Use the launchpad and make sure XMS and EMS memory are turned up. (Or set them to 16000~17000Kb in the config file.)

Well, I can not get the thing to run using the launchpad either... still complains about not having enough memory.

Oh, I DID forget one thing...

You fricken rock! Thank you for doing all of this work, us users really DO appreciate it!

Unregistered wrote:

Well, I can not get the thing to run using the launchpad either... still complains about not having enough memory.

Oh, I DID forget one thing...

You fricken rock! Thank you for doing all of this work, us users really DO appreciate it!

IIRC SS1 requires VCPI, so it would be a no-go under Windows (would need DOS, or Bochs/VirtualPC/VmWare). You will not get EMS (expanded memory) unless you use "Run with VDMS", but even then SS1 might complain about VCPI ("something-something memory manager something-something").

V.

Thanks for the ideas.

VirtualPC - doesn't work on a Wintel box very well from what I have seen. Haven't looked very far into it though.

VMWare - This is Linux only based, right?

*edit* VMWare has come to the PC world I see, but it isn't cheap. Don't think this game is worth even CLOSE $399.

Bochs - Spent half the day setting it up, moving files, making images and then found out it doesn't have a full screen mode which seems to be the issue with it. Very nice emulator/simulator though. I was impressed.

I will keep looking for a solution for this.

Just a note, to Mr. Anonymous, Windows is not PC. PC, generally speaking, refers to the x86 processor line. Mac, generally speaking, refers to the 68x processor line. *nix can run on either -- it's not processor dependent -- but it can (and usually does) run on a PC.

There's your daily vocabulary lesson.

In any case, I've only got the System Shock 1 disk version (and it was damn hard to find), but I'll test it out and see what I come up with. (Dun dun dun!)

Also, I'm confused about VMware. Company, software, or both? And what software is the DOS emulator?

Originally posted by Unregistered [...] Bochs - Spent half the day setting it up, moving files, making images and then found ou […]
Show full quote

Originally posted by Unregistered
[...]
Bochs - Spent half the day setting it up, moving files, making images and then found out it doesn't have a full screen mode which seems to be the issue with it. Very nice emulator/simulator though. I was impressed.

I will keep looking for a solution for this.

I think Bochs uses SDL so it should now support full-screen (there must be some option or key combination, just look around in the docs). In any case, the most difficult part about Bochs is setting up the disk images 😀 , which is relatively easy under *nix (can mount image files and work with them), but it's not so obvious under Windows (unless you can afford to use a "raw" partition for file exchange).

Keep an eye on DosBox since it may support SS1 one day. 😀

Cheers,
V.

Keep an eye on The System Shock Hack Project, too: http://madeira.physiol.ucl.ac.uk/tsshp/sshock.html

As the authors say:
"The current virtual manifestation of TSSHP (it will probably never get a physical manifestation) consists of quite a lot of miscellaneous technical info on System Shock and the Ultima Underworlds, a software-rendered engine which is slowly coming up to speed, and quite a lot of blathering on mailing lists about AI, physics etc. Oh, and this web page.

The basic idea is to reverse-engineer and then re-engineer System Shock. Why? Well, partly to preserve the legacy of the great Looking Glass studios. Partly to bring a classic game up to date. But mainly because we think it's tremendous fun."

😀

This Mr. Anonymous 😀

Sorry about my abiguous naming of stuff. I know about the *nix and x86, I should have been a little more specific about what I was aiming for. And yes, *nix can run on pretty much any hardware that has a general processor (and even a few specialized pieces).

I am aiming to have an emulator/simulator that can run DOS games under a Win2K client to play a few old games and to help a few others out that are on Win2K as well.

The game that I am aiming to get running is System Shock 1 on Win2K and WinXP with full support of sound and graphics. The graphics are not the biggest problem though... sound has been until VDMSound. VDMSound does a GREAT job of getting the sound up and running but now my last issue to work out is memory. The game really does not like the memory manager under Win2K and so I have been looking into alternatives. The game's own manager is DOS/4GW and between the manager and the game, the game complains about memory allocation. The game will boot to the intro and even show the game menu, but attempts to start a game crash out with their version of a, "Not enough memory" issue.

Bochs is pretty impressive as well. Getting the images going was not a problem for me as I have dealt with this type of manipulation under Windows before. Once you have a bootable floppy image with a CD-ROM setup, you can move data into the hard drive image without too much problem as long as the data can be put on a CD-ROM, otherwise you will need to move data floppy-by-floppy and making the floppy images and mounting them in Bochs is not instantaneous. Supposedly there are a couple of utils to work inside drive images easily, but I did not need them for this project.

On the Bochs to-do list, the Windows port person was talking about the work to allow full screen soon, but that it wasn't available yet. I am still not complete sure that is the reason for the failure though. I need to work on it some more once I get off work tonight and see if I can track the error a little better than simply refering to the error message that the program is outputing.

This whole thing is getting WAAAY off VDMSound topic though and I don't like to hijack anyone's forums no matter what the cause.

Unregistered wrote:

VirtualPC - doesn't work on a Wintel box very well from what I have seen

Actually works quite well for me. Less stable under Win98SE/ME, but then that's the OS fault.

VMWare has come to the PC world I see, but it isn't cheap. Don't think this game is worth even CLOSE 9.

Well, it's more like 0;but you're right. Better to set up a dual-boot.

Bochs - Spent half the day setting it up, moving files, making images...

Yeah. Still set up for those who consider compiling as part of their daily life. Supposedly has had SoundBlaster emulation in place for some time, but I never got it working.

I'm getting System Shock CD to run in Windows 2000 fine, albeit with some sound problems. (Skippy, no matter how high I set the buffer or how low I set the DMA polling.) Perhaps adding a "number of buffers" option would be good. (I recall in WinUAE having 2 sound buffers sucks, but having three is great.) Of course, I also get into contending issues that 1 buffer = 50ms. But I could be wrong about that.
Anyway, anyone got a solution for this sound problem?

Oh, this is only on the intro, as far as I can tell. (I haven't gotten much farther, been pissed off that I haven't been able to listen to it without gaps 😄)

[Edit: oops, I lied. I get the memory error as well.

[code]Our system has been shocked!! But rememeber to Salt The Fries
System Shock can no longer run due to a fatal error.
Error code 3007
Memory error
Not enough memory to make email cursor!

Common problem solutions:
* Increase FILES in config.sys to 30 or more.
* Disable SMARTDRV write caching
* Use a minimal config.sys and autoexec.bat

If none of these work, call Origin Tech Support
(512) 335-0440[/code]

Tried increasing files to **100** with no result. Go figure...]

Yeah, it's the main game that has the issue unfortunately. I wasn't able to fix the stutter in the intro either, has to do with some timing issue in the player for that I think.

I can't even get System Shock 2 to run in Windows 2000...🙁

Reply to preceding post:
System Shock 2 works fine under Windows 2000. Just download and install the latest patch after you install it. You also need to run the installer with some command line switch that turns off OS version checking.

But I promise you, it DOES run once you do all that. However, you need >128MB for it to run without hesitation (on 128MB, it sometimes hangs for a minute or two at the beginning of levels).

It was hanging on the ActiveX control for its video handler (Ligos Indeo). I unregistered it and the game ran. (whee!, except it then proceeded to crash when I tried to make a navpoint.)

I assume you are talking about getting System Shock 2 running, not SS1.

Yeah.

Apparently, System Shock 1 has the same problem as other games (like Flight Unlimited) has: claims it has too few "FILES" set. What's up with this? (I know for a fact FILES is automatically set to forty -- or is supposed to be.)

Snover wrote:

Yeah.

Apparently, System Shock 1 has the same problem as other games (like Flight Unlimited) has: claims it has too few "FILES" set. What's up with this? (I know for a fact FILES is automatically set to forty -- or is supposed to be.)

You can increase it. The catch is, Windows seems to ignore FILES in CONFIG.VDMS or whatever custom CONFIG you may take, and only takes the one in SYSTEM32\AUTOEXEC.NT (!).

V.

No dice. It was already set to 40.

Maybe we should call Origin's helpline at (512) 335-0440, eh? 😉

I am new to this forum and to trying to get old DOS games to work on my new system. I remember back when System Shock 1 and 2 came out, but I never played the games. Now after completing the brilliant game Deus Ex, I wish to check out the Shock line, but I can't get Shock 1 to work on my windows XP machine.

I thought about a boot disk but my machine is formatted NTFS which DOS will not recognize at all. I also have tried VDMSound using the launchpad and without, and I continually get the memory error when trying to start the game as others have said.

Has anyone gotten this game to work in Windows XP?

Shock 2 is for sale at a local computer store, but I wish to play the original before playing the sequel. Any help is greatly appreciated.