well I was able to get a lil further by using VDMsound. The game loads, and gets all the way to the menu screen before some sort of "CauseWay error 09" occurs. 😒

also there is a rapid constant low beeping noise while the program is running.

DOSBox only support 8bit VESA resolutions at the moment. Not 15/16bit ones. Although 16bit may be supported in the next release. One guy implented 16bit support awhile ago.

Anyway, it's impossible to run the game on Windows 2000/XP rirght now.

Battlespire was one of the late-generation DOS games, made when most of the larger software houses had moved to Windows development. If you really want to play it, the only real option right now is to build a computer that is capable of running pure DOS and is powerful enough to run the game.

Even if/when DOSBox gets 15/16-bit VESA support, it'll probably run too slow to be playable for quite some time. We'll just have to wait and see I guess...

I did some googling on that "CauseWay error 09" message....

CauseWay appears to be an '90 DOS extender, so it is not surprising that it was used for a game like Battlespire. I don't know a solution, but from the various posts I read, it could be related to HIMEM/EMS/XMS issues, so try to disable/enable memory stuff in the VDMSound LaunchPad, and you might get it to work.

CauseWay was released into the public domain in 2000. You could try to download the latest binaries/libraries and see if they can be dropped into the game directory as replacements for the ones in Battlespire.

Link: http://www.devoresoftware.com/freesource/cwsrc.htm

You could try it under Microsoft Virtual PC. It's been awhile since I tested VESA under VPC but it emulates an S3 Trio so I'm sure it supports 15bit.

It runs slow but it does run with the 1.5 patch. Just put detail on low and make the window a little slower and you can play.

red_avatar wrote:

It runs slow but it does run with the 1.5 patch. Just put detail on low and make the window a little slower and you can play.

In the DOSBox CVS by ykhwong, it runs relatively decent 😀

Hey, thanks for that - does he have an English DOSBOX though? I already use 3 versions of Dosbox 😜 I'm using another CVS version which has D3D support. All these seperate versions with seperate patches can get confusing, I hope 6.4 will have them bundled.

Argh, can someone post the .conf they are using? I can get it to run, just barely, at about 3fps [in-game]

It totally depends on your CPU power - I have a AMD 64 3000+ which isn't even that powerful but it is for someone interested in older games.

I haven't seen any indication yet that Qbix is interested in adding D3D support to the official CVS. It's not really a cross-platform feature (only works on Windows) but then again the official CVS has ddraw support...