ConjurerDragon wrote:

First it´s painfully slow.

If it's slow, it's because your CPU is too slow. Not because of the warning message. I've played thru the whole game despite of the warning message.

Ever since DOSBox started to support 16bit VESA resolutions I never had any problems running Battlespire.

• Rip the CD to bin/cue files (this way you get the music which you would otherwise miss, doing the UESP way)
• Edit the config file to give memsize=63
• Mount the cue as D with the IMGMOUNT command
• Mount C with the -freesize 300 option
• Install the game from D to C
• Install the patch in Windows (just unzip it to the right folder)
• Play game

But seeing how you're using Windows 98, I don't understand why you run Battlespire without using DOSBox. Since you use Windows 98 I would also guess your computer is relatively old and that the processor is very unable to keep up with the emulation processing power that is needed to play Battlespire in DOSBox.

MiniMax wrote:

We don't know if it will make any difference. But we DO know, that playing most DOS games required a couple of simple steps: […]
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ConjurerDragon wrote:

DosFreak wrote:

So your still trying to run the game from the emulate "D:" drive and not the emulated "C:" drive?

Would that make a difference?

I thought that as the game is installed on D: and the games .cfg file refers to directories on D:/Batspire and D:/Videos that the game would not find it´s own files if I simulate a drice C:

We don't know if it will make any difference. But we DO know, that playing most DOS games required a couple of simple steps:

1) Insert the CD - which back then in 99% of the cases was D:.
2) Run the installer on the CD.
3) The installer copies the relevant files to the HD - which back then in 99.999% of the cases was C:
4) The installer launches the setup-utility from C:
5) You select your sound hardware.
6) Installer exits.

7) You go to C:
😎 You run the game from C:

I might be stupid and simple minded, but I try to follow this model with all the DOS games I play. At no time have I encountered situations where the Game-on-C & CD-on-D setup has not worked.

For you to insist on running the game from D, that is just another unknown thrown into the problem, an unknown that we don't need.

If you are experienced with DOSBox, by all means install your games on drive Q if that makes you happy, but why do newbies insists on the added complication?

I tried to change the profile from mounting drive D as D to mounting drive D as C. Then the game would not start at all.
With D as D it did at least start with the "31MB +swap" message.

Unless I need to change something else D: --> C: works less than D: --> D:

MiniMax wrote:

He is using some weird template that came with the silly frontend: "complex DOS games with 3D graphics" […]
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Qbix wrote:

What could make it slow are the settings in the configfile of dosbox.
Are you sure that your pc can handle 45000 cycles ?
Why change it from the default value of auto ? auto is a far superior setting compared to 45000

He is using some weird template that came with the silly frontend:
"complex DOS games with 3D graphics"

I don't like to repeat myself, but I will do it anyway:

MiniMax wrote:

You would be well adviced to start with a completely fresh profile, using the defaults values. The DOSBox developers has gone to great lengths to ensure that DOSBox works well for most games with its default settings. If something needs to be changed, at least make sure that you know what you changed, and why you changed it. And discuss it with the people here - your reasoning might be wrong.

No need to repeat that. My first try was to use a simple, standard profil using the profile wizard of Dfend Reloaded with all standard values. Then the game would not run at all. Then I raised the memory to 63 MB, turned the unneeded soundcard support like Tandy off, asked here on the board, learned that I need to mount the drive D so that the game in dosbox finds it´s own files so I deleted the old profile and started new with the template for faster old DOS games. Then at least the game started with the "31 + SWAP" status.

Using the standard profile with only 63 MB (and mounting the drive D) results now in the same 31 status.

Freddo wrote:

ConjurerDragon wrote:

First it´s painfully slow.

If it's slow, it's because your CPU is too slow. Not because of the warning message.

Astonishingly after I used the setsound utility of the game and chose Roland 32 the game did start and run faster than with no sound...

Also strange was that the setsound started from Dfend Reloaded would not be able to detect my Soundblaster Live! as a Soundblaster 16 resulting always in an error but would detect it as a Roland 32.

...
[*]Edit the config file to give memsize=63

That was the first thing I changed already onmy first try to get it to run.

[*]Mount the cue as D with the IMGMOUNT command
[*]Mount C with the -freesize 300 option
[*]Install the game from D to C

Do you mean installing the game on my actual drive C:?
Or just mounting drive D: as drive C? If the latter that alone does not work as I wrote in an answer to another poster.

[*]Install the patch in Windows (just unzip it to the right folder)

I did that even before asking here.

[*]Play game[/list]
But seeing how you're using Windows 98, I don't understand why you run Battlespire without using DOSBox. Since you use Windows 98 I would also guess your computer is relatively old and that the processor is very unable to keep up with the emulation processing power that is needed to play Battlespire in DOSBox.

It´s Windows 98Se to be exact, not the older version of Windows98. What do you mean with "without using DOSBOX". I am using DOSBOX with the Dfend Reloaded frontend. Or do you refer to the Windows 98 ability to open a dosbox to run older programs?

Read my 60 Seconds Guide to DOSBox.

If that doesn't help, come back with details on how you mounted your C and D drives, how you did the install, how you configured sound, music etc.

ConjurerDragon wrote:

I did now mount drive D and the game at least starts. However it starts with an ingame-error message and runs painfully slow eve […]
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Alexander wrote:

Hi ConjurerDragon, ... Ok for ConjurerDragon as practical help: You have to mount the folder the game is in as a drive in DOSBox […]
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Hi ConjurerDragon,
...
Ok for ConjurerDragon as practical help: You have to mount the folder the game is in as a drive in DOSBox. The DOSBox drives and the physical drives are not the same. Go to the "Drives" section in the profile editor and add a drive "D" connected to the physical path "D:". Then D-Fend Reloaded knows how to change to the game directory and you can leave the game settings ("path D:\BATSPIRE" and "pathcd D:\Videos").
...

I did now mount drive D and the game at least starts. However it starts with an ingame-error message and runs painfully slow even on the character generation screen 😢

The ingame-error says:
"Starting Battlespire...

Warning: 31M RAM+Swap detected.

Battlespire has detected less than the desired amount of memory
available to the game. The is ost likely due to the DPI memory
setting of your DOS box. Please read the 'patch.txt' file and pay
close attention to the 'Random Crashes' section.

It is also likely that you may be low on disk space. We recommend
that you have at least 40 megabytes of free space on your hard disk
before running Battlespire.

If you decide to continue playing the game, there is a *VERY* good
chance that it *WILL* crash."

Battlespire tries to detect the PC´s resources at the start and should come with a "55+ blabla detected" as status report so that it runs without the gamecrashwarning.

Now I know that both my RAM and my D: drivespace are well beyond 55+ MB. So what could be the limiting factor that the game does not recognize it?

Battlespire still gives the 31M+swap warning in DOSBox 0.73, regardless of the ems/xms/umb settings. Would running CWSDPMI help?

Also, the game takes a very long time to go from the character creation or game load screen to the in-game screen.

Framerates are a bit on the low side using output=openglnb in Windows 7 RC1 on a 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo gaming laptop. I tried using svga_s3 and vesa_nolfb in various combinations with the univbe bypass option in spire.cfg, but it didn't seem to affect much in terms of framerate.

It also sometimes takes a very long time to switch to dialogue screens. I think that may be related to the game playing audio tracks from the CD though, so I might try ripping to an image and playing that way (as others have suggested).

Update: First I followed a link from earlier in the thread to get everything but the music tracks onto the HDD. It helped a bit, but I still got some slow loading times and freezes/slowdowns. I then made an ISO and imgmount'ed it, but didn't get music. I then consulted DOSBox's readme.txt and realized that I needed to make a BIN/CUE image instead of an ISO. Now it loads fast and enters into dialogue mode quickly!

The game is pretty playable. I have to run it with the in-game resolution setting set to "LOW" though, or else it's a bit too choppy for my taste. I seem to get better framerates with fulldouble=true and output=ddraw (and fullresolution=640x480) but it could be subjective.

My only problem is I cannot get speech or music! I get all the weapon sounds and creature cries, but have never heard music in game and when I get to the conversation screen I see the words but the creatures have no speech! Should I put the waves.bsa somewhere rather than leaving them on the CD? I get the sound and everything okay in the intro movie -which comes from the CD,so I am a little confused as to why the speech doesn't...! So can anyone help a wayward soul?!

I am using DOSBox 0.73 and am mounting c c:\batspire and d m:\ -t cdrom.I have tried running with their video drivers, bypassing their drivers, using D.O.G and D-Fend Released as well as DOSBox directly. I have tried 0.72 as well and no joy!

If the speech and music are RedBook Audio then you'll need a CUE/BIN image of your physical CD. The physical CD also needs to have the RedBook Audio tracks. So stick the CD in your computer and try to play them with Windows Media Player. If it works then create a CUE/BIN and amount it in DOSBox.

Thread CLOSED.

Open your own thread for your own issues.

FYI, I can confirm that the music in Battlespire is indeed on Redbook audio tracks.