Originally posted by Rob01m VirtualPC which is free...

*cough*
The evaluation version is free. The full thing will set you back some serious cash.

Then I decided I would make a new partition and install Windows 98SE and do this the old fashioned way.

A Dual-Boot, best friend of XP.

Fedor didn't want to reboot, so he'll probably pass on it...

BTW, you never told me if you could get it to work using XP's native SB emulation as described in my earlier post.

Right, the evaluation, I suppose I could have tried the full version but why bother now.

BTW I did try Windows XP's native SB emulation (SET BLASTER etc) that was built into the advanced options. The results were even more frequent crashes than with VDMSound for Windows XP, and the sound was very crackly.

In the same post you talked about Protected Mode, for Windows XP DOS emulation, Protected Mode is selected by default, knowing it WAS a protected mode game I never changed that, and all memory settings were Auto. Everything was pretty much set perfectly, it must simply be a Windows XP NTVDM limitation to play this game well, at least on my and Fedor's setups.

Hi again,
yeah I did try native emulation, that didnt work... My laptop seems quite hopeless at playing IG, it might work with something like Virtual PC too, but it will be even slower which I dont think will be tolerable. And as for my soundcard, it seems to be EXACTLY the same as Rob's (if youre still hanging around this forum, what motherboard are you using?). Well for now as I said Ill make do with running IG in 98 in VPC, maybe some day later we'll have a fully working VDMSound for 9x or Dosbox will move on to 486 games. Thanks for all the effort.

Fedor wrote:

maybe some day later we'll have a fully working VDMSound for 9x

Uh, there already is one. It's not as perfect as the WinNT one, but it works quite well.

or Dosbox will move on to 486 games.

Already started on this as well.

Originally posted by Rob01m BTW I did try Windows XP's native SB emulation (SET BLASTER etc) that was built into the advanced options. The results were even more frequent crashes than with VDMSound for Windows XP, and the sound was very crackly.

Understood.

In the same post you talked about Protected Mode, for Windows XP DOS emulation, Protected Mode is selected by default, knowing it WAS a protected mode game I never changed that, and all memory settings were Auto.

Actually, I was referring to the protected memory option you see on PIFs/Shortcuts. It's there to protect the OS from the game, not vice-versa Considering how unstable the game is, I think it's a good idea to leave it always enabled.

Originally posted by Fedor Hi again, yeah I did try native emulation, that didnt work...

Too bad, and odd, since it did work for Rob01m.

My laptop seems quite hopeless at playing IG, it might work with something like Virtual PC too, but it will be even slower which I dont think will be tolerable.

Probably so.

...maybe some day later we'll have a fully working VDMSound for 9x or Dosbox will move on to 486 games.

Like Colin said, there is the Alpha. Of course that would still require a dual-boot setup.

BTW, did you know that IG1 was actually released in an "unfinished state"? Never try to research or build a Leviathan:
http://www.ina-support.com/faq/imperiumgalactica_pc.asp

And as for my soundcard, it seems to be EXACTLY the same as Rob's (if youre still hanging around this forum, what motherboard are you using?).

My motherboard is the ASUS P4G8X Deluxe. The best motherboard for 533MHZ P4s IMO, because of the dual channel DDR memory. (266+266=533) I do wish I would have held out for a P4 800MHZ FSB model though.

maybe some day later we'll have a fully working VDMSound for 9x

The funny thing is, I just kept running DOSDRV.BAT over and over again until I didn't receive errors, it gave me errors the first, second, third, etc try, but then after a few times it just said "Already Initialized" or something similar, so I tried it, and the game worked with sound. Try alternating running it by double clicking the icon, and then running it in on a command promt, then the window, then the prompt etc, until it is fully loaded.

BTW, did you know that IG1 was actually released in an "unfinished state"? Never try to research or build a Leviathan:

Yes, there are other parts of the game that seemed rushed, but that problem isn't that bad really. The Leviathan is by far the best flagship, with the greatest tank capacity and totes a lot of guns, but it has a very small bomb compartment, and you know the best way of getting rid of those shields/cannons is bombing them with v.2 bombs.

Of course, if you needed the extra tank space, you can always use the cheat codes (I hate cheating) which will allow you to build and stock many Leviathans.

Originally posted by Rob01m Yes, there are other parts of the game that seemed rushed, but that problem isn't that bad really. The Leviathan is by far the best flagship, with the greatest tank capacity and totes a lot of guns, but it has a very small bomb compartment, and you know the best way of getting rid of those shields/cannons is bombing them with v.2 bombs.

Was kind of silly of me to point this out to a fan, but I though it was interesting that they didn't block out the code. Apparently realized at the last minute that allowing their manufacture would make the game way too easy... Still, you would've thought they'd at least remove the non-functioning options.

Snover - "fully working"... 😜 If you read my posts, I did try it...
NSG - When I said the native didnt work, I didnt mean flat out didnt work, I meant that it crashed its way into oblivion.
As for the game and its unfinished state, it was as you later pointed out that they realised that it would be too easy if you could build leviathans, so they made it un-buildable. You say that they shoulda removed it, but they sorta did, the leviathan looks researched straight away, its just that the build button for it is disabled. Either way, it costs like 4 times that of a V3 Flagship, which is a heck of a lot. I dont remember running into a cash problem when I played before, but Im getting it now, so blowing 1Mil for 1 flagship... Ouch.
Since we're talking, did you find Virus bombs to be of any use? Do they even work at all? And as for planetary defence, what do you use, guns, stations, tanks, fighters? Cause for the most part I focus on having good ground forces and winning those battles...

Oh, I read the page and what it said about the Leviathan, about the CD error. Ive never gotten that, since I dont think Ive ever played it without the patch... Another favourite game of mine was released relatively unfinished and buggy, Fallout 2, I dont mind 😀

Originally posted by Fedor Another favourite game of mine was released relatively unfinished and buggy, Fallout 2, I dont mind 😀

Shhh! Shh! *whispers* they'll hear you...

I got the same problem and can confirm it works in XP with NO sound, it crashes with sound using both vdmsound and normal XP integrated sound, I did use to play it fine in windows 98 without vdmsound and have dual boot setup but would like to be able to play this in windows XP if possible so I can keep my working apps open thanks.

I made the last guest post I have registered now, so is it the case IG1 doesnt work then, or has ANYONE got it working with sound.

I've gotten it to work with sound. In fact, I'm playing it right now with only a minor problem, which is why I'm here...

But first, it sounds like people get hung up on the install. So did I. So I just copied the entire CD to my \imperium directory. Then I fired up DOSBox, ran the IG1 install.exe to set up my sound, and it worked rather well. I'm not using the patched version. DOSBox is running on XP.

Here is my dosbox.conf:

(It's pretty much the default except I turned off all sound cards except SB... My dad paid $200CDN for my Soundblaster Pro back in the day! Ah, sweet, overpriced, memories.)

[sdl]
fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullfixed=false
fullwidth=0
fullheight=0
output=surface
hwscale=1.00
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true

[dosbox]
language=
machine=vga
memsize=16

[render]
frameskip=0
snapdir=snaps
aspect=false
scaler=normal2x

[cpu]
core=normal
cycles=2500
cycleup=500
cycledown=20

[mixer]
nosound=false
rate=22050
blocksize=2048
wavedir=waves

[midi]
mpu401=true
device=default
config=

[sblaster]
sblaster=true
base=220
irq=7
dma=1
sbrate=22050
# Richard - adlib used to be false
adlib=false
adlibrate=22050
adlibmode=adlib
cms=false
cmsrate=22050

[gus]
gus=false
rate=22050
base=240
irq1=5
irq2=5
dma1=3
dma2=3
ultradir=C:\ULTRASND

[speaker]
pcspeaker=true
pcrate=22050
# Richard - tandy and disney used to be true
tandy=false
tandyrate=22050
disney=false

[bios]
# Nothing to setup yet!

[dos]
xms=true
ems=true

[modem]
modem=true
comport=2
listenport=23

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.

mount D D:\

Here's my command line: "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.61\dosbox.exe" g:\imperium\imperium.exe -conf g:\imperium\dosbox.conf

Lemme know if this helps.

Silly me, I forgot to post my problem. The game starts out fine, but soon the keyboard just stops working. The control keys still work so I can release the mouse, for example, but nothing in the game actually works. Makes it quite difficult to save the game as the only way I know how to is the escape key.

It's a generic USB keyboard. I'm running DOSBox on a Pentium IV 1.8 laptop with a bazollian megs of RAM. (768... maybe?)

Has anyone ran into this before?

Well, I think I stumbled onto a solution. I found it odd that the keyboard works, and then a few minutes later, doesn't.

I discovered that as long as I don't let my machine use 100% of the CPU, I'm OK. With my 1.8GHz P4, that means 10500 cycles with a frameskip of 6.

I have no idea why this would be. A flaky USB keyboard driver in XP?

Stunnedly yours,
Hans

well my guess is its because the game is running so underspeed your keyboard responds poorly, you say you use 10500 cycles, when I pushed my system to 16000 cycles it still wasn't enough so this could be your problem, the game at 16000 cycles was about 30% under speed keyboard and mouse lag was very very high and there was some sound stuttering, this increased dramatically if I allowed real cpu usage to hit 100%

last post made by me - chrysalis

I will login next time sorry on different pc at the moment.

Ok I installed windows 98 on a sblive value pentium 3 500, this spec and OS used to run IG1 quite well from within windows using the liveware built in SB16 support, however this time it wont, I had it running on this pc in XP using vdmsound but it crashes every time I attack any of the garthog planets (commodore rank) even with sound off. This crash is gone o DOS/win98 I tested (with sound off), if I run autodetect in the install.exe it quickly detects my sound hardware fine and I can then succesfully test the sound, but if I run any of the game exe files intro/title/game then I just get a blank screen, I think I know why, if I load up install.exe and test the sound I get nothing but if test again it works this will happen every single time, its like the sound isnt initiliasing straight away, this is my guess as to why the game wont run. grrrrrrrrrrrrrr getting really frustrated now, does vdmsound work in win98 ?

i need help with my issue! i get a black screen after the first screen. i cannot run the title, intro, main, or load screen can anyone help

J

Just in case you are having problems and want to play this game, Id like to point out that I made the thread originally to try and work out the problems with VDMSound, rather than dosbox. Just in case you are wondering, I have no problem with getting the game to run using dosbox, but unfortunately its just too slow.

I am having similar problems with th game, that's why I am resurrecting this thread.
First,
I am running an AMD Sempron 1.6 GHz, 512 RAM, on an asus motherboard (k8v-mx) using the on board sound and an nvidia 6200 (265 mb, If I recall correctly)
OS is XP, sp2
The game tends to lock up without warning, i am going to give the no sound a try, but doens't feel like it, it seems graphic related, of all things (game has a horrible tendency to lock up after transitions (yes, I disabled the animations, no go there) and also around the production screen (spinning designs, anyone). dosbox is 0.72
Thing is, I used to be able to run the game on an older build, only difference on the machine, asides the video card was that the disks were Fat32 formated (no longer the case) I believe this might be the reason, but wanted to see if somebody could figure out a solution that doesn't involve a disk partition (had a couple of bad experiences there)
Anyway, again, apologies for bringing back this one from the cold and thanks in advance