It sounds like you should try booting into DOS with a real disk image. (Unless Mr. Ripsaw jumps in with another brilliant patch. 🤣 )

I wrote some quick and dirty instructions to get going in Captain Blood Doesn't Start .

Mmm, from what I read, the problem lies in the "INT 13H", this game seems to use a type of protection a bit complicated (that dosbox can not handle it)
I hope that someone can try to fix this problem.

Hence the boot disk approach 😉

Yes, I have one already prepared to try this game, will see what happens.

If the problem is a disk check then mounting any floppy image as A: may suffice.

I try everything you said, but the game is doing the same thing (freezes when finishing the first level)
I think this game is only playable with a real (old) machine with floppy drive.

VisitntX wrote:

I try everything you said

What exactly did you try?

I tried to check this out, but I couldn't beat the first level.... 🤣. pumpkin head boss got me.

1. Booting into DOS with a real disk image
2. Mounting any floppy image as A:

None of these alternatives worked.

exofreeze, to test it, i recommend that you use a trainer.

VisitntX wrote:

I think this game is only playable with a real (old) machine with floppy drive.

Well, if all else fails, there's always Bochs or PCem.

It might be useful to try a debug-enabled version of DOSBox and see if it outputs any useful messages.

The interesting is to try to run it without problems in dosbox (and try to make dosbox as compatible as possible)
I do not use the debugger version, but I can try it.

The game's keydisk copy protection must be cracked to run it in DOSBox, but the existing TDT crack does not eliminate dependence on the floppy disk controller (because it didn't have to). The attached patch program will remove the FDC dependency, and it can be applied to original files or on top of the existing TDT crack. Run the program in DOSBox where the game is installed. With the patch, and the help of the TDT trainer, I was able to reach the end of the game in both DOSBox 0.74 and SVN. I used the machine=vgaonly setting because some messy graphics are hidden by video blanking as they would be on real VGA.

Edit: Improved the patch to remove all calls to INT 13h, won't access the floppy drive at all. Also fixed two glitches caused by the TDT crack where the level 3 boss graphics were messed up and the level 4 exit portal did not appear after defeating the boss (although you could still exit by walking left).

Yes, it now work perfectly!
You're great!, thank you so much!! 😉

ripsaw needs a theme song

McGuyver or A-Team?

ripsaw8080 wrote:

the existing TDT crack does not eliminate dependence on the floppy disk controller (because it didn't have to). The attached patch program will remove the FDC dependency

So I guess this means DOSBox's FDC emulation is missing something?

More than missing "something", FDC emulation is just plain missing. The same is true for the hard disk controller. The reason is that most games and apps use the DOS or BIOS interface (which DOSBox does emulate) to read and write on drives. Usually it's the BIOS that directly interacts with controller hardware.

I think the DOSBox-x build may implement a HDC, not clear if it provides FDC support.