Hey all. I'm trying to get Spiderman Cartoon Maker running the way I want it on my Windows 95/DOS gaming PC. It runs fine, but suffers from noticeable load times from the CD, so I'd like to know how to copy the game completely to the HD and actually have it work. I tried doing it myself but the game acted really weirdly with missing sounds and images. Thanks.
It depends on how the DRM works. One thing you can do is try DOSBox or VMWare and use an ISO image, but this isn't what you want.
If a solid copy to the hard drive won't work, likely not much will. You can try copying to faster media like a DVD that can read more data with less speed.
wrote:It depends on how the DRM works. One thing you can do is try DOSBox or VMWare and use an ISO image, but this isn't what you want.
If a solid copy to the hard drive won't work, likely not much will. You can try copying to faster media like a DVD that can read more data with less speed.
I don't think there really is any. The game's folder on the HD has an INI file that has a bunch of folder paths, but I'm confused on how it works because when I changed them to folders on the HD (after copying the files) the game ran but was missing a lot of the assets for some reason.
Ah, Spiderman Cartoon Maker. That brings back memories from my first Packard Bell PC's multimedia software bundle. I recall it also included dual sets of MIDI files, one for the FM driver and one for wavetable synthesis sound devices. I know at least mystery.mid includes pitch wheel issues that affect the Windows FM synthesizer, and also affect the OPL3 emulator based synthesizer that's on this forum, because it replicates the same behavior as the old driver. Basically, when the pitch wheel hits the extreme minimum on certain notes, instead of sliding all the way down, it wraps around to fully bent positive.
The same bug affects several MIDI files. One from Doom 2 (Opening To Hell, MAP30; the ocarina right from the start), and several from Duke Nukem 3D (Robocreeping; the instantly sliding string arpeggio slides really wrong here). All sound correct in their respective games' FM drivers, the bug only affects MSOPL.DRV and its derivatives.
There are "virtual CD drive" programs that run under Windows 95. This may be the best solution unless the program has some exotic DRM (which is unlikely).
Re: Daemon Tools in Windows 95
I'm confused on how it works because when I changed them to folders on the HD (after copying the files) the game ran but was missing a lot of the assets for some reason.
There's a program called Filemon that will show you exactly what paths and files a program is trying to access. You might be able to use it to find out what's going on and make appropriate tweaks to the INI file.
It looks like you can still get the Win9x version at the Internet Archive.
https://web.archive.org/web/20031225221739/ht … e/Filemon.shtml
I tried that Filemon program, and SPIDERCM tries to load the files from all kinds of different random places across the four partitions on my hard drive. I mean, like... really random places like the C:\OPTI930 folder I have for my DOS soundcard drivers. It also tries to find completely non-existent files like D1.BMR, etc.
If there are folders in your PATH environment variable, then those would be places programs would be expected to look.
As for completely non-existent files, are you sure those files aren't on the CD somewhere? Does the program sill try to access them when it is running normally from the CD?
wrote:As for completely non-existent files, are you sure those files aren't on the CD somewhere? Does the program sill try to access them when it is running normally from the CD?
They were never on the CD to begin with.
Alright. I tried something else. I copied all of the contents of the CD to the root of my E drive (I have a C,D,E and an F partition on my 10GB HD) and installed fresh from there. Installed fine, but still had weird issues when running it...
Was there some reason you can't use a virtual CD drive, as I already suggested?
wrote:Was there some reason you can't use a virtual CD drive, as I already suggested?
It's just that I really want to use as little resources as possible. The computer I'm using is a Pentium 100 with 40mb of RAM, and I've also heard bad things about Daemon Tools.
Daemon Tools is not particularly resource-intensive, nor is it particularly problematic. The alternative is to keep throwing yourself at "weird issues".
I suppose you could try loading SHSUCDHD in your autoexec.bat instead, but I've never tried that with Windows before.
There are also other alternatives in the other thread I linked to, like Virtual CD.
Tried to install the oldest version of Daemon Tools that'll run on 95, but it requires USB supplement which only works on 95B and C, and I have the first version of 95. Before you ask, I can't upgrade because the drivers would be a magnificent pain the ass to re-install and get working right. Virtual CD-ROM kinda worked, but it doesn't seem to support ISOs from what I could tell and it also changed the drive letter of my real CD-ROM drive, which is a big problem for the programs I've already installed. So, I guess I'm screwed and doomed to use the actual disc?
Gosh, I didn't know there were driver issues upgrading to 95b. I upgraded to 95b back in the day with zero troubles, and got to reclaim 300MB of my 1GB hard drive that was lost to having formatted it FAT16.
wrote:Virtual CD-ROM kinda worked, but it doesn't seem to support ISOs from what I could tell and it also changed the drive letter of my real CD-ROM drive, which is a big problem for the programs I've already installed.
I haven't used it personally, but the instructions at http://peregate.com/anvil/vcd.html suggest the program can be configured to change the drive letters as you need to, and also that you can use the program itself to make disc images.
So, I guess I'm screwed and doomed to use the actual disc?
I for one can hardly take random stabs at "weird issues when running it". Perhaps someone else with more experience with the program will chime in.
wrote:Gosh, I didn't know there were driver issues upgrading to 95b. I upgraded to 95b back in the day with zero troubles, and got to reclaim 300MB of my 1GB hard drive that was lost to having formatted it FAT16.
Wait, FAT16 supports sizes up to 2GB.
Yes, with cluster sizes of 32KB or larger, which are terrible for lots of tiny files.
