Could it be that it's just really slow and buggy without linear framebuffer support?

Have you tried installing this patch? http://dlh.net/cgi-bin/patdl.cgi?lang=eng&sys … le=cave1_11.zip

Well, my copy of Cavewars is patched to a later (the final) patch version: 1.20. You can get this patch here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/downloads

Actually, I should have said that I got the game in this patch state to run just fine in DosBox 0.63, so I know it's not the game per se. Of course, you might want to know at this point why I'm fiddling around with VDMSound when the game runs fine in DosBox!

Well, the answer is that I find that sometimes with later DOS games (especially protected mode games), that DosBox, while it runs the games actually has frame rate problems. Even modifying with frameskip etc. doesn't do the trick. That's why I always use VDMSound for System Shock 1 rather than DosBox. Both applications run SS1, but VDMSound does not suffer the frame rate hits that DosBox does.

With a 2GHz processor, it's totally reasonable to choose VDMSound over DOSBox for late DOS-era games, as they tend to be taxing on all the hardware and use a lot of tricks as well.

Personally, I've decided to go back and enjoy the older games that run perfectly in DOSBox on my Athlon XP 3200+. I've got way more games than I could ever playin 10 lifetimes, so restricting myself to older DOS games (early 90s and older for the most part) helps narrow things down a bit 😀

Oh, if it's a protected-mode game, you might want to look into using DOS32A if the game uses a DOS extender that DOS32A is able to replace.

I've got way more games than I could ever play in 10 lifetimes, so restricting myself to older DOS games (early 90s and older for the most part) helps narrow things down a bit

😁 Hah! Me too! And I keep adding to the collection week after week thinking that - someday - I'll get to it. There are just so many tempting choices in the bargain bins nowadays, as the consoles slowly but surely do to PC games what the PC itself did to Mac games: reduce the shelf space to less and less until *poof* there isn't any space anymore.

That said, I find myself drawn over and over to games from the early to mid 1990's: an era I consider the apogee of computer game design (just before the real-time craze hit and 1st person shooters took off on a vertical ascent). Games like 1830, Master of Orion, Master of Magic, Civ II, XCOM: UFO, etc. etc. I've tried all sorts of computer games in every genre you can think of, and I keep going back to the old fav's time after time!

To keep things back on topic, what is DOS32A? Is this another emulator program?

Ludomeister wrote:

To keep things back on topic, what is DOS32A? Is this another emulator program?

It is another name for the search function.....

Heh... DOS32A is a replacement for DOS extenders like DOS4GW that seems to be more friendly with DOSBox and also Win2K/XP's command prompt windows.

Ludomeister wrote:

Here's the .bat file I created to start up the program within VDMSound: […]
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Here's the .bat file I created to start up the program within VDMSound:

@echo off
C:\Cavewars\nolfb.com
C:\Cavewars\mouse2kv 640 480 8 8
C:\Cavewars\dos4gw.exe cavehigh.exe

.
.
.
Any thoughts or ideas as to what I might add/subtract to get this game going?

You might change your batch file as follows:

1@echo off
2C:\Cavewars\nolfb.com
3C:\Cavewars\mouse2kv 640 480 8 8 dos4gw.exe cavehigh.exe

The Mouse2KV.exe file is NOT a TSR, it functions a a co-resident loader which intercepts the Int 33h calls. Give the modified batch file a try...

Hope this helps,

dvwjr

Thanks, dvwjr. I revised the .bat file using your parameters, and while the game fired up, it was still unusable. I have to admit I'm kinda stumped about this one.

Cheers,

Ludo

Hello, I already had a similar problems with CaveWars but they have been solved by loading other version of game, creation of a .bat file and addition LEVELS.FDG (sorry for bad english).

1) I have loaded the version of the game from http://209.120.136.195/games/c/cavewars/files … avewars-fix.zip,
2) then have created a .bat file, as it have been described above (with nolfb.com & mouse2kv.exe, loaded from here: http://advsys.net/ken/nolfb.zip and download.php?id=229 )
3) and have added a file LEVELS.FDG (from 1.20 official patch http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/patches/cav … wars/cw_120.zip) in the DLGS directory, as it is described here: CaveWars crashes when starting new Random game

Only after these manipulations CaveWars was started normally under DosBox. All other versions of the game were started with some error.

Thanks, XGodeksX! I followed your steps and finally got results! The final icing on the cake was adding that levels.fdg file into the DLGS directory. Now all runs beautifully on DosBox 0.63, and I'm a happy camper! 😀

Cheers,

Ludo