Okay, I'm ready to cry "uncle!" about the game not recognizing my sound card and its settings. Could someone please suggest the logical defaults to try for digital sound device (along with the port address, DMA channel number, and IRQ number) and also what to try choosing for the general MIDI? Nothing I have tried so far works. The game hasn't recognized anything I've tried when I check the settings by playing a music sample.

And if you could also tell me whether or not to leave those fat10.bnk files as is in the config files or just shorten them to C:Syn, I would really appreciate it.

I'm SO close to getting this darn game to run! 😀

Update: I chose Soundblaster Pro with the default DOSBox settings and it still doesn't recognize my sound card (220, 1, 5 as the defaults).

The exact error message I get when I try to load (after several messages confirming other things are okey dokey):

error in initializing music driver
HMI*DRV file open failure.

HEEEEEELPPPPPP!!! 😕

Ok, I figured out why I was getting that sound error message above---I needed to install the game in DOS! Duh!! The sound settings work fine now and I DO get sound. But now I have a new problem (and if anyone is reading this--I'm sure you are rolling your eyeballs heavenward)--when I go to actually install the game, I get an error message saying, "disk error--unable to create directory." Could someone please tell me how I fix this so that I can install the game.

Thank you. 😀

Read this guide, then come back and tell us what you did (the exact commands) as you prepared to install the game.

> Question: Do I change the third and fourth lines from the bottom to C:Syn also, or do I leave those alone?

Yes, you should change that as well (but it should read c:\syn and not c:syn )

> and it still doesn't recognize my sound card (220, 1, 5 as the defaults).

The dosbox soundcard has addr=220, dma=1, irq=7 no matter what
your real soundcard is set to (as sound blaster/sb16 is emulated by dosbox).

When I first used DosBox I actually changed the IRQ to 5, cause my real SB16 had IRQ 5 on it 😁 .

This has proven to be a bad move, any game that can recognize IRQ 5 can also recognize IRQ 7, but some games (Blue Force and Kronolog - The Nazi Paradox come to mind), do not seem to recognize IRQ 5...
(As for the latter, I think they fixed it in Red Hell though).

Anyway, the point is, don't change DosBox IRQ to 5! 😀

Please post exactly how you are setting the game in dosbox and your conf file.

Well, I'm all messed up, but I'm here to learn. 😀

I created a directory on my hard drive called c:\syn
I then went into DOSBox
I mounted c: c:\syn
I mounted e: e:\ (my CD-ROM drive is "E")
I changed to e: at the z prompt and typed install
I configured my sound settings as Soundblaster Pro and 220, 1, and 7.
When asked the directory in which to install my game, I said c:\syn

Is it correct that I would then change the config file with all lines that start c:\21stcent\syn to c:\syn? And would I still change the next-to-last line to D?

I believe there are several problems here: 1) I believe my mounts/directories may be wrong. 2) I sometimes get a "please insert CD in the drive when I try to run the game. 3) Sometimes I get the error message that the specially configured version of DOSBox is supposed to correct (when the game is getting ready to load), so I am now also wondering if I have downloaded and used the Synnergist version of DOSBox incorrectly, as well, so need instructions on that to make sure I am doing it correctly.

😢

This is the first time I have really read up on the DOSBox instructions so I hope you will cut me some slack. And if you're not as confused as I am at this point, I salute you! 😁

Thank you for your time and your patience. If I ever get through this, I should be on my way to having a clue as to exactly what I should be doing. 😅

Correction: The mounting of my CD-ROM drive is as follows:

mount e: e:\ -t cdrom

I was just nervous. 😅

The installer also asks what drive the CDROM is, I'm assuming you typed 'e' to that, also I'm assuming you used sound blaster pro for music as well (I myself am using SB16 for sound and general midi for music I think).

Using your step by step instructions my game loaded fine, so I'm thinking maybe it's because I'm playing from a CD image and not from the CD itself (Which I recommend you do as well, spin-ups and spin-downs of the CDROM tend to kill all of my FMV games in DOSBOX).

DOSBOX itself can mount CD Images or you can mount them with an external utility (Daemon Tools, Alcohol, Nero, etc...)

Hope this helps you in getting the game to run.

Hang on...
I think I see the problem...

Is your game in c:\syn\syn or in c:\syn?

DosBox is mounting c:\syn as your C:\ drive, when you run the SETUP program INSIDE dosbox, you install to C:\SYN, which, in actuality will be c:\syn\syn in windows.

So, I'm confused, from which folder are you trying to run the game in dosbox?
Is there already an installation of Synnergist in c:\syn that you have done from windows?

Hi, yes to your assumptions in the first paragraph; I WAS doing that. 😀

About the DOS/Windows folders/directories question, it's possible that I haven't cleared all the files out from the earlier Windows install, so I will start over from scratch (making SURE I've completely wiped out all previous installs) and will start over in DOSBox. Maybe it then will work.

If not, I will look into the CD image mount; that might do the trick, being as the game keeps asking me to "please insert the CD" as one of the error messages I've been getting. There's another game I've heard won't work without an image mount that I have and would like to play, anyway---Drascula. So, it sounds like it's a useful tool that I should get the hang of.

I appreciate everyone's help and suggestions. I'm pretty burned out trying to get this game to run, but will check out the CD image mount in a day or two. Synnergist gets my "it's a bear to get running" nomination so far with all the games I have tried. 😒

> Synnergist gets my "it's a bear to get running" nomination so far with all the games I have tried

Well from me it gets the "pretty stupid page remapping" award, which it
shares with just one other game 😉

Marian wrote:

I created a directory on my hard drive called c:\syn I then went into DOSBox I mounted c: c:\syn I mounted e: e:\ (my CD-ROM d […]
Show full quote

I created a directory on my hard drive called c:\syn
I then went into DOSBox
I mounted c: c:\syn
I mounted e: e:\ (my CD-ROM drive is "E")
I changed to e: at the z prompt and typed install

Make it simple for yourself: Don't create a C:\syn directory. Create a directory where you would normally create your directories - somewhere in My Documents. Then mount that dir as C: in DOSBox (mount C: C:\path\to\my\real\dir\for\Synnergist)

And make it simple for that old DOS game: Pretend that your CD-ROM is drive D: (mount D: E:\ -t cdrom)

Hi,

If anyone is still looking at this topic and wouldn't mind helping me out, I'd really appreciate it. 😀

Here's everything I've done:

-- Mount iso to virtual F drive with daemon tools
-- Start dosbox .65
-- mount d: f:\ -t cdrom
-- mount c: c:\
-- f:\install
-- i set up my sound stuff (sb16, 220, 1, 7) and tests are successful
-- set cd letter to d
-- install to c:\21stcent\syn
-- quit
-- cd c:\21stcent\syn
-- synn, and of course i get the error that started this whole topic.

I tried downloading the fixed dosbox someone posted on this forum, but every time I try to run it I get an error "application failed to start because SDL_net.dll was not found"

Any ideas? Thank you in advance.

sorry, 3rd step is d:\install, of course...just a typo

I had the same problem with SDL_net, I think I just ended up looking for it on Google, should be pretty easy to find.

Should be part of the dosbox 0.65 release anyways, so just copy over that one (or google).

thanks, i renmaed the dosbox shortcut and copied it to my dosbox directory...the game runs just fine.

thanks again.. i think it's great that there are whole communities dedicated to getting these classic games up and running again.

so....after all this work....is the game any good?

Well, just in case anyone is reading this, months later........Synnergist is up and running in DOSBox!! Yes, I finally got it running.

I would never have gotten it running were it not for the brilliance of Qbix and the other good folks on this forum who offered help, and I wanted to thank you all very much. 😁

Your efforts were not in vain! Hooray!! 😀