posted
I just downloaded an old favorite computer game of mine: Eagle Eye Mysteries in London, copyright 1993. Fantastic fun -- except that I can't get the sound to play! It goes in fits and starts -- for instance, the intro plays the sound of Big Ben ringing, but not the accompanying music. Also, the character voices aren't working...that's the best part! I'm sure it's just a matter of not having my computer calibrated to play the music, but i'm not sure where to begin to fix that?
edit, update: got the Dosbox working, and the game plays music, but the characters don't talk -- any advice?
posted
If you're running Windows XP try putting the game in the appropriate Compatibility Mode. To do this right click on the program, go to properties, click the compatibility tab, check the "run this program in compatibility mode for:" box and choose the oldest option on the list (I think it's Windows 95). In my experience that fixes odd problems like the one you're having maybe 50% of the time.
Posts: 187 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
1993, thats old enough for DOS. You should try something like Dosbox which emulates a DOS environment. I see on the compatibility page that it has been successfully testedPosts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
It's very possible that the sound for that game expected direct hardware access to a SoundBlaster-style card, and therefore might not work at all on a modern PC. There are SoundBlaster emulators available, I believe, that will run in software and pretend to be an old-school sound card.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Yeah. Anything from that period is going to need DOSbox or another DOS emulator to run properly.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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There's a setup button that allows me to choose from a list of 6 different sound...thingees. Soundblaster is among them, and when i choose that option it does play a handful of sounds, which stop once the intro is over. That's weird that i would need the emulator for that, i downloaded and played "Ancient Empires" which is even older than Eagle Eye, and didn't have any trouble with the sound.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
i am computer illiterate...Mucus, i downloaded the Dosbox you recommended, and got it open on my desktop, but it's telling me that entering "mount c c:\dosprog\" will create a new c drive, that i can then replace with "my own games directory"....first off, it's not creating that drive, and secondly i don't even know what my "own games directory" is!
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
A program running in dosbox doesn't know anything about your computer that dosbox doesn't tell it. The program isn't using the Windows file system, so it doesn't know where or what your C:\ drive is. Dosbox has to tell it that, so you have to give Dosbox that information before you run any programs. That's why you use the mount command. The idea behind Dosbox is that you can create a folder on your "real" C:\ drive which Dosbox can mount as a "virtual" C:\ drive. Placing your DOS game folders inside that folder lets you access them in Dosbox. (That folder can be anywhere, but most people use c:\dosprog.)
When you use the "mount" command, you're not creating another drive as much as you're telling dosbox to "tell the programs that this Windows folder, C:\DOSPROG, is my C:\ drive." That "virtual" C:\ drive only exists in dosbox.
Typing
code:
mount c c:\dosprog
into dosbox will mount the folder C:\DOSPROG as a virtual C drive. If the folder c:\dosprog exists, you'll be given a prompt, "C:\>". Again, this prompt doesn't represent the "real" C:\ drive; it represents dosbox's virtual C:\ drive -- which is actually C:\DOSPROG.
--
Say I had Captain Comic and I wanted to run that in dosbox. The folder COMIC contains all the program files, including COMIC.EXE. First, you'd make a DOSPROG folder on your "real" C drive. Then you'd move the entire folder COMIC into C:\DOSPROG.
Then start up dosbox and type
code:
mount c c:\dosprog
to mount "c:\dosprog" as your virtual C drive. (If I typed "dir" at this point, I'd see the contents of dosbox's virtual C:\ drive. Remember, the virtual C:\ drive is really the C:\DOSPROG folder, so I'd just see the subfolder "COMIC" that I moved there.)
Now if I wanted to run Captain Comic, I'd type
code:
cd comic comic.exe
The first line moves me into the COMIC subdirectory, the second line runs the executable and starts the game.
--j_k
[ October 26, 2007, 12:05 AM: Message edited by: James Tiberius Kirk ]
Posts: 3617 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
There are various shell GUIs available for Windows that work with Dosbox and provide wizards that make "mounting" DOS games much, much easier. I'd give you the name of the one I've been using, but, unfortunately, I don't remember (and it's back on my desktop). Google is your friend.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I used to use D-Fend for a DOSbox frontend, but I don't think it's being developed anymore. Looks like there are several good ones at the DOSbox site.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I can't tell you how many times DOS saved my computer from Windows shenanigans. Weird that they were both designed by the same person.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Ah, the joys of working out whether a game was supposed to use extended memory. Or expanded memory. Or that weird little block above 640K... <sound of banging head against desk>
I think D-Fend is the one I used to use.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
i used all my computer-fu and managed to get it to do everything you said, JTK, and it worked! Except the music is playing, but not the voices! i don't know what that means, whether dosbox can't handle all the voices or what, but normally all the characters talk! Everything else worked just like you said it would, though.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
My only guess might be that somehow Dosbox is configured to emulate a card that produces music- like the Adlib or Roland cards- but not sound, like the Soundblaster cards. And does the game itself have some kind of internal setup or configuration program?
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I was wondering the same thing -- given the time period, it's possible that the game uses a MIDI device for music, and something else for voices.
posted
More likely if you downloaded a pirated version of the game, it has the dialogue removed for ease of distribution- especially since a lot of those old games used barely compressed or completely raw wav files for sound for compatability reasons.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
I know that DOSBox doesn't properly emulate some sound. It has very basic sound emulation. I doubt that the voices were removed for easy pirating, since the whole game is about 8megs total. There may be some setup issues you'll have to work through (may take some trial and error). There are a lot of settings you can change in DOSBox, as well as installation settings for the game itself. I'll give it a try when I get done with work tonight and see if I can come up with anything, otherwise, it might be a good idea to check The Underdogs Forums since there are certainly more people there that will understand both DOSBox and the game you are trying to play. There are a few threads on Eagle Eye Mysteries in London there already, but I didn't dig through any of them. I'm sure someone there can help you out, though.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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i don't know what that means, whether dosbox can't handle all the voices or what, but normally all the characters talk! Everything else worked just like you said it would, though.
