VOGONS


First post, by clb

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Heya,

I am trying to get the free demo of Crusader: No Remorse from https://www.abandonwaredos.com/abandonware-ga … emorse&gid=1160 to run on my 80 MHz Cyrix 486 DOS 6.22 PC with 16MB of RAM.

Scouring eBay for big box of the game suggests that my specs should be enough to run the demo:

crusader_minspec.png
Filename
crusader_minspec.png
File size
1.27 MiB
Views
197 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

The demo starts well after running INSTCRUS.BAT to "install" it (sidenote: to anyone getting a black screen right at the startup of running CRUSADER.EXE, the game must be reinstalled to e.g. C:\CRUSADER even though the demo .zip file looks like an already installed to-go package), and I get to watch the intro FMV video ok:

CRUSADER-intro-fmv.png
Filename
CRUSADER-intro-fmv.png
File size
212.21 KiB
Views
197 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

and get to the main menu, and settings, which I have at:

CRUSADER-settings.png
Filename
CRUSADER-settings.png
File size
788.61 KiB
Views
197 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

But when I start a new game, the game does start and runs OK, but none of the game background graphics get drawn, and as result, all the game characters sprites do not get cleared, and leave a moving trail on screen against a black background:

CRUSADER-ingame.png
Filename
CRUSADER-ingame.png
File size
270.94 KiB
Views
197 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

I have searched a fair number of topics about Crusader: No Remorse at Vogons and elsewhere, although could not find any mention about the above problem. Trying to search for "black screen" or "black background" or "trailing sprites" on the game left me clueless without hits. (black screen searches lead to other black screen issues about installation/CD, which I believe is not related here)

I've tried two different SVGA graphics cards: Hercules Stingray Pro (Ark Logic ARK1000PV, 2MB VRAM) and Diamond SpeedSTAR24 (Tseng ET4000AX, 1 MB VRAM), but both give the same artifact, making me think this is not a graphics card issue.

Also, I have "FILES=40" and "BUFFERS=40" in CONFIG.SYS as suggested by the README.TXT in the demo.

In addition to the built-in VESA BIOS support, also tried UniVBE 6.70 and the bundled UniVBE that the demo comes with, these do not at least have an effect. So I'm a bit clueless as to what might be the cause.

The version number of the demo is "V1.12D" it seems.

Finally, there is also a free demo of Crusader: No Regret at https://www.abandonwaredos.com/abandonware-ga … Regret&gid=1721 . Interestingly, that game works ok (tested on the 1MB Tseng ET4000AX), with backgrounds rendering correctly:

REGRET-ingame.png
Filename
REGRET-ingame.png
File size
1.19 MiB
Views
197 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Any thoughts on how to troubleshoot? Anyone else hit this issue of missing background graphics?

Reply 1 of 3, by elszgensa

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I know you only mentioned DOS and no Windows of any sort, but just in case you do try run it from within Windows: Don't. This is a very picky title.

Does Ultima 8, which is on the same engine, show a similar issue? Maybe there's a fix for that one that's applicable to you.

Reply 2 of 3, by clb

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Yeh, I am running on MS-DOS 6.22. No Windowses.

I don't have Ultima 8 to test, that's a good point to know that it uses the same engine.

This makes me wonder if there was a graphics issue with the game that the devs fixed by the sequel, or maybe the demo package is just busted somehow. Or my Cyrix is no good, or something else..

Reply 3 of 3, by akula65

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Since ScummVM now supports Crusader games, it might be useful to see whether ScummVM can run the No Remorse demo. If it can't, that might be an indication that there is something peculiar about the demo files, and the ScummVM devs would probably want to know about that and they might be willing to look into the issue.. See the ScummVM wiki: https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Crus … der:_No_Remorse

Also, you might consider getting your demo from another source in case your source for the demo has a corrupt image. The January 1996 PC Gamer Magazine Cover Disc #14 is supposed to have a copy of the demo, and the demo is available on the ScummVM Demos page.