Just suffered one of the strangest experiences in my life 😮.

Got the latest code from CVS, compiled it to see if that would work since 0.60 didn't. It was the same as expected. Then I started adding printf's all over int10_vesa.cpp to see what X-COM: Apocalypse was doing.

By some strange twist of fate I decided to change VESA_GetSVGAModeInformation to always return an error (0x01).

For some reason, I dunno why, that got the graphics ok 😕. However it only works without sound. If I enable SoundBlaster Pro support in setup.exe the screen gets that garbled mess like it used to.

Here are some screenshots of how it is now:

This time the UFOpedia.

BTW, here is some more info. The X-COM: Apocalypse game calls VESA_GetSVGAInformation with "VBE2" in the start of the passed buffer, calls VESA_GetSVGAModeInformation with mode=0x101, calls VESA_SetVGAMode with mode=0x8101.

Hope it helps.

Got it working, both sound and graphics this time.

Turns out that the minfo.WinFuncPtr field returned in VESA_GetSVGAModeInformation is the problem. If I return NULL instead, the game calls Function 05h and that works.

I added some printfs. Turns out that if that field is set, somehow that function never gets called. If I return NULL instead, Function 05h works. The display window gets properly set and everything looks ok.

WOW quasarstrider. I am quite impressed with your findings. This will surely help others in running it.

Oo i wish i understand a single word he said. can u explain it in a bit newbie friendly form please? i tried to play xcom3 today. my os is winxp pro. the funny thing is the intro works only if i setup a sound card. it runs slow with a stutter in the sound and when i skip it, it crash back to promt. the last time i played this game i had win98 and similar problems but it was pretty easy fixed. but with xp no chance.

now i wanted to try dosbox but i guess im getting too old for this (way to complicated). i just tried like its written in the readme (dosbox C:\Games\XCOM3\xcomapoc.exe -c)
can anyone help me? maybe with a sample dosbox.conf or a tutorial or whatever to get it runnin.

u surely changed the source code to get it running so would u please uplaod the compiled file?

Iks wrote:

now i wanted to try dosbox but i guess im getting too old for this (way to complicated). i just tried like its written in the readme (dosbox C:\Games\XCOM3\xcomapoc.exe -c)
can anyone help me? maybe with a sample dosbox.conf or a tutorial or whatever to get it runnin.

the -c shouldn't be there. unless it's a parameter to xcom then the command should be in quotes.

u surely changed the source code to get it running so would u please uplaod the compiled file?

Please Don't upload it. This board isn't meant to have modified dosboxes on it.

I'm sure the authors will take a look at the findings of quasarstrider and see how much sense they make. (if they do they might add it)

but what if those findings are just working with xcom 3? and the time difference between 0.58 and 0.60 was 6 months i dont wanna wait till april next year. and if its not allowed to post modiefied versions then here is my icq number: 78317866

contact me please

X-COM: Apocalypse works well with current CVS. I assume the recent dpmi.c changes did the trick by fixing function calls. That is a much better fix, probably solving problems elsewhere, for other function calls, rather than my hack.

Two thumbs up for the quick problem solving. 😉

but i cant get it running! the sound is stucky and it crashes to prompt after it should run the real program. and those so called "patches" which should get it working on xp are fubared cause the cfg file is linked to L:\xcom3\xcom3.cfg.

please tell me how i can get it running. i played around with the cycles and blocksize parameters to fix at least the audio problem. its a bit better but still stucky and the intro plays only after the first logo (sound keeps going). cmon why dont u want to help 🙁

The game checks for the CD-ROM. The movies (intro, success, failure) are there, among other things. Even with a full install.

I mounted the CD-ROM as drive D: using 'mount -t cdrom d d:/'. Then installed the game in 'c:/xcoma'. If you do not have the no CD-ROM patch it will not work.

The patch to make the X-COM: Apocalypse CD-ROM version run is here:
http://www.xcomufo.com/x3dl.html

After you uncompress 'xcom3fix.zip' into 'c:/xcoma' just run the game by typing 'XCOM3.BAT'. Ignore the warnings. It will work.

Regarding the sound pops, etc, just play up and down with the cpu cycles option until you get something decent. Be warned that this game is a bit heavy so you will likely only get good speed out of it in a fast PC. It runs at a tolerable speed in my PC, but I guess a 486 @ 25 MHz could kick its ass. 😁

You need a recent CVS version. DOSBox 0.60 will NOT work properly past the intro. You get a garbled screen like my first screenshot in this thread.

i know i know im using this command:

E:\DOSBox-0.60\dosbox.exe C:\Games\XCOM3 -c "MOUNT H C:\Games\XCOM3\CD" -conf E:\DOSBox-0.60\dosbox.conf

but still exactly the same problem like i start it without dosbox. the audio is stucky and it crashes after the intro. what dosbox configuration do u use?

ahhh forget it i got it runnin

Ah I like it when people like me use the search function and read "I got it working" but they don't continue saying how they did that. Really "useful" when you dig up old threads.

So, with the recent dosbox 0.61, how do I get Apocalypse working? Yes the intro looks messed up and right after the intro the game (or dosbox?) crashes.

I have no clue about CVS, I dont even know what that is. Could someone tell me how they got the game working? I got cdrom and sound working but that is pretty much it.
I really don't want to use VDMS again unless I have to.

Update: when reading the comments on the compatibility list they recommend to use a no-cd patch (actually some TSR program using fakecd). Well, I used the link shown above but now dosbox says:
Exit to error: MSCDEX: cannot allocate default buffer.

Any suggestions?

You do not need fakecd per se since DOSBox does that work. What you need is the TSR called 'xcom3_cd.com' in that zipfile to remove the copy protection. I use this batchfile to start the game:

1xcom3_cd.com
2xcomapoc.exe SKIP
3rem *** UNINSTALL ***
4xcom3_cd.com

With DOSBox 0.61 it seems the TSR gets into trouble and I get the same MSCDEX error message as you 🙁. But I found a way around it! If you run 'XCOMAPOC.EXE SKIP' first and let it fail the copy protection check (you may want to press ENTER a couple of times for it to fail faster) and *afterwards* you run the batchfile, the TSR works fine! 😁

I also use mouse2kv to get the mouse cursor to work at a less sedate pace. I think I got that at the VDMSound page. Here is the batchfile using mouse2kv:

1xcom3_cd.com
2mouse2kv 640 480 8 8 xcomapoc.exe SKIP
3rem *** UNINSTALL ***
4xcom3_cd.com

Perhaps one of the developers can find out why the TSR does not work ok the first time around. That zipfile comes with the ASM source code for the TSR.

Oh yeah, perhaps one of the cracks the other folks mentioned in the compatibility list will give you less trouble, since some of those patch the .EXE rather than running some TSR. The YCG crack is one of these.