I did what you said, and I got a differnt error message. I researched the error message and discovered that XMS was required. SO I turned on XMS, and got the original message again.
I looked in the DCK helpfile and found out that HIMEM.SYS was required.
at any rate I have a copy of the Help Document that came with DCK. I will post it here just in case the solution to the problem can be found here.
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DCK - DOOM Construction Kit
Version 2.x (386 Protected Mode)
Code and design by Ben Morris / Zerius Development
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Troubleshooting bmorris@islandnet.com
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Although DCK will work fine on most systems, it might not work on
yours. I guess that's why you're reading this - this file might
help you solve the problem before you need to contact me.
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Terms
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CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT are files used by your computer when it's
starting up. They can be found in the ROOT directory of your C:
drive, ie: "C:\CONFIG.SYS" and "C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT".
TSR - "Terminate and Stay Resident" (or "Device Driver".) This is the
term given to those programs that are loaded when your system starts
up and stay active in memory. Programs like Mouse Drivers and Memory
Managers are TSRs.
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What DCK Needs
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Make sure your system has the following resources available:
- 25 "file handles." This is the number in CONFIG.SYS under the
"FILES=" setting - make sure the number after FILES= is at least 25.
- HIMEM.SYS, or a device driver that provides similar capabilities.
- About one and a half megs (1,500k) of free memory. If you don't
have this much memory, follow the directions below.
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Memory
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If you can't spare the "real thing", DCK can optionally use your hard
drive as memory storage. This might be a little slow, but if you're
running DCK on a 4 meg system with a disk cache and all, it might not
have enough of the real stuff to run smoothly. So, here's how:
In your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, add the following line to the bottom of
the file:
SET DPMI32=SWAPFILE C:\DCK\DCK.SWP
This will use the file "C:\DCK\DCK.SWP" as temporary storage. Of course,
you can use any disk and filename for the swapfile, so "D:\DCK\DCK.SWP"
might be valid too.
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VESA Drivers
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If your VESA driver does not work with DCK, it could be because it's
out-of-date. Make sure the driver supports "VESA Implementation 1.2"
(or higher than 1.2.) This information should be displayed when you
load the driver - if not, or the driver is indeed old, contact the
card's manufacturer and get an update for the driver.
If they do not supply one, tell them they're going to HELL for
hindering development of levels for DOOM, the evillest game ever to
run on PCs. That'll get 'em.
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EMM386
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EMM386 has been known to cause problems with DCK. If your CONFIG.SYS
file loads EMM386.EXE, follow the instructions listed under "Other
Problems" a couple pages down.
Or, just remove the driver.
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QEMM
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When you install QEMM 7.0+, it places a device driver called QDPMI.SYS
in your CONFIG.SYS file. This driver is incompatible with DCK -
luckily, it's not necessary to install it in most cases. Simply
remove or comment the line in CONFIG.SYS that says:
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\QDPMI.SYS
To comment out the line, put the word "REM" in front of it.
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Windows 3.1
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Note: This is applicable only for Windows 3.1 - DCK should run under
Windows NT without any problem.
To run DCK under Windows, you need to do the following:
1. Copy the file WINDPMI.386 into the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectory.
2. Add the following line to the [386Enh] section of SYSTEM.INI:
device=windpmi.386
If you have any problems, please let me know.
Note: I've included DCK.PIF - you should use this instead of DCK.BAT
or DCK32.EXE when you add DCK to the program manager.
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Other Problems
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If you can't find a solution above, read this section.
Many TSRs and other programs loaded at startup can cause problems with
DCK because of its use of system resources. Unfortunately, this is
not something I can do much about - the standards developed by the
"big software companies" to allow programs like DCK and the TSRs to
coexist on a system are not entirely robust and can present many minor
problems depending on your system's setup.
Therefore, if you're having a problem that you can't find a workaround
for, I suggest the following course of action:
1. Rename autoexec.bat and config.sys to some other names, like
"autoexec.dck" and "config.dck".
2. Create a new config.sys with the following statements in it:
FILES=25
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
3. Reboot your machine.
4. Try out DCK again.
If you still have problems, please contact me using the email address
at the top of the file.
If DCK works properly, the culprit is one of the programs loaded at
startup; the only way to figure out exactly WHICH program is to add
lines back into config.sys and autoexec.bat, one by one, and rebooting
your machine and testing DCK after you've made each change. This
method is a last resort, but in most cases the problem will be found
and you'll be able to use DCK with a slightly modified configuration.
I wish there were an easier way!
