DOS Games Discussion

2hunt10dragons · Guest

Stronghold on my old Win ME computer
I installed the game on my computer which is in the dosbox and that comes with the computer Win's ME. I get close to getting it started and than it will not start. The game asks me about the sound choices and I had picked all of them at different times just to see if I can get into the game. Than the games goes into a black or green screen and has one error message. "error 28 or error 26". One or the other.
I hit any key and back into dos I go. Message on top of screen reads
"error 0 28" or "error 0 26" (Give Cathryn BOTH numbers.)
In Dos I have the file under C:\oldgames\strong. The program wants to play yet it will not start up. It loaded all the files that I know of from my disks. 3.25 or 3.50 which ever one it is. Small disks.
Any help would be appreciated. Also I can not get on the web with my old win me computer.

dosraider · Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 1:05 am Post subject:

-> dosbox version?
->Mount lines?
->What soundcard choices did you try?

2hunt10dragons · Guest

I looked up the Dos version under search results and properties of DOS with no results. I just know MS-DOS prompt and the programs to run it came with the computer.
It will not work with mount lines. I can ask what commands work in the Dos promp. Ex. cls/? and it will give me the answer. Ex. Autoexec/?
and that will give me an answer. Nothing will work with the mount command. I know my Old Gold Box D&D Games work on my old computer. They run a little fast though.
The sound cards are PC sound card, Abild, Roland, and a few others.
I pick no sound card and get into the black or green screen with the error message 28, 26, or 21. So I am not sure how to correct this.

dosraider · Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:49 am Post subject:

A: Dosbox 0.73 runs fine in WinME.
B: Stronghold runs fine in dosbox 0.73.

A+B= run stronghold in dosbox 0.73.

Dosbox is NOT the pretty useless WinME Dos command prompt.

2hunt10dragons · Guest

It is like I stated at the start of this post is that I can NOT get online with this old computer to download this dos box .73. I was thinking that it might be a video card conflict. I did change the Dos promp properties where it says "Dos run programs will not detect windows." No results.
Not sure why it will play Gold box games "pool of radiance" yet will not play a newer game "Stronghold".

dosraider · Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 12:30 pm Post subject: Re: D&D Stronghold help

2hunt10dragons · Guest

I do have a cd burn that I can use on my new computer to add dos.73 to windows me computer(old).
Is there a link you can point me to about this "dual boot system with msdos/winme? I can than look over that to see how that works.

dosraider · Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 2:34 pm Post subject:

The only way to dual boot Dos/WinME is using a bootmanager, something as the (now older) PowerQuest bootmagic.
You'll also need a partition manager to resize your existing WinME partition, create a new partition with the bootmanager ... etcetera, needless to say that if you have to ask, you'd better stay away from it .... or you will have a lot to learn......

Biggest (but not only) problem is that WinME doesn't know a 'boot in dosmode' as Win98 could perform, also MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS aren't really dos compliant in WinME.
When some dosgames (or dosprogs) try to access the hardware directly (DMA...IRQ...) WinME chokes on it.
Whatever, if some dosgames run directly in WinME it's sheer luck, nothing else.

Back to the subject.

If you have a CD drive use a CD-RW, no need to use a CD simply to transfer a small file.
Install dosbox, mount a virtual C (use a folder, something as c:\dosgames\, read the XP howto, it's the same principle under WinME) and you'll have what you need to run games as stronghold.

Of course I have no idea whatsoever of the hardware your WinME runs on, (you didn't gave any details), but I suppose it won't be a P4.
Luckily games as stronghold aren't very demanding, a 3000 CPU cycles should be enough, maybe it will run fine on your WinME.....

Anyway, you also can get stronghold on abandonia, the game you download there is pre installed, ready to run in dosbox, simply unzip all files in c:\dosgames\strong\ and you're ready to run it in dosbox.

[Edit]
BTW, if you have a newer PC (XP?Vista?) and you like dosgames, you really should give dosbox 0.73 a try run, it's near perfection on newer hardware, and it won't harm your PC, you even can run it from an USB key .... read the howtos that are pinnned in this sub.

2hunt10dragons · Guest

I went to dosbox.com to download the file 0.73 on my C: drive. I started and decided to cancel the file about half done. I decided to download it to my flash drive G:. Now when I had dosbox loaded on my G: drive I did the "-writeconf dosbox.conf" so I would have the file in my G:dosbox. It would not write the file on my g: drive. I than did a search for it and it was on my C: drive in the dosbox area. When I downloaded the dosbox to my C: drive part of it was still saved on my C: drive. Way would the config. file be loaded on the C: drive when I had everything prepared on my G: drive?

I just moved the config file from my C: drive to my G: drive. Everything seems to works fine yet it is slow, no sound, and I need to learn to enlarge the dosbox screen. I just read the instructions and followed the pictures to get this done. Any other advise would be nice.
Thanks dosraider.

dosraider · Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 1:00 am Post subject:

http://www.dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13440
Dosbox will only write/load the conf file on the USB key when you run dosbox.exe from the USB key itself, not from the desktop/menu shortcut.

Full screen and back: ALT+ENTER

Default dosbox Soundsettings: (those are the settings you should use to configure games):

SB or SB pro
A 220
I 7
DMA 1
HDMA 5