two versions of the skeltal hand, wagging finger and beckoning finger. I also have sound, faint background music.
If I pop in disk 1 I am presented with a ouija board style menu but no cursor. I have no way to control or select from the menu. If I start the game from disk 1 I get the same ouija board menu with no cursor.
So close yet no joy :'(
I have checked the readme file and researched online. The only thing I can find is a warning about mouse drivers. Apparently version "7" drivers will cause the game not to run and the user is advised to drop back to version "6". Time has marched on and I am now using a much higher version and I am really hesitant to go all the way back to version 6, I don't know what effect that will have on other applications and I use the PC for work. Also I am not the only user of the PC.
Any suggestions? I did try the earlier mentioned recommendation to adjust the executable's properties to ignore Windows but there was no change.
Many thanks
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| 23 OCT 2002 at 6:47am |
ZolyIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 7
Joined: 14 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Hi Cathie,
As luck would have it, I have the 7th Guest myself so I was able to try what you said, but unfortunately I haven't been able to reproduce the error. The game works fine for me in (real) DOS. I haven't tried it in Windows (yet) but since so many things in Windows depend on your configuration, I doubt that our systems would be comparable.
Anyway, please tell us a little more about your puter. CPU, memory, video card, etc. Also, could you tell me what you meant exactly by the game crashing in true DOS immediately? (Any error messages?)
For now, here are a couple of standard things to try when a DOS game refuses to run in Windows:
- turn down your graphics hardware acceleration [Control Panel > Display > Settings > Advanced > Performance]
- turn down your audio hardware acceleration (very little chance of this helping, but it does come through occasionally) [Control Panel > Multimedia > Audio > Playback - Advanced Properties > Performance]
- sometimes DirectX bugs some of the DOS games which don't need it, so it's worth a shot to try and disable the acceleration there too [Start Menu > Run > type "dxdiag" > Display and Sound tabs]
Z
Zoltan Ormandi&&[url=http://www.adventure-hall.com]The Adventure Games Hall of Fame[/url]&&
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| 23 OCT 2002 at 1:58pm |
CathieIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 13
Joined: 14 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Thanks for replying Zoly; I tried everything you suggested although I suppose the magic could be in some combination or permutation I missed. So far no joy yet.
I believe I would have audio if the game would run because I hear a tone (like a long organ note) when the game starts up. Then of course it just sits there and looks at me.
My puter (which is a lovely one by the way) is an HP Pavilion 8565C. I am running Windows 98 version 4.10 build 2222. The mouse driver is version 9.11b and DirectX is version 8.1. It's a PIII 500 mhz with 128 mg of SDram. The video card is an nVidia Riva TNT (8mg). The audio card is a Riptide.
When I try to run the game in true DOS I immediately get the following
"EMM386 has detected error #17 in an application at memory address 00B869C........."
Heavy Sighhhhhhhhhhh
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| 23 OCT 2002 at 10:01pm |
JudySpace Cadet
Posts : 173
Joined: 17 FEB 2009
Status : Offline | Hey Syd, After I create a shortcut to desktop and right click on it and click on properties, there is no option named program or advanced.
There are two tabs. General and Shortcut.
Under the General tab there are four selections
Read only
Archive
Hidden
System (which is faded out so you can't select it)
Under the Shortcut tab you have this:
Find target
Change Icon
OK
Cancel
Apply
Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong? Thanks
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| 24 OCT 2002 at 2:25am |
AmoreenaIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 8
Joined: 24 OCT 2002
Status : Online | I recently played 7th Guest on my Win ME computer. It's an AMD Athlon. I had the same problems you're having when I installed it. I *think* I fixed it by turning off DirectX. Try going to >Start >Run >dxdiag >display. Then Disable either DirectDraw Acceleration or Direct3D Acceleration,maybe both, just experiment and see if it works. I've done this with several "older" games and had great results, I hope this helps!
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| 24 OCT 2002 at 1:17pm |
CathieIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 13
Joined: 14 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Thanks Amoreena, I think I tried that yesterday but I re-tried today because you never know when you may have missed the key combination. So far no luck but thanks so much for trying to help.
Cheers
Cathie
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