Hello!

I like a game from Windows 98 Plus! called Lose your marbles. I found the demo in a site and downloaded it to bring back some memories. However, I'm running Windows 7 64-bit in my computer and as many other old games using DirectX, graphics have glitches (mostly wrong colors or some effects don't show properly). The game does play, thanks God, since probably it's 32-bit (16-bit wouldn't even load) and after some glitches, graphics seem OK and I can play it once again. But I was looking for a way to play it flawlessly, so at first I was searching for a DirectX emulator or wrapper that would translate old DirectX calls to DirectX 9 and up. While I was searching, I found a topic in your forum explaining how to install Windows 95 in DOSBOX! Of course I did it and after some experimenting, I found the correct settings to support DirectX. I set the CPU core to auto, CPU type to auto (otherwise Windows 95 gives a BSOD if I try DirectX, it doesn't even let me install it). I found Windows 95 graphics driver for S3 VGA and among the models, most compatible is S3 Trio 32/64 (the plain, not the plug 'n' play model!). I also selected SoundBlaster 16 and OPL3.

Now the game plays fine, in terms of graphics, all effects are there and show as they should, but any sound effect or music goes to an infinite loop for some reason and keeps playing again and again! Within Windows 95, sound and music is OK, I haven't seen any other issues, only in the game. If that helps, the game is based on DirectX 3 version. Also I noticed that (when running the game natively, without DOSBOX) music plays only in Creative cards (thankfully, I have a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy), but not on other cards (eg Realtek HD). With any non-creative card only the sound effects are there, not the game music (based on MIDI files). Is there a workaround?

I basically wrote this post to help me fix the "audio loop" problem in DOSBOX, but if you have some workaround for playing the game music in any card (SoundBlaster emulator perhaps?) and/or for displaying all ingame graphics properly, you are welcome. Before you ask, compatibility mode to 95,98,XP whatever, didn't help. It's supposed to make the game run (if it couldn't run), unfortunatelly it doesn't mean DirectX compatibility as well. Also creating a Virtual PC in VMWare and install Windows 98 or XP just to play a game, I think it is too much... Any other ideas? Virtual PC would be the last resort, but I'm not that desperate to go to all that trouble for a game...

Thank you in advance.