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Apocalypse USB compatability


The Veteran

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Hi folks, I've seen a similar 9 year old post here by a guy who pirated the game thanks to good old google but I'm a good boy and I actually legally own 2 copies of apocalypse so thought I'd start a good-boys thread for this problem! I installed Apoc on this pc (XP) yesterday and unsurprisingly it didn't go well. Can't find sound drivers and won't load game.

 

So I didn't really care because I've just specifically got this little Win 98 lappy which installs and runs the game just fine (with sound no less!) I am having a few problems though...

 

Being a laptop it only has 1xPS/2 port and that's got the mouse in it. It's a USB mouse actually but with an adaptor and it works fine for future reference ;) This unfortunately means I have no more places to connect a keyboard however so I'm stuck using a USB one (by choice admittedly as it works beautifully on Windows and other games I've tried including UFO + TFTD...)

 

So the trouble is, I've removed the original keyboard and touchpad from the lappy as I'm never going to use them (and soon won't be able to even if I'd left them on) and therefore I'm forced to use at least one USB component. As the working setup I've found for everything else is PS/2 mouse and USB keyboard that's the one I want to stick with but I need some help making it work...

 

Any thoughts would be great ;) Oh I also have crappy stuttering sound and video in the intro before the game loads. Needless to say it's Win98 so I'm running a standard legal copy on the normal install option. Siren played fine in the sound driver test so I'd guess it's more to do with my video hardware but the game is significantly older than the lappy so why the problem?

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Don't worry about the stutter in the intro. That's a known problem with the Smacker player that comes with the game. Copying the animations to your hard drive installation does help cut down the cd read access time that does cause a bit of of the choppiness, but the intro itself will still stutter. If you can find a separate smacker player and run the intro, it works fine though.

 

Might be misreading your problem here - I take it the keyboard's not working in the USB port?

 

Been ages since I've had to setup a Win98 machine, but one thought that occurs to me is that it might need some USB drivers for the keyboard installed. Crack out the Win98 disk and add some drivers. My current XP laptop has two drivers for the keyboard, one standard PS2 driver and the other a HID driver.

 

HID... HID. On the tip of my tongue what that stood for.

 

- NKF

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You can also manually in windows reduce the speed of CD-ROM to 4x. I have such problems on DOSBOX if I have installed my box version of apocalypse and videos run from HDD. Don't know how but the steam version works fine.

 

Don't ask me how as my last adventures with W98 where with the release of XP SP2. If I am telling lies (about the cd reduction) then I am sorry.

 

About the keyboard - it dosen't work under windows or x-com ?

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Anyone know why the forum is suddenly displaying posts in a wierd sub-folder type view for me today? Don't know if it's everywhere but definitely here in support!!!

 

Anyway, I'm an idiot, it's Win95 not 98 sorry ;) And I don't have the disk...

 

But no the drivers are fine as I've already set up the system itself. The mouse and keyboard and everything else works perfectly fine.

 

EXCEPT in Apocalypse where the keyboard goes skitzo... I can still use tab most of the time to switch between map and isometric city views but after a while that stops working. Same with the escape key which will initially access the menu but then will stop working also. The scroll buttons are yet to give up on me but nothing else works.

 

I CAN select CAPS, SCROLL and NUM lock but the lights do not illuminate until I quit the game at which point everything I've done takes effect. Meaning the keyboard lights illuminate, I don't get crazy start menu up-down aerobics...

 

But I looked around and numerous people have had issues with a USB mouse not working. Only good thread I found was one here about some guy who downloaded it anyway so doesn't help me...

 

As I say, it's standard install of original big box cd game. No updates, patches, emulators etc. And the game itself works fine as you'd expect on a system especially built for it, but there seems to be no compatability with the USB interfaces. Others have had the same problem with a mouse but I'm using a PS/2 port for my mouse and even though it IS a USB mouse the adaptor obviously convinces the lappy that it's a PS/2 device.

 

I have no other available PS/2 slots though and I'm operating with the original keyboard removed to suit my final design so I have no aternative methods of input...

 

So once again hardware is 100% fine but this game has a compatability issue with USB devices in it's original form apparently... So I need a fix for that or this game remains unplayable. Can't even get it working on this comp after all the VDMsound and patches nonsense so this is the only chance I have to play this game...

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Ok well it seems I've been approaching this from the wrong angle... Just tried a few variants of keyboard/mouse to confirm that the problem was down to USB compatibility and seems it's not as I ended up reinstating the original lappy keyboard and it still behaves the same! It seems some functions just don't do anything when this game is loaded and things like the LOCK lights are one of them. Also the windows key, ALT-TAB arrangement and task manager fail to initialise when running Apoc for some reason.

 

But that does mean I don't have a hardware problem after all ;) I do still have a problem though... I want to take screenshots and if I can't ALT-TAB out of the game then it's impossible as I'm on the 95 lappy. Also the prtscreen button doesn't work as even after quitting the game I had nothing stored in the clipboard.

 

So how do I take screenies of this game without using dosbox?

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This is driving me mad! I downloaded a very good sounding screen cap program which said it worked in my OS (which IS 98 after all lol) and it installed and worked fine. But Apoc just doesn't allow me to capture a thing! I assigned the key to use as PRT SCREEN and haven't tried any others yet but it works 100% everywhere else, just not in the game. I've set it to capture the full screen and save it automatically which it does for everything BUT apoc!!! Driving me mad... Will try it with some different keys later but see no reason that should help. I've also tried running apoc in a window to see if that works but it won't run windowed for some reason, just loads straight into the full screen (might be due to my low resolution though?) Will try the program in UFO and TFTD later to see if they work...
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Alt + P.

 

Edit: And now I see you've PM'd me, stating you've already found that and it didn't seem to work...

 

What it's supposed to do is stick a PCX file in your game folder. If it doesn't work, I guess try using the Alt key on the other side of the keyboard?

 

Re the forum view thing, up the top-right of any given thread is a link/button thing that says "Options". Click that and you'll see a thingy to switch the display mode back to "Standard". You can probably blame Google for changing it on you.

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There is also another solution - but that is just work around some problems and might be annoying.

 

You can make autoexec.bat and config.sys for DOS and make a menu - do you want to go windows or do you want to go x-com. Should produce less problems, and if in dos your keybord isn't recognized then you should seek some DOS drivers for usb, but if Bios sees it then DOS should too.

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Thanks for all the posts guys and thankyou BB for getting my old forum view back!!! I pm'd Pete about that too so I guess you did his job for him! I finally figured out the print-screen thing by reading the Apoc readme of all things (should've tried earlier I guess!) But it was working as you said BB, I was looking for something like a bmp file or screenshots folder though so the PCX files never drew my eye!

 

Unfortunately I can't now view or edit these files on the lappy as none of the file conversion tools will operate on 98 so I still have to transfer them over to the comp to use or view them which sucks but meh. Problem solved, thanks guys ;)

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Veteran, .pcx files can be viewed, I believe, in paint. Or at least in later versions of paint.

 

You should also invest in a USB hub. You can stick one in your USB slot, and run your mouse, keyboard, and others stuff from that. I had an old HP Omnibook 6000. It only had one USB slot, so I stuck a hub in there, and it worked. At least for the mouse and my USB flash drives. Of course I have a newer Toshiba, and I must say I like the new one better than the old. Of course more memory, better stuff all around makes for a better experience for me.

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Thanks guys, like I said it's the lappy that won't run any of these conversion files, presumably due to being an older 98 system? But I'm able to view and edit them on this comp with a program called AlSee but it's only free for 60 days gasp!

 

I did try loading them with MSpaint on the lappy too but no good, even tried changing the extension as a last resort but I guess the files are too dissimilar for that to work.

 

As far as USB goes the lappy is a bit wierd. As long as I have the keyboard in either USB slot and the mouse (also USB but with an adaptor) in the PS/2 slot then everything is fine. But it seems if I use both USB slots things go wierd... I forget now if I was able to use both the mouse and keyboard in the USB slots simultaneously but I opted for using the PS/2 slot for the mouse to allow me a spare USB for the flash drive.

 

Strange thing is, when I have the flash drive in the keyboard stops working until I remove it again... If I bootup with the keyboard and flash drive in then neither are detected! So it's very odd but it's a workable problem as I just make sure not to boot up with the stick in the port and everything else is fine ;)

 

Another very strange thing is that I'm using a USB mouse with a PS/2 adaptor right now but if I use a plain old PS/2 mouse on it's own then the boot screen gives me a 'keyboard error' and no further progress occurs. Otherwise I could do away with the adaptor and use an older mouse I have spare rather than keep scooting my one USB mouse between 2 computers ;)

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USB support was still in its early days during Win 95, so it's probably some teething problems.

 

Have you tried a PS/2 cable splitter to connect both mouse and keyboard to the single PS/2 socket? I used to use one on my old laptop and it worked great. The mouse was a USB mouse with a PS/2 adapter.

 

- NKF

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Don't have one of those NKF but may look into it at some point. Now I've got screenshots sorted (thanks BB) the hardware configuration isn't a major problem as it's only fault is the keyboard deactvating when I use the flash drive. I can live with that so it's not too bad!
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MS Paint is rather limited. Let me see something that I have, and see if it'll work with windows 9x. It's called image viewer, just a plain, ordinary image viewer, for the most part. (I'll post later on what it says. I need to bounce as I have a lot to do today.)

 

Actually it's called FS viewer. It's a free program, and may work with windows 9x

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