I had a 21st Century Pinball itch a while ago and bought myself a second-hand copy of Slam Tilt Pinball. Thing is, though, this is the Expert Software re-release disc, and no matter what I do, I cannot get the game to install for anything in Windows XP (SP2). The game attempts to install, checks the DirectX version, fails to install DirectX 3 and then denies me the rest of the install process because DirectX failed to install. Is there any way around this, short of emulating? I don't have any other machines on hand, nor do I have my Win95 disc any more with which to set up an emulated Windows install. (Not to mention; I don't recall having much luck getting it working in VirtualBox anyway - and I doubt VirtualPC or VMWare would be any better for a fast-action pinball game.) Any suggestions?
Usually if you get to the DirectX install prompt you can click OK to install and then you can continue the install. (I'm talking in general here I've never tried the game you mentioned).
The DirectX files are protected by Windows so they won't be overwritten.
I'll take some screenshots of the install process to see if that helps.
I insert the disc into my drive, bypassing the autorun (which just runs the Expert Software catalog installer), then I run SSETUP.exe which is the actual Slam Tilt installer.
I type in the proper install directory, in which point I get this notice:
I click OK, telling it to "install" DX3. Unfortunately, it fails:
And I can't get past this point, even if I tell it to cancel.
Hard to be sure, but that doesn't look like a standard installshield msi, so orca may not help. Are there .cab files in the installer's folder on the CDROM?
There don't appear to be any - I'll paste the output from a DIR command:
1E:\>dir 2 Volume in drive E is SLAMTILT 3 Volume Serial Number is 340F-79E1 4 5 Directory of E:\ 6 704/22/1997 01:39 AM 37 8694.TXT 804/17/1997 01:56 AM 27 AUTORUN.INF 904/22/1997 01:40 AM <DIR> DAT 1004/22/1997 01:40 AM <DIR> DIRECTX 1104/17/1997 01:56 AM 5 DISK1.ID 1209/10/1996 04:25 AM 24,576 DSETUP.DLL 1309/10/1996 04:25 AM 45,104 DSETUP6E.DLL 1409/13/1996 07:52 AM 44,848 DSETUP6J.DLL 1509/11/1996 01:45 PM 46,080 DSETUPE.DLL 1609/13/1996 07:52 AM 46,080 DSETUPJ.DLL 1704/22/1997 01:41 AM <DIR> EXPERT 1804/17/1997 01:39 AM 356,456 SETUP.BMP 1911/04/1996 04:04 AM 44,928 SETUP.EXE 2004/17/1997 01:56 AM 29 SETUP.INI 2112/19/1996 08:19 AM 66,661 SETUP.INS 2204/17/1997 01:56 AM 181 SETUP.ISS 2304/17/1997 01:56 AM 107 SETUP.PKG 2412/08/1996 04:14 PM 465,920 SLAMTILT.EXE 2512/05/1996 02:50 AM 1,078 SLAMTILT.ICO 2612/09/1996 06:48 AM 197,632 SSETUP.EXE 2711/05/1996 07:17 AM 320,276 _INST32I.EX_ 2809/07/1995 10:22 AM 8,192 _ISDEL.EXE 2904/17/1997 01:56 AM 1,672 _SETUP.1 3009/29/1996 11:06 PM 6,128 _SETUP.DLL 3104/17/1997 01:56 AM 207,846 _SETUP.LIB 32 22 File(s) 1,883,863 bytes 33 3 Dir(s) 0 bytes free 34 35E:\>dir dat 36 Volume in drive E is SLAMTILT 37 Volume Serial Number is 340F-79E1 38 39 Directory of E:\dat 40 4104/22/1997 01:40 AM <DIR> . 4204/22/1997 01:40 AM <DIR> .. 4311/03/1996 02:28 PM 1,546,096 DEMON.DAT 4411/21/1996 12:26 PM 6,159,360 INTRO.DAT 4511/12/1996 05:29 AM 61,480 MAIN.DAT 4611/15/1996 09:15 AM 1,622,024 MEAN.DAT 4711/26/1996 09:50 AM 3,338,232 MENU.DAT 4811/13/1996 06:12 AM 1,575,899 MENU2.DAT 4911/03/1996 05:43 PM 1,543,772 PIRATE.DAT 5011/28/1996 04:52 PM 332 SLAMTILT.CFG 5111/03/1996 05:43 PM 1,568,309 SPACE.DAT 52 9 File(s) 17,415,504 bytes 53 2 Dir(s) 0 bytes free 54 55E:\>dir expert 56 Volume in drive E is SLAMTILT 57 Volume Serial Number is 340F-79E1 58 59 Directory of E:\expert 60
…Show last 10 lines
6104/22/1997 01:41 AM <DIR> . 6204/22/1997 01:40 AM <DIR> .. 6311/04/1996 11:28 AM 3,919,312 AR32E30.EXE 6407/08/1996 06:00 AM 2,034 ATT.ICO 6504/22/1997 01:41 AM <DIR> ATT32 6604/22/1997 01:41 AM <DIR> DOCS 6704/15/1997 08:44 AM 238 README.TXT 6804/22/1997 01:41 AM <DIR> REGCARD 69 3 File(s) 3,921,584 bytes 70 5 Dir(s) 0 bytes free
Seems to me that all the installer really does here is copy some files and maybe create a configuration. I've attempted to manually install the game at this point, by copying the SLAMTILT.EXE and the DAT folder from the disc to an empty folder. Attempting to run the EXE - even in Win95 compatibility mode and in 256 colors with visual themes disabled (just in case) - gives me a black screen for a few moments, then I hear an error pop up and everything just stops. Thankfully, I can still use my Logitech G15's task-manager applet to kill Slamtilt and get back to Windows. I don't get a chance to read whatever the error message is, because it disappears when I kill the process.
Minor update: it occurred to me to try using Windows XP's Narrator program to read me the error message, unfortunately all that it seems to be saying is "Application Error: c:\games\pinball\slamtilt\SLAMTILT.EXE" and several hex addresses that I can't do anything with.
I did an install of my Pinball Madness 4 copy of Slam Tilt onto my C: drive on a Win98 SE machine, and the resulting file organization is fairly simple:
C:\21STCENT\SlamTilt\DAT (entire folder from your CD-ROM)
C:\21STCENT\SlamTilt\SLAMTILT.EXE
C:\21STCENT\SlamTilt\SLAMTILT.ICO
The installation also created one registry key with no value assigned:
I saw one instance on the web where someone indicated that although the game would install, they couldn't get it to run in WinXP. I could not get it to run either after copying the installation and registry to a WinXP SP3 machine regardless of the compatibility mode I used (or didn't use). I would get a black screen and the program would hang.
Just for future reference, in case somebody happens to find this thread in the future while looking for information: VirtualBox DOES NOT work to emulate Windows 95, at least not to this extent. I was unable to get it to run a color depth higher than 16 colors (kind of necessary for a DirectX game!), nor could I get it to go online or share a folder for which to download the necessary video drivers.
I will be trying MS Virtual PC next. I have my doubts, but hopefully they are unfounded.
Yes, exactly those drivers in fact, the only issue was that I had no way to get said drivers into the virtual system - networking doesn't work and I can't share a folder without installing the (also non-functional in 95) guest additions.
Thank you for the suggestion, ADDiCT - I was running out of options, having exhausted Virtual PC (doesn't even boot, claims a Protection Error), VirtualBox, and VMWare (runs the game but without sound - at least that's progress).
I've done it! Below is my process for accomplishing this...
What You'll Need...
A copy of Windows 95. Windows 98 might work too, but I have not tested this.
QEMU for Windows. I used version 0.9.0. These instructions might apply to other versions of QEMU, for example the Linux or Mac OS X versions.
A marginal amount of disk space; I made a 2 gig image but you could probably get away with 500 MB or less. Win 95 doesn't take that much space and Slam Tilt takes even less.
Some patience for command line tools.
Getting Started
STEP ONE - Extract your QEMU into its own folder. It should come with a whole bunch of EXEs and a single hard drive image, Linux.img. If you don't want to run Linux, you can safely delete that. Now we're probably going to want to create a disk image ourselves. Bring up a command prompt window, Run box, or something of the sort and use the qemu-img.exe program (don't double-click it!):
Now it doesn't necessarily have to be 500 megs; Win95 and Slam Tilt together don't even fill half of that, but just in case you want to use the virtual machine for something else, you might want to leave just a little bit of space. Now that we have a hard drive image, we're not quite ready to boot yet.
STEP TWO - We'll need to install Windows 95. Unfortunately, QEMU for Windows doesn't appear to natively support CD-ROM drives; you'll need to create an ISO image of your Windows 95 disc instead. I used ImgBurn to make mine. I don't know what kind of images QEMU supports, but I'd recommend making your disc image either an ISO or BIN/CUE.
We need to get QEMU to boot off this disc somehow (assuming your Win95 disc is bootable; if you have the Upgrade disc, then this process would be a lot longer because you'd need to install FreeDOS and then Windows 3.1 and then 95). Thankfully, the ZIP package included several batch files that we can tinker around with. Open up qemu-win.bat in Notepad or some such. By default it'll look something like this:
1REM Start qemu on windows. 2@ECHO OFF 3 4REM SDL_VIDEODRIVER=directx is faster than windib. But keyboard cannot work well. 5SET SDL_VIDEODRIVER=windib 6 7REM SDL_AUDIODRIVER=waveout or dsound can be used. Only if QEMU_AUDIO_DRV=sdl. 8SET SDL_AUDIODRIVER=dsound 9 10REM QEMU_AUDIO_DRV=dsound or fmod or sdl or none can be used. See qemu -audio-help. 11SET QEMU_AUDIO_DRV=dsound 12 13REM QEMU_AUDIO_LOG_TO_MONITOR=1 displays log messages in QEMU monitor. 14SET QEMU_AUDIO_LOG_TO_MONITOR=0 15 16REM PCI-based PC(default): -M pc 17REM ISA-based PC : -M isapc 18REM -M isapc is added for NE2000 ISA card. 19 20qemu.exe -L . -m 128 -hda Linux.img -boot c -soundhw all -localtime -M isapc
But let's edit that bottom line into something closer to this:
1qemu.exe -L . -m 64 -hda Harddisk.img -cdrom WIN95.ISO -boot d -soundhw all -localtime -M isapc
Note the changes I've made. Windows 95 doesn't need a lot of RAM, so I've docked it from 128 to 64 megs (though 64 megs might still be a bit excessive for our purposes). The -hda parameter tells QEMU which hard disk to mount, I've added a -cdrom switch to tell it to run Win95's disc image, and -boot d tells it to boot from the CDROM drive. (To mess with that Boot switch later on, remember that -boot a tells it to boot the floppy, -boot c for the hard drive, and -boot d for the CDROM. Pretty simple, right?) Oh, and note that I've left the Win95 disc and the harddisk.img files inside the QEMU directory.
Save your batch file and run it. Once the emulator "boots", it'll take you through the Windows 95 installer process - it will reboot a few times during this, but it never takes very long. Once you're up to (I think) your third reboot, Setup will prompt you to remove your floppy disks. What it really means here is that you should remove your CD - but we can't do that quite yet. Click OK and let it reboot - it'll go into the Windows 95 installer from the beginning, but don't panic, you can just press F3 to quit. Now we've done all we can from the emulator; press Control+Alt+2 to bring up the QEMU Monitor, then type Quit and press enter to shut down the emulator.
STEP THREE - Windows 95 is essentially installed now, but we'll need to tweak the batch file a bit more so we can boot off the hard drive. Go look at the bottom line again and change it to boot from the hard drive instead:
1qemu.exe -L . -m 64 -hda harddisk.img -boot c -soundhw all -localtime -M isapc
Now run QEMU again, and Windows 95 will do its "booting for the first time" thing. You'll probably notice at this point that the text is all very hard to read. We'll fix that momentarily. Just be patient and try to navigate through the rest of the setup process until the system gets into Win95 proper. Don't worry about drivers now; Windows typically auto-detects and installs all of them for you, but if for some reason it doesn't, QEMU emulates a Cirrus Logic video card and a Sound Blaster 16.
STEP FOUR - We have to fix that annoying hard to read text. Right click on any empty spot on the desktop and select Properties (the bottom option in case you can't find it). Go to Settings and change the color depth to 24-bit True Color. Don't mess with the screen resolution; for some reason the driver doesn't support high-res and high-color modes together. Windows will obviously need to restart again; let it do so. When you boot again, the text should be nice and legible again. Note: I have no idea why the text screws up like this, but all I know is that it only seems to work properly in either 16 color mode (which is not an option when playing games!) or true-color mode.
STEP FIVE - Right, now that everything's installed...wait, everything except the game! We'll need to correct that. Create a disc image of your Slam Tilt Pinball disc and stick it into the QEMU directory, then modify your batch file with the -cdrom SLAMTILT.iso switch. Boot Windows again. The install for the game should work properly, and once you get in, the game ought to work too. The frame rate won't be silky-smooth, but it's playable, and with sound to boot!
You can use Qemu Manager as a frontend. That way you don't have to play around with command line switches.
Hmm, I'll have to look around for that the next time I need to mess with QEMU...as it stands, I doubt I'll ever have to screw with the command line again, since I've got what I needed on it already =P
Some additional info (it's been a while since i worked with Qemu):
- You can install a special driver for the emulated graphics and sound cards. I found them via some Win9x-HowTo in the Qemu support forums
- If you're using uncompressed, "standard" hd images, you can copy files from/to the hd images with WinImage (and probably other tools)
- Instead of burning a Win9x CD, you could either copy the setup files into the hd image and start the install from there (boot with a DOS boot floppy), or mount an image via Daemon Tools or other virtual CD/DVD software. I'm not 100% positive, but i think Qemu does support ISO images, too.
Nice guide, btw! (;
EDIT: here's the HowTo. Couldn't find anything about sound card drivers in this one though.
EDIT2: Oh, nearly forgot - the perfect solution for playing all 21st Century pinball games would be to use WinUAE, or a real Amiga. The games were _made_ for these machines!
I can Play Slamtilt on my Windows XP SP3 PC.
- No installation only Copy the CD in a New Folder.
- No Changes in Compatibility Mode.
Start the Game and when the Black Screen appears (after 1-2 Sec.) press the ENTER key.
Then you come direct to the Game Menu.
This also works on Linux (Ubuntu 8.04) with WINE, the only Problem with Wine is the Sound delays 1-2 Sec.
