I tried the version from The Underdogs, it worked just fine with VDMSound (apart from the screen only refreshing at 60Hz but I dare say that's fixable).

The Underdogs version doesn't have the sound or audio, but I guess it's better than nothing. There might be some funky CD protection (Safedisk possibly) on the European version that prevents it from working right in XP.

I'll post that information about an Explorer crash if it ever happens again. I'm afraid I don't remember exactly what the crash screen looked like, I can count on one hand the number of times it's happened in XP so it's not a common occurance, but I'll try and get more information if it happens again.

The UDogs *does* have the audio. It's in MP3 format, and there should be a .bat/.exe to expand it so you get the full "talkie" version (with Eric Idle of Monty Python fame, he-he). There is a README somewhere on the UDogs game's page.

V.

As I said, at least here, the sound had some major clicking problems. I'm still needing to use DiskWriter to make a wave file of that and Beneath a Steel Sky (am still having problems with it.) However, I'm having problems getting the stupid thing working. I copied the lines from the VDMS.INI into the "Custom" box in the Launchpad, uncommented them, and everything should have worked, but all I got was an even SLOWER game, no audio, and no WAV file.

Unregistered wrote:

The UDogs *does* have the audio. It's in MP3 format, and there should be a .bat/.exe to expand it so you get the full "talkie" version (with Eric Idle of Monty Python fame, he-he). There is a README somewhere on the UDogs game's page.

V.

I think you're confusing it with the original Discworld. The first one on U has the audio, which has to be decompressed as you say, but Discworld 2 was ripped without audio for space considerations by U.

I have all 3 games (Discworld, Discworld 2 and Discworld Noir) on European CD version (Noir for example was never released in the US) and 2 is the only one that does not want to play happy without any special settings in XP.

Ironheart wrote:

I think you're confusing it with the original Discworld.

Sorry, you're right. 😮

Well I feel special, then, since I got Discworld 2 off of Usenet and it's the full thing.
I'd upload it, but it's huge, and I don't want to have abandonware on here. (Too legally iffy.) 😒

Hey guys. I'm also having trouble with discworld 1. I grabbed the underdogs version, unpacked everything, ran config, everything looks good. But, if i try to run it with VDMS, i get a "Can't find English.idx" error. I can run it fine without VDMS, but then I have no sound. Also, I get a similar (some file or other cant be found) error when trying to run blood with VDMS.

Anyone know why this happens? The path to start in is set right in the launchpad settings...

Sys info follows:

Windows 2000 Pro + Service Pack 2
AMD Athlon 1ghz
160 MB Ram
SBLive 1024
NVidia Geforce 256

Oh, and im running blackbox 0.0.60 as an alternate shell instead of explorer.. not that that makes any difference, I've tried both discworld and blood under explorer aswell to no effect.

Unregistered wrote:

... i get a "Can't find English.idx" error.

This is probably a useless question, but are you using a non-English version of Windows?

Also, I get a similar (some file or other cant be found) error when trying to run blood with VDMS.

BLOOD will always run poorly on an NT-based OS since it's BUILD game.

Just do a search on VOGONS for BLOOD or BUILD and you'll see BUILD games are a big headache for NT systems. XP can run them with audio, but NT and 2000 require hacking the game (which in turn, makes it crash a lot).

A dual-boot has been my best friend for these games.

Nope, definitely using an english version of win2k. As I said, I have no problems running it without VDMS, it's just then I dont get any sound:(

Again, with blood, I can run it fine in 2k so long as I dont use VDMS, but again obviously, no sound.

I would dual boot, but I long ago converted all hdd's to ntfs and threw out all my various '95/'98 cd's. All I've got left is 2k and linux:)

Unregistered wrote:

Nope, definitely using an english version of win2k.

Ok, I was just taking a wild guess.

As I said, I have no problems running it without VDMS, it's just then I dont get any sound.

Much like the eat-all-you-want diet. You gain no weight so long as you don't swallow the food. BLOOD needs audio.

I would dual boot, ...

I would still recommend it. Or rather, a Tri-Boot.

...but I long ago converted all hdd's to ntfs and threw out all my various '95/'98 cd's. All I've got left is 2k and linux

What is it with all these "threw out my Windows cd's" people? Geez. Toss'em my direction next time.

Until a full-fledge "Early Windows/Pentium emulator" comes along, I recommend either a dual-boot or keeping an "oldie" PC around. While it's possible to get BLOOD and other BUILD titles running with sound (maybe even VESA screenmodes). What you have to do to get to that point usually makes it a nightmare.

If you can resize your first partition to leave a 2 Gig partition at the front end of your hard drive, you can format it with Win9x/DOS (might try FreeDOS or some other clone) as FAT32/FAT and then you will have a good fallback for just about everything.

You can also check on running DOS titles within Linux. Last I checked though, there wasn't much in the way of old DOS game support.

K, finally got round to registering.

Anyway, after spending the better part of the day trying (in vain) to get discworld or blood to work with sound, I've given up and gone for plan b.

I've unearthed an old laptop.

The plan was:
a) Install dos.
b) Play games.

And I've hit a snag. The lappy has no floppy drive. Anyone know how to install dos from a cd? I've got a burner and some rewritables, along with dos images... does anyone know if burning one of those to the cd's boot sector will make that cd bootable + able to install dos?

Oh, and I threw out most of my old windows cd's because they were horribly horribly scratched and I'd lost the serial numbers:)

Although I did find one version of each (95 & 98) while searching for red alert earlier, but both are so scratched that theyre unreadable, otherwise I'd use on the laptop 🙁

Snover wrote:

As I said, at least here, the sound had some major clicking problems. I'm still needing to use DiskWriter to make a wave file of that and Beneath a Steel Sky (am still having problems with it.) However, I'm having problems getting the stupid thing working. I copied the lines from the VDMS.INI into the "Custom" box in the Launchpad, uncommented them, and everything should have worked, but all I got was an even SLOWER game, no audio, and no WAV file.

You must get the latest DiskWriter from http://vdmsound.sourceforge.net/files then put the following in the "Custom config" box:

1[SBWavePlayer.depends]
2waveOut = DiskWriter
3
4[DiskWriter]
5CLSID = DiskWriter.WaveOut

This will create .wav (e.g vdms0000.wav) files *somewhere* (I think by default it's the game's directory).

V.

Unregistered wrote:

Hey guys. I'm also having trouble with discworld 1. I grabbed the underdogs version, unpacked everything, ran config, everything looks good. But, if i try to run it with VDMS, i get a "Can't find English.idx" error. I can run it fine without VDMS, but then I have no sound. Also, I get a similar (some file or other cant be found) error when trying to run blood with VDMS.
and blood under explorer aswell to no effect.

I think you did not unpack the voice file (big!!! >200MB) properly. Try to re-extract and watch carefully for errors -- their initial unpacker had bugs, and they put an updated one under the "Related files' section, or whatever it is called, on the game's Underdogs page.

V.

Hmn, i thought the unpacker ran ok, so i tried it again.

It crashes on my comp at 99% through. The batch file continues, so i didnt really notice before.

I'm already using the decoder patch from the underdogs.. To be honest, I dont really see what I can do about this 🙁

I forget how I got through this. I think I ended up running the commands in the batch manually, and "patched" the errors in DECODE.EXE using a debugger. In any case, I attached the ENGLISH.IDX file that DECODE.EXE should have created were it not to crash.

Originally posted by chanza I've unearthed an old laptop. The plan was: a) Install dos. b) Play games. And I've hit a snag. Th […]
Show full quote

Originally posted by chanza I've unearthed an old laptop.
The plan was:
a) Install dos.
b) Play games.

And I've hit a snag. The lappy has no floppy drive.

Is there any kind of OS on the Laptop now (one that can access the CD-ROM)?

If there is, and you have more than one partition, you should be able to copy the files to a D: partition (or higher), then perform the needed operations on the C: drive.

I've got a burner and some rewritables, along with dos images... does anyone know if burning one of those to the cd's boot sector will make that cd bootable + able to install dos?

I know NERO (and some other CD-RW software) will let you create bootable CD's. These DOS "images", are they an image of an already installed DOS partition? I think this is "do-able".

No, the laptop has no OS on it currently, so I can only use a bootable cd.

The dos images I've got are just img's of the 3 DOS 6.22 install disks, which I've kept from when I was playing around with vmware. Seeing as they're all bootable themselves, burning them to cd and making it bootable should work... I'll give it a try.

Also, thanks vladr:)

I havent tried it to see if it'll work, I'm just re-extracting discworld:)

Update: The english.idx you posted fixed all problems vladr, discworld now works perfectly with full music and speech. Much appreciated, thanks:)

Vlad, you should send that new version of DECODER.EXE to The Underdogs. (At least you won't have to re-download the entire thing to get the one you've fixed, thanks to their nifty file selector thing.)

chanza wrote:

No, the laptop has no OS on it currently, so I can only use a bootable cd.

The dos images I've got are just img's of the 3 DOS 6.22 install disks, which I've kept from when I was playing around with vmware. Seeing as they're all bootable themselves, burning them to cd and making it bootable should work... I'll give it a try.

This is probably a moot point, but if you want an OS on your laptop that isn't installed by a self-booting CD, you'll need a floppy with DOS-level CD-ROM drivers on it like the one that's created by Windows98 (ControlPanel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Startup Disk -> Create Disk).

The other thing is that I don't think you can install the images from CD. You could install them elsewhere, copy the DOS directory that's created to the bootable CD then use the fdisk and format commands from the CD to set up the laptop.