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Can't Start SimHealth

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First post, by agamemnus

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Hi,

I can't get SimHealth to work.

Apparently, SimHealth uses 286 protected mode. I have the exact same problems as this thread here: SimHealth and the Phar Lap Extender

I've tried all sorts of emulators and extenders but nothing works. 🙁 One of my friends says he tried it in pure DOS 6.22, and it works that way only for him.

"After reading gobs of posts on this and other forums, I believe that the inherent problem I'm having running SimHealth is that Phar Lap is not a very fun extender.

Errors I get: In WXP I get error 286.2360 : Out of interrupt stacks.

It doesn't seem to matter what I set the stacks variable to in the config.nt file, this error persists. It is my understanding that stacks is kinda bogus in XP, but I'm not real clear on this.

I then tried running it in DOSBox, but I get a different error: 286.3330 : Segment not present fault detected.

I have no idea what that error is about.

In the WXP native environment, the 286.2360 error typically won't show up until I hit the enter key somewhere or try to play a script in the game. (The script is this thing telling you all about a health program you could implement).

Anyone have any ideas? Should I just give up on this?

Thanks! "

I'm sure that it is a software issue not hardware, as this guy above and my friend have the same errors. (I have Pentium 4 3.4Ghz, 1 gigabyte of RAM, ATI RADEON X600XT 128MB etc.)

I've tried using the latest DOSBox version. I have read the readme in the download but it didn't have any pertinent information as far as I could tell.

Any clues?

Thanks.

Reply 2 of 8, by agamemnus

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Thanks,

I've tried turning off EMS and XMS (and UMB as well!) but it's still the same. I downloaded ykhwong's debug build, but I need some part of directX in that same folder and once I find that on the internet (google search for d3dx9.dll turned out empty) I'm sure it's going to lead to even more trouble...

Here is the exact error. It's a bit more than what that other guy posted, maybe that will help? I don't have a clue how to turn "off"

...Unfortunately I can't mark and copy the text in the primary DOSBox window, so I'll just say it starts approximately like this:

"Extended DOS Power by
Phar Lap's 286|Dos Extender(tm) Version 3.0
Copyright 1993 Phar Lap Software Inc.
Available Memory = 15849 Kb"

Then the error:
"Fatal error 286.3330: General protection fault detected.
PID=0001 TID=0001 SID=0001 ERRORCODE=7C58
AX=0000 BX=0000 CX=003F SI=2926 DI=7F09 BP=7EDC
CS:IP=01BF:28DB DS=01FF ES=01FF SS:SP=0207:7EDA FLAGS=3202"

🙁

Reply 3 of 8, by wd

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That error can be pretty much (that's why it's called *general* protection
fault, happens if some protection check fails).

The debugger enabled builds do some more checks, please try the
one at DOSBox debugger
which is the official one.

Maybe somebody else who has this game can confirm the error.

Reply 5 of 8, by wd

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It's a game bug where they crash when a root directory
is in the path. To play it under dosbox, type
PATH=
before running the game (type again "PATH" to see if this
environment variable is gone).
I can provide more details about the bug if you want.

Reply 6 of 8, by agamemnus

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Wow, thanks! I couldn't make much sense of the debugger and your help is much appreciated. . . Details? I think "A root directory" not in the path is already a bit of an insane statement. 😐 I don't think details will help..

You could now update your games list, 'cause SimHealth isn't on it:

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/comp_list.php?letter=S

😀

Reply 7 of 8, by DosFreak

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A root directory for DosBox would be "Z:\" in the PATH statement....which IIRC is there by default.

The "Z:\" is in the path so that you can run the files on the "Z:\" drive from wherever you navigate to in DosBox. Without it in the path you cannot run the files on the "Z:\" drive.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 8 of 8, by wd

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Actually i was wrong, they just don't like the behaviour of the
virtual dosbox drive (Z:\) when searching files in the root there,
so the game isn't to blame. Should be easy to match the behaviour
of a regular drive though.

> You could now update your games list, 'cause SimHealth isn't on it:

It's a USER database, so feel free to do that if you want 😉
Like with a comment about how to get it working on the 0.65 release.

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