XP / virtual pc / ufo1&2 dos versions

[jools]

Hi all,

I got the urge to play through these games again (mainly tftd, as I can't remember what happens in the end).

 

I have:

athlon 2100+ (1.74Ghz)

gf4 4600 ti (128MB)

running XP.

 

(first time round it was a 486dx/2 8MB! with vesa local bus graphics. DOS)

 

Whatever I did with XP I had random crashes to desktop.

 

I came acroos the virtual pc 45-day trial (24MB download):

 

connectix

 

Using this I have been able to play both the early ufos without any crashes. The speed is not too fast, I only have to decrease the scroll speed by 1 click in game (edit - Im running moslo as well now, it was a bit too quick as I have made some changes to my setup from when I typed this). The animation that happens when a new window opens (e.g. when opening the savegame screen) is actually a bit slow. The screen was small, but I adjusted my monitor, must've been set up wrong for that screen size. XP is running in the background, and its working with no noticable slowdown. I can minimise the virtual pc, leaving it with the game running. I've played for 6 hours and had the virtual pc running for a few days now. You should be able to finish both games in 45 days.

 

Virtual pc sets up a "virtual computer" onto your computer. This computer is running its own virtual hardware, and comes with no operating system.

 

If you have dos disks or a win98 cd then you can set up as explained in the documentation on the web site. Once your os is on, install the additions (it takes a while for this to start on the guest pc, just wait) and you can share a directory on your real computer with the guest computer. It is mapped on the guest as drive z:, so you can put any files you need to transfer in there.

 

For those without a win98 cd, you could find a free dos, or use dos from 95. I'll show how to use just a bootdisk:

 

1) go to bootdisk.com and download the DOS 6.22 bootdisk

run the file you just got: boot622.exe

put in a blank floppy as requested and it will make a disk.

 

2) make a new computer with virtual pc, follow the steps...

name it

guide me

dos

no (it doesn't need more memory)

new hard disk image

default location

finish...

 

3)startup the new pc with your bootdisk in your floppy drive. If it doesn't find the disk then click floppy>capture host drive a:

 

the virtual pc should now have booted, You should see this:

 

CD-ROM Device Driver for IDE (Four Channels Supported)

 

[DragonHawk]

Thanks for your input! If someone could verify it, let me know, and I'll move it to the FAQ forum.

[BladeFireLight]

it works.

the only down side it that it is was to slow on the menues and way to fast the rest of the time. I used moslo 4 biz and it could not get battle to a decent speed.

 

-Blade

[jools]

I guess its hardware dependent, like other solutions then. I'm still playing through tftd and am happy with the speed. I find I need to use moslo if I haven't got much running in xp.

 

Cons:

Slow menus - not a big deal for me, may be an issue with slower processors.

Fast scrolling/firing - in game setting slows it down.

Fast game - things like trying to sell all the alien corpses but keep 1 for research, its hard to stop the counter on 1, it skips past to 0. This can be fixed with moslo.

Fast animation - no fix for this

 

Pros:

doesn't crash when playing in XP (see below though)

sound works

 

I did have a couple of crashes to DOS with emm386 errors during extensive play. Its probably caused by the virtual hardware using some memory that emm386 puts aside, it would be fixable using:

DEVICE=EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=D000-D7FF

something like that, if I knew what memory range to use. For now I've stopped loading emm386, and removed the cd drivers, as I don't need them:

 

CONFIG.SYS

----------------

DEVICE=c:\HIMEM.SYS /testmem:off

rem device=c:\emm386.exe noems

DOS=HIGH, UMB

FILES=25

BUFFERS=25

rem DEVICEHIGH=cd1.SYS /D:banana

rem DEVICE=C:\CNTX\CDROM.SYS /D:CDROM /L:D

LASTDRIVE=Z

 

AUTOEXEC.BAT

-------------------

@echo off

PATH = C:\;c:\tftd

PROMPT $p$g

LOADHIGH c:\mouse.com

rem LOADHIGH c:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:CDROM /L:D

loadhigh c:\cntx\fshare.exe

loadhigh c:\cntx\idle.com

[fbelintani]

Ok, I got Terror working this way.... But UFO crashes in DOS4GW. This is the message I get:

 

Error [35]: Unexpected Interrupt=0000 in DOS4GW.EXE at 0080:0918

code=0000 ss=0090 ds=0158 es=0158

ax=3E01 bx=0005 cx=000E dx=6A40 sp=220E bp=C84C si=AA42 di=B8DC

 

If I try to run go.bat, the game enters an infinite loop and I have to boot the VPC...

 

If anybody has some idea, I can add more details.

 

Thanks