Are you using the default settings for DOSBox?

My version of DSavant works fine with v0.60. I've got the Wizardry Collection (I-VII) on CD-ROM, but I believe it's identical to the floppy disk version.

Maybe you should try to run it on DOSBox 0.58?

I have the CD-ROM version (not Gold). I tried turning the sound off in DosBox (set sound=off) because I read in some posts that the sound can be a probllem. It didnt help.🙁 I still got that same error message. Any ideas on how to fix this?

The game works normally in DOSBOX. It is probably a different problem.

Ask on:
http://www.softwarespecialties.com/cgi-bin/rp … &conf=DCConfID1

Mirek

I posted over there on the 28th but no help yet. I need to figure out what the error message means. If I knew that I might be able to figure out how to fix it.

thanks for replying. 😀

Here is my DosBox info. Does that help? (ver 0.60)

[sdl]
# fullscreen -- Start dosbox directly in fullscreen.
# autolock -- Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen.
# sensitiviy -- Mouse sensitivity.
# waitonerror -- Wait before closing the console if dosbox has an error.

fullscreen=false
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true

[dosbox]
# language -- Select another language file.
# memsize -- Amount of memory dosbox has in megabytes.

language=
memsize=16

[render]
# frameskip -- How many frames dosbox skips before drawing one.
# snapdir -- Directory where screenshots get saved.
# scaler -- Scaler used to enlarge/enhance low resolution modes.
# Supported are none,normal2x,advmame2x

frameskip=0
snapdir=snaps
scaler=normal2x

[cpu]
# cycles -- Amount of instructions dosbox tries to emulate each millsecond.
# Setting this higher than your machine can handle is bad!

cycles=1800

[mixer]
# nosound -- Enable silent mode, sound is still emulated though.
# rate -- Mixer sample rate, setting any devices higher than this will
# probably lower their sound quality.
# blocksize -- Mixer block size, larger blocks might help sound stuttering
# but sound will also be more lagged.
# wavedir -- Directory where saved sound output goes when you use the
# sound record key-combination, check README file.

nosound=false
rate=22050
blocksize=2048
wavedir=waves

[midi]
# mpu401 -- Enable MPU-401 Emulation.
# device -- Device that will receive the MIDI data from MPU-401.
# This can be default,alsa,oss,win32,coreaudio,none.
# config -- Special configuration options for the device.

mpu401=true
device=default
config=

[sblaster]
# sblaster -- Enable the soundblaster emulation.
# base,irq,dma -- The IO/IRQ/DMA address of the soundblaster.
# sbrate -- Sample rate of soundblaster emulation.
# adlib -- Enable the adlib emulation.
# adlibrate -- Sample rate of adlib emulation.
# cms -- Enable the Creative Music System/Gameblaster emulation.
# Enabling both the adlib and cms might give conflicts!
# cmsrate -- Sample rate of cms emulation.

sblaster=true
base=220
irq=7
dma=1
sbrate=22050
adlib=true
adlibrate=22050
cms=false
cmsrate=22050

[speaker]
# pcspeaker -- Enable PC-Speaker emulation.
# pcrate -- Sample rate of the PC-Speaker sound generation.
# tandy -- Enable Tandy 3-Voice emulation.
# tandyrate -- Sample rate of the Tandy 3-Voice generation.
# disney -- Enable Disney Sound Source emulation.

pcspeaker=true
pcrate=22050
tandy=true
tandyrate=22050
disney=true

[bios]
# Nothing to setup yet!

[dos]
# xms -- Enable XMS support.
# ems -- Enable EMS support.
# dpmi -- Enable builtin DPMI host support.
# This might help in getting some games to work, but might crash others.
# So be sure to try both settings.

xms=true
ems=true
dpmi=true

[modem]
# modem -- Enable virtual modem emulation.
# comport -- COM Port modem is connected to.
# listenport -- TCP Port the momdem listens on for incoming connections.

modem=true
comport=2
listenport=23

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.

Try installing the game to the C: drive. I think that may be what's causing the error. I'm able to run both Wizardry 6 (Bane of the Cosmic Forge) and Wizardry 7 (Crusaders of the Dark Savant) under DOSBox, but I think they may have problems if their drive letter inside DOSBox is something other than C.

I haven't tried with DOSBox 0.60, but in previous versions, I had to use PC Speaker instead of Sound Blaster for the sound effects in Wiz 7 under DOSBox. Also, Wiz 6 & 7 use a terrible method of producing sound effects that causes unavoidable lag when run in DOSBox (since it has to buffer the sound before playing it).

I'm not getting the VINIT error message. I"m not sure what I did that fixed that one. 😁 Now I'm getting "system error: unable to open scenario.hdr. 😕 😠

what do I try now? btw I have no hair left, I think I've pulled it all out....

**edit**

I just tried a couple things and got a different error message.

GOTO: Label err2 not found"

this just gets stranger and stranger, doesnt it?

I'm getting the "Unable to open scenario.hdr" problem too, and whatever I do, I can't fix it. 🙁

Sorry I don't have the games to test, so a few general tips;

xms=true
ems=true
dpmi=true

Try disable dpmi & ems, since these are incomplete and can sometimes
create problems. Also ensure you are not mounting the game drive
as primary --
ie
the incorrect (some games really dislike it if you do this)
mount c h:\mygame\is_installed_here\
versus
mount c h:\

Note: recently in debug we discovered that overlays are not 100% correctly handled.. which means either CVS or the next version may be the only fix.

Wizardry 7 is real mode game, no need to play with dpmi etc.
IMHO the guy probably just installed it wrongly.
For example in my case (CD rip) the game needs directory c:\wiz-cd\7 with some files. Do not forget to run VINSTALL (this is copy from BAT file in my installation):

MD C:\WIZ-CD
MD C:\WIZ-CD\7
COPY PCFILE.DBS C:\WIZ-CD\7\*.*>NUL
COPY SCENARIO.HDR C:\WIZ-CD\7\*.*>NUL
VINSTALL.EXE

Mirek

Success! Of a kind!

With going to c: instead of c:/wiz-cd I was able to start the program. However, all I get is the book with the wizardry logo on it (the green book), and can't do anything else. I tried upping the cycles/frame skips, but that didn't seem to help. All I can do is click on the dosbox screen with my cursor and watch my cursor disappear.

Any clues?

Wiz7/Dosbox is running smooth on a P4 2.6, with cycles set to 13000.
On the title screen you must press ESC, but only a few seconds later does the main menu appear. Maybe you set your cycles value too low, and you were impatient ;-]
However, on my other machine (900Mhz AMD, ATI 7000, W2K) I have a problem. I either run Wizardry in a window, but then it is too slow, or run it in full screen, but in this case I cannot switch back to the Dosbox screen after having switched to an other application (with ALT-TAB). On the XP machine, with a GeForce, I do not have such a problem. What could be the reason for this? Buggy video drivers? SDL bug? Dosbox bug? W2K bug?

Wiz7/Dosbox is running smooth on a P4 2.6, with cycles set to 13000.
On the title screen you must press ESC, but only a few seconds later does the main menu appear. Maybe you set your cycles value too low, and you were impatient ;-]
However, on my other machine (900Mhz AMD, ATI 7000, W2K) I have a problem. I either run Wizardry in a window, but then it is too slow, or run it in full screen, but in this case I cannot switch back to the Dosbox screen after having switched to an other application (with ALT-TAB). On the XP machine, with a GeForce, I do not have such a problem. What could be the reason for this? Buggy video drivers? SDL bug? Dosbox bug? W2K bug?

By the way, I am not sure whether you DID the following or not:
Dosbox default settings are ok.
Run it.
1. mount the drive wiz7 is on:
mount d c:/
2. cd in the directory wiz7 is in
d:
cd games/wiz7
I suppose you have "installed" the game in the above directory. I don't have an original installer version, so I have no experience with that, but the essence is that you should have all files properly copied/installed to that directory.
3. run VINSTALL
and SET the path wiz7 is installed in ACCORDING TO DOSBOX settings
(eg. in the example above I set d:/games/wiz7, NOT c:/games/wiz7, because D: is the drive that is mounted in Dosbox.
EMS/RAMDISK set it to whatever you like, doesn't make a difference.
You can even disable it.
I disable sound, didn't try it with any cards.
Then say CONFIG ONLY, and the configuration data is written in scenario.hdr.
Now you can run the game (DS.EXE). If you are getting error messages - eg. "Error 10" - that comes from the batch file.
I suppose that the message above came when Wiz7 did not succeed in finding its files - meaning it was not configured correctly.
Hope this helps some people.

One more thing: I was not able to start Wiz7 with the dscrack.com installed - if anyone knows how to do that, I'm listening. Doesn't make much difference though.

Hey all... I'm trying to get Wizardry 7 to run in DOSbox, and I'm not getting very far. I've got a Debian unstable system, and the Wizardry 7 floppies (two of 'em). I copied the contents of both of the floppies to a local directory and told DOSbox to mount it as drive A. Then I ran vinstall, took the defaults, and it successfully created C:\DSAVANT within the DOSbox namespace. It told me to run WIZARDRY. When I do that, I just get a blank screen. I've let it sit for several minutes with the CPU cycles cranked up to 25000 (this is an Athlon XP 2000+). I have to kill DOSbox.

That was with DOSbox 0.61 (Debian package 0.61-3). I also tried downgrading DOSbox to 0.60-3 (from snapshot.debian.net), but then when I try to run WIZARDRY, I get the following error:
Exit to error: CPU:GRP5:Illegal Call 7
and DOSbox crashes.

I'm using all default DOSbox settings (no dosbox.conf file), no patches to Wizardry, nothing fancy at all. Just the original floppies. Should I mess around with the expanded/extended memory stuff? Any ideas are welcome.

I had the same problem as you greycat. Solved it by downloading and installing the pentium cpu fix. You can get it from http://www.tk421.net/wizardry/files.shtml (15kb). It's a fixed .exe file. Now CoDS works fine on my PC with the latest DOSBox.

Ah, thanks! It works great now (without sound, anyway -- but it's better like that). I was even able to find my manual, on the bottom of the pile of them, to answer the copy-protection question. 😀

Yes it works, nice helps here in this thread. Now about the sound, is anyone working on it yet?

For sound, use Adlib or Roland for music and PC Speaker for sound effects. Works fairly well, except for some popping with the sound effects.

It would be nice if the popping could be eliminated, but even better if the Adlib emulation could be upgraded to handle Wiz7's brain-dead sound-effects methods. Unfortunately I've heard that both tasks will take some work and may not happen any time soon.

The game ran fine, but when I went to save, I got a "disk error" message.

I have all the game loaded and "turned on the sound" (OMG, that was too easy), but now I get a "disk error" after inputting the password and getting to the save/input dialog.

I have tried re-booting and still get that error, I remember when I tried importing the BOCF savegame and got the same thing until I changed the name of the file. All the names and directories are correct. I'm confused now.