quake fails to run on 386 \ VOGONS

quake fails to run on 386

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First post, by noshutdown

Posted on 2017-11-15, 01:31

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anyone ever tried running quake(dos version of course) on 386 machines? i tried but it simply failed to load, with only one line of error message:
OMPT=: cannot open

the main components are:
amd386dx-40
cyrix fastmath 83d87-40
16mb dram
tseng et3000 256kb vga card

does anyone know whats the cause of the failure?
is quake simply incompatible with 386+387 cpus or something? i did run it on 486 many years ago, and there isn't major difference other than speed between 386 and 486. but then, the official duke3d executable also fails to run on 386 and one needs to hack it.

Reply 1 of 8, by DosFreak

Posted on 2017-11-15, 01:36

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Quake and 386...

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Reply 2 of 8, by Koltoroc

Posted on 2017-11-15, 01:48

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searching for the "OMTP cannot open" error leads me to this:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp. … gpp/Kc803G_5jUU

if that is the same error, quake doesn't seem to like an empty or nonexistent PATH variable.

Reply 3 of 8, by Anonymous Coward

Posted on 2017-11-15, 03:54

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Maybe it needs more than 256kb for VGA?

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Reply 4 of 8, by noshutdown

Posted on 2017-11-17, 09:35

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Koltoroc wrote:
searching for the "OMTP cannot open" error leads me to this:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp. … gpp/Kc803G_5jUU

if that is the same error, quake doesn't seem to like an empty or nonexistent PATH variable.

its the path problem. i set the variable to whatever path and the slideshow is moving on!

Reply 5 of 8, by EdmondDantes

Posted on 2017-11-19, 20:19

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Wasn't Quake one of the first games to specifically require a math coprocessor and if you didn't have it the game would lag like crazy? is this a "just to see if its possible" type of project?

Reply 6 of 8, by Koltoroc

Posted on 2017-11-19, 20:31

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without an fpu quake doesn't just lag, it doesn't run, period.

and OP actually does have an fpu installed, the "cyrix fastmath 83d87-40".

Reply 7 of 8, by CkRtech

Posted on 2017-11-19, 22:04

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Koltoroc wrote:
without an fpu quake doesn't just lag, it doesn't run, period.

But there are ways around it. Lol. Not that I would recommend it - I ran Quake on my 486SX-33 back in the day by using a coprocessor emulator. Yeeeah.

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Reply 8 of 8, by noshutdown

Posted on 2017-11-20, 01:55

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Koltoroc wrote:
without an fpu quake doesn't just lag, it doesn't run, period.
and OP actually does have an fpu installed, the "cyrix fastmath 83d87-40".

even with fpu the slideshow plays at about 1fps... then changing the video card to cirrus5434 gives almost twice the speed.

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