one.
no, that's not frameskip... that's just that your CPU runs the game faster than it was ever ment to be.

two.
BBCode is inserting certain styles, pictures, etc in your post in an easy way.
kind of like HTML for beginners. but that has nothing to do with your game.

three.
maybe you're missing disk 17, no?

I don't remember 17 disks

The whole game fits on one disk

Anyway why would it freeze -

Dark Knight ez: Considering the fact that dosbox is fooling the program to think its running on an ultra crappy speed (maybe 10 mhz if ya lucky) computer I have a very hard time believing its due to a cpu being too high. If this was an install outside of dosbox however I`d completely agree.

The install outside dosbox speeds out of control

The one inside just gives me the message about Disk 17 😖

Okay, first off, after you install, INSTALL.DAT should at the VERY least be in the same directory as wc.exe (I have it both there, and in the GAMEDAT/ subdirectory. Second, you may need to have a basic, fully configured WINGCMDR.CFG (And CRUSADE.CFG) before you can use INSTALL.EXE to change installation options.

Open up WINGCMDR.CFG in notepad, or ms-dos edit, or vi, pico, emacs, whatever, and put on one line:
v a904 z

Then close the file. Then try launching the game (Or using install.exe to change sound options if you have the MT-32 emulation working) That config should give you VGA graphics with Soundblaster/Adlib sound. Note, if you have Secret Missions 2: Crusade, you should always copy your WINGCMDR.CFG to CRUSADE.CFG to keep things uniform

(to icemann: that 'running too fast' issue was without using dosbox, as he mentions in his post)

Ok I take back what I said about it fitting on one disk 6.21mb, but I don't see how this would make 17 disks though.

Magamo: are you talking about doing this in dosbox or out of?

Why does INSTALL.BAT need to be in the GAMEDAT/ subdirectory?

I did what you said to do to the WINGCMDR.CFG - my comp kept changing it to something else so I made the cfg file a read only file, that fixed it.

In dosbox i ran the installation - the programme started and asked me to specify the drive and folder which it never did befor

I went through the process and confirmed that the configuration was correct.

Then it said "Copy from which drive?" and had a flashing _

At the bottom of the screen it said "Copying game. Please wait..."

I couldn't do anything so pressed Esc

Then it said

"Please insert your original Wing Commander Disk 1 in drive

Press any key to continue:

Copying game. Please wait..."

I don't have the original disk so i clicked Close

It is asking for a floppy as if I put a floppy in then it searches it.

There is a new folder called WING in dosprog folder, apart from containing GAMEDAT folder it is empty - as is the GAMEDAT folder. So I copied all the files into wing from the original folder in the feeble hope this would help.

I started dosbox again. Then skipped the instalion and starded the WC game file in Wing

but still get the "disk 17 message"

How can I make the files I got back into the original disks?

or

I can get the game to run (at treble quick speed) but only get this disk problem in dosbox - can I bypass this or redirect it to where the files are on my hard drive.

BTW Thanks to all of you for your responces 😀

INSTALL.DAT (DAT, not BAT) is one of the installation files from Wing Commander. I've seen it in both locations, and tend to keep it in both, due to the fact that I've never had the will to track down the proper spot for it. 😀 If you have the INSTALL.DAT and a proper WINGCMDR.CFG, the installation program should work to fix settings, rather than attempt to install from floppy. I had the disk 17 issue once with dosbox, and resolved it by copying INSTALL.DAT from the GAMEDAT/ directory into Wing Commander's main directory.

Ok, well mine was already in the WC main directory - i suppose I could try and install it from the GAMEDAT/ directory... do a reverse of what you did. But I don't think that will work
I guess I am out of options. 🙁

Unless you still have your INSTALL.DAT file?

Would it be possible, and how would I go about re-writing the programme to make it not do the speeding thing.

It is interesting that actally not all the game speeds out of control - just most of it.

The flight in the game speeds out of control - so does the animation when people are talking. But when you are in the bar the animation moves at normal speed 😖

I am also interested by the Monkey Island games which are about the same age - it plays at normal speed when people are talking or moving.

It doesn't seem to be a set thing over the whole game just parts of it.

What is causing this and what would I have to do to correct it?

It was peviously mention that it was a clsh with my processor being too fast - how would I get the programme to ignor this?

I know there is some kind of programme that slows the processor down but I don't really like the sound of that - and anyway I don't think dosbox does this so I don't think it is nessercery.

Please help

I opened up the INSTALL.DAT in notepad and suddenly realised that it was telling me what files go on what floppy disks.

It seemed to be saying that all the files could fit on three disks but it worked out to be 6 😒

Anyway I managed to put all the files on floppy and installed the game (again).

I ran the game out of dosbox and it still did the same thing...

I ran the game in dosbox and get the same "Please insert disk 17" message.

I am getting the feeling that Disk 17 is nothing to do with Wing Commander and may have something to do with dosbox....

My floppy drive seems not to be detected in dosbox - why is that? How can I change this?

mount a a:\ -t floppy
and,
it won't detect changed disks, but it will see a floppy drive. Also it won't be able to do some low-level floppy stuff.

There are only three disks for Wing Commander 1, I still have the originals. I too am having a problem similar to this except instead of getting an insert disk 17 the installer keeps asking for disk 1 despite the fact that it was previously installing from that disk. I am installing from dosbox 0.65. Here is how I am installing.

mount c e:\oldgames
mount a a:\ -t floppy
a:
install

it works fine but halfway through installing from the first disk the installer starts asking for disk 1 again, and refuses to continue. Any ideas why this is happening?

Are you typing CTRL-F4 after swapping disks?

no, am i to press those keys before i start installing or when it pops up with the box asking for the disk it's already got?

apologies, i forgot to mention that inserting disk 2 when the box appears does nothing. it still asks for disk 1.

You must press CTRL-F4 after inserting a different disk. Then press whatever key is used to tell the program you are installing to continue.

Unfortunately, pressing ctrl-f4 and then enter for the next disk did not change anything, the red box asking for disk 1 did not go away to continue the install. All the disks should still work as i could access them normally from windows to view the files. Any other ideas?

Viewing the files is not enough. Try to copy them to your harddisk, if that works you can be quite sure the disks are okay.