Okay let's get something strait: It's the installer of the game that complains.

if so:

first be sure that all the files in the directory are not write protected. As dosgames tend to open their files by default for read/write acces

look for the dosbox configfile it's located in your startmenu somewhere. there is a property called warnings
set this to 4. set the property nowait to false and try again.

If you run dosbox again and it crashes then the real error message will be displayed instead of a unsupported feature.

Please post it here. (although i remember not having to install the game in order to run it)

you can also use the dosbox-cvs builds located at http://forums.pixelz.org
the current cvs has more support for features used in installers (although it doesn't support all installers yet, but quite some more than 0.58)

First of all, the problem I'm having is running INSTALL.EXE, when I run MAGIC.EXE the game simply says that I have to configure it first.

I changed the config file settings you asked for and now the behavior is a little different. If I run INSTALL.EXE it clears the screen and I now get a double horizontal line at the top of the screen (these are ASCII characters) and a prompt back. If I run MAGIC.EXE first and then INSTALL.EXE I get DOSBox to crash with this message:

MIDI:Opened device:win32
Exit to error: CPU:GRP5:Illegal Call 38
Press enter to continue.

I downloaded the CVS build and tried that out. If I just run INSTALL.EXE the CVS version it hangs with a blank screen. If I run MAGIC.EXE first, DOSBox CVS crashes silently but this is the stdout file:
CONFIG:Can't find config file dosbox.conf, using default settings
Paging disabled
LFB Base at address C0000000,page C0000
MIDI:Opened device:win32
WTF rx readb
WTF rx readb
Unhandled code 26F
Exit to error: an unsupported feature
Press enter to continue.

When I copied the DOSBox.conf file from the regular DOSBox directory I got this stdout.txt file:
Paging disabled
LFB Base at address C0000000,page C0000
MIDI:Opened device:win32
WTF rx readb
WTF rx readb
Exit to error: CPU:GRP5:Illegal Call 7
Press enter to continue.

I'm now wondering if this is a video driver issue. Does MoM require a VESA driver of any sort? I've got a NeoMagic MagicMedia 256XL+ chipset.

Thanks,

Jeff Bower

the idea of dosbox is that it emulates a videocard so that your own isn't needed anymore.

The errors you describe are a bit weird. I really remember running the game fine. Maybe your game archive is corrupted ?
Else try running the install in regular dos and run magic (when configured) in dosbox.

Originally posted by jdbower MIDI:Opened device:win32
Exit to error: CPU:GRP5:Illegal Call 38
Press enter to continue.

Are you using a Yamaha XG wavetable or similar wavetable? You might try switching to a different MIDI device.

I installed DOSBox and MoM on another PC with a Matrox video card and it's working fine (although this PC has sound card issues so I'm not sure if that's working - I'll have to fix that later!). I'm now fairly sure that this is some sort of hardware incompatibility with a Sony Vaio laptop. I've got plenty of other PCs to test on to see if I can find any other commonality. Thanks again,

Jeff Bower

Originally posted by jdbower I installed DOSBox and MoM on another PC with a Matrox video card and it's working fine (although this PC has sound card issues so I'm not sure if that's working - I'll have to fix that later!).

Whatever works for you...

I'm now fairly sure that this is some sort of hardware incompatibility with a Sony Vaio laptop.

Not if you're running Windows 2000. Hardware access must be routed through the OS, so the only real reason that I can think of would be if you had some program running that allowed direct hardware access (motherboard monitor, etc...).

I tried to run the install program from a DOS boot disk and it hung just like in DOSBox. This may have been because I had to run it off the CD directly since I've got everything formatted as FAT32.

I took the directory from the working computer and moved it to the Vaio laptop. I can now play the game but the sound is choppy (not a big deal, I usually play without the sound anyway). Thanks for your help on this one. I'm guessing that the installer needs to talk to something like the sound or video card, but the drivers are preventing DOSBox from accessing things properly. I've got a Yamaha DS-XG chipset in the laptop if that helps anyone. If any developers would like me to run any debug code for them, just let me know (otherwise I'm happy to run the install program elsewhere).

I've also discovered that I've had to change the "cycles" value up fairly high to get a good speed, even on a fairly good computer (1.7G P4, 768M RAM, etc.). It's also interesting that raising the value speeds up the game, usually that value would refer to a sleep duration between instructions so raising it would slow the game down.

Originally posted by jdbower I tried to run the install program from a DOS boot disk and it hung just like in DOSBox. This may have been because I had to run it off the CD directly since I've got everything formatted as FAT32.

I find that confusing. It should work fine with FAT32. If you were trying to play it straight off of the CD, part of the problem might have been the program trying to write to write-protected files.

I'm guessing that the installer needs to talk to something like the sound or video card, but the drivers are preventing DOSBox from accessing things properly. I've got a Yamaha DS-XG chipset in the laptop if that helps anyone.

Well, I know my Yamaha XG wavetable (software, not hardware) has been incompatible with my DosBox. Had to switch back to MSoft's GS Wavetable for proper operation.

I've also discovered that I've had to change the "cycles" value up fairly high to get a good speed, even on a fairly good computer (1.7G P4, 768M RAM, etc.).

Remember, with DosBox, you're not just playing a game, your emulating a computer...that's playing a game.

It's also interesting that raising the value speeds up the game, usually that value would refer to a sleep duration between instructions so raising it would slow the game down.

But in dosBox it's asking you how much CPU power do you want DosBox to have...the more cycles...the faster the emulated CPU.

Note that once you pass a certain point, increasing cycles will actually slow things down again as you've passed the point of how much power your real CPU has freely available.