VOGONS


First post, by Corvus Corax

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Dell P4 550 3.4 Ghz HHT, 2 gigs DDR2 RAM, Mobo: Dell 0K3464, eVGA GF8800GT (512 megs GDDR3), SB Audigy 2, XP SP2.

I've got Archimedean Dynasty v. 1.120 RE (10/12/96) running fine via DosBox .72 (both vanilla and YKHWong's CVS build of 11/28/07), but am having no luck getting the 3dfx version (6/10/97) to run.

I've tried YKHWong's, dgvoodoo and OpenGlide in various combinations, but the best I can do is get the game to start in 3dfx and give me menu and base screens. If I try to enter a mission ("instant action" or storyline mission), the mission starts, I've got sound and control.....but all I get is a black screen. I can't get the glide to give me any visuals. I don't crash or anything, I just can't get anything beyond a black screen. I can actually hit keys, make things happens, but can't see the results.

Originally AD ran under DOS or Win95, but I can't get it to start under XP SP2, even with compatibility set (it tries to start, then CTD's). (Got VDSM Sound installed.) This is why I'm running it through DosBox. If I could get it to run under XP, maybe I'd have better luck with getting the 3dfx effects via a Windows glide wrapper.

Bottom line: Has anyone gotten the AD 3dfx version to run properly (or near properly) via DosBox or XP? If so, how?

(I've searched Vogons, but couldn't find any solutions other than what I've tried so far.)

Thanks for any info.

Reply 2 of 20, by Corvus Corax

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I've tried both with no luck. Maybe I'm installing/using them wrong or something (I don't claim to know much about this stuff), or maybe the game simply won't run in 3dfx mode (or its glide equivalent) on anything but a box with a voodoo card on board. I feel like I'm close, that I just need to tweak something.....but what? I mean the missions are running and I've got control (can tell that by the in-game voice messages and sound effects).....I just can't see anything.

Reply 4 of 20, by Corvus Corax

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Gulikoza, I tried your dosbox-080225 a few minutes ago. It started the game, gave me the 3Dfx logo animation and loaded the main menu screen. I then tried "Instant Action" to get me into the 3D game environment and the game CTD'ed with the following error message in the DosBox window:

CONFIG: Loading primary settings from config file dosbox.conf
MIDI: Opened device: Win32
Glide: Warning, unable to load grSetConfigPipeline from Glide 2x
Glide: Warning, unable to load grSstVideMode from Glide 2x
Glide: Warning, unable to load guMPDrawTriangle from Glide 2x
Glide: Warning, unable to load guMPInit from Glide 2x
Glide: Warning, unable to load guMPTex combine function from Glide 2x
One Joystick reported, initializing with 4axes
Using Joystick Logitech Extreme 3D Pro USB with 4 axes 12 buttons and
1 hat(s)
Glide: resolution set to: 640x480, LFB at 0x17a000
Glide: Glide_Pagehandler installed for 0x17a000 (378 +150 pages)
Glide: Resetting page handler for 378 (150 pages)
Failed to create ddraw surface, back to normal surface
Failed to create ddraw surface, back to normal surface

I don't know if any of this is useful or not. I'll try the SDK tests next.

Reply 5 of 20, by Corvus Corax

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Just an addendum to the above: In my garage sits a Pentium with a Diamond Monster 2 card installed as the 3D card (with a Matrox Millennium 2 for 2D). I guess I could just hook this box up if I really wanted the AD 3dfx effects. Unfortunately, I'm more interested in getting the game to play on my current pc.

OTOH, I've thought about moving the Monster 2 to my current pc. However, I've been informed that the card's pass-through would cause graphic problems for me with my high-end card.

Reply 6 of 20, by Captain Amazing

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Hope it's ok that I bump this existing thread. A user claims to have this game running in 3dfx on the DOSBox games list (under Schleichfart):

[quote]Works flawlessly with the latest DOSBox with Glide support from the DOSBox Daum Cafe. Please note: crashes with the original DOS4GW.EXE when going ingame. For the non-3dfx version, DOS32/A works fine as replacement for DOS4GW. However, the 3dfx Glide emulation will crash with DOS/32A. Download DOS4GW.EXE version 2.01 and replace it with the original file. Works absolutely fantastic and fast![/quote]

I have tried this with the Daum Cafe dosbox and I just get

"glide2x.dll expected Voodoo Graphics, none detected

ERROR: no voodoo card detected"

also: I can run dos 3dfx test programs in this dosbox. The game refuses to start when I replace the original DOS4GW with either 2.01 or 2.01a. Any tips would be appreciated.

Edit: the game starts with the DOS/32 but hangs to black screen when changing to 3D.

Thanks.

Reply 8 of 20, by Captain Amazing

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Thanks! This kinda works actually! When running in windowed mode the 3dfx splash works great. In-game the 3d-action works with some artifacts, and there is no 2d-elements (cockpit etc.) The game is still unplayable because the joystick controls are totally screwed (I recalibrated in-game). The 3D looks really nice, though. Only the 2d-elements have artifacts (crosshair etc.)

I still can't make this run in full-screen with your build. I sent the user (qsonic) a pm so hopefully he will read it and post his solution.

Reply 9 of 20, by Flint Eastwood

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Archimedean Dynasty / Schleichfahrt - 3Dfx
Finally one of the best games ever is working with Dosbox!

You will need a Dosbox with Glide-Patch and Swapsound-Patch - Ykhwongs build for example.

As 3Dfx-wrapper you will need Nglide v0.98 or newer if available.
The HUD works with this wrapper.

Dosbox should be started with the WINDIB-driver. Ykhwongs build does this by default. Other builds may need to be started with a batch file where the variable is set :

set sdl_videodriver=windib
dosbox.exe

Otherwise Dosbox crashes on leaving 3Dfx-mode. Thanks to Ykhwong who pointed me to this.

In Dosbox.conf you should set fullresolution=original. Otherwise Dosbox changes to Window-Mode on leaving 3Dfx-mode everytime.

In the Nglide Configurator you can set every resolution you like. I prefer 1280x960.
You should turn VSYNC: off in Nglide (check your GPU-driver-settings too). Otherwise loading screens will take forever to show up and gamplay will be laggy.

I made my own Dosbox-build with ready-to-play batches and configs. I attach it to this post.
You only need to adjust your own paths to the game and the CD and setup Nglide.

Attachments

  • Filename
    Dosbox_SF3Dfx.rar
    File size
    2.97 MiB
    Downloads
    716 downloads
    File comment
    Flints Dosbox:
    D3D-, Glide-, Swapsound-Patch
    ready for AD/SF 3Dfx
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

i7 870 + Zotac 470GTX AMP! + 12GB RAM + Win7 64Bit

Reply 10 of 20, by AliceD

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Hello all,

thanks a lot for this. I tried Flint Eastwood's solution and it works great. Now I can play Archimedean Dynasty with 3Dfx.

It works nearly perfect. Although i got one question:

When I go ingame to options and deactivate the cockpit (I got the german version, don't know how the option is called in english) so that I can play fullscreen with no cockpit, the voxelradar at the bottom of the screen doesn't show the red, green and yellow columns for the other ships and for mine.

If I activate cockpit and play with cockpit view, the voxelradar works perfect.

Is there maybe a way to fix the voxelradar to work in no-cockpit fullscreen mode?

Thanks in advance and again big thanks for bringing this game back to life.

Greetings

Reply 11 of 20, by Flint Eastwood

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AliceD wrote:

...When I go ingame to options and deactivate the cockpit (I got the german version, don't know how the option is called in english) so that I can play fullscreen with no cockpit, the voxelradar at the bottom of the screen doesn't show the red, green and yellow columns for the other ships and for mine. ...

Well, I didn't notice that until now, but you're right. It seems to be a Nglide related problem.
When using a Daum-Dosbox-build with Kekko's Glide-Emulation, the object markers are visible on the voxel-radar without cockpit (but very slow).

So maybe we should post this issue at the Nglide-forum.

i7 870 + Zotac 470GTX AMP! + 12GB RAM + Win7 64Bit

Reply 13 of 20, by AliceD

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Hey thanks for the answers.
I already nearly completed the game again, and up to now the missing object markers didn't really influence my mission success or failure, so I didn't try any longer to fix them. I already completed some missions where you are in 'free water', seaground out of sight way down below , and i could make it fairly easy even without the markers.
If I got some minutes i'll try the version procyon posted, just to check if the markers work.
Thanks and greetings!

Reply 14 of 20, by AliceD

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Hehe I just remembered, the voxelradar is more useless when you are in visual range off the seaground, so that part about freewater missions im my last post may be kind off pointless, because all the object markers in thoose missions could be higher than the voxelradar could display.
Greetings

Reply 16 of 20, by AliceD

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Hey thanks for the info, i'll try it out when i got some minutes.
And again i've to correct my last post: I wanted to write
"The voxelradar is more useful when you are in visual range off the seaground"
Don't know why I wrote "useless". I mean the opposite.
Greetings

Reply 19 of 20, by Sethur

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I just spend hours trying to get this running with the Cockpit disabled and the Voxelradar and torpedo/armor stats display working. I tried different computers with different Nvidia cards (Gforce GTX 790 and Quadro K4000M) and was using nGlide 1.04 combined with Schleichfahrt 1.20 3DFX patched. Strangely, with cockpit enabled everything worked fine with the latest Dosbox ykhwong build ( SVN r3894 base ), but when I disabled the cockpit, the voxel rader was brocken as described earlier in this thread (no vertical connection lines) and the the stats displays at the top as well as those on the sides did not diplay anything.

I then tried different glide-patched versions of Dosbox (all with nGlide 1.04) and managed to get the displays running with Dosbox-G, but then the mission messages on the bottom would just be shown as a black bar. I even compiled the current SVN version of Dosbox (after glide patching) to get rid of this, but had the same problem as with the ykhwong build.

Finally, I stumbled upon Flint Eastwoods Dosbox build somewhere here in the Forum and this one finally worked as in the screenshot above (thanks Flint!!!) Now I can relive my youth with playing Schleichfahrt again, can't wait.

So the reason I posted this is to shed light onto the fact that the lastest dosbox sources seem to introduce something that break the nGlide fixes regarding the voxel radar issue. Maybe someone here knows or can find out why this happened and fix it.