The definitive Guide to getting Millennia: Altered Destiny working in Windows XP with SP2 (and sound).
You can skip down to Step 1 if you are in a hurry. In this paragraph I’m just going to go over the steps I tried. First was DosBox and although I had enough memory to get it to work it would crash when attempting to load the CD. I tried every possible combination on both my CD drives and even an ISO image (yes I own the game for those who are gonna scream PIRATE!). I switched over to VDMSound but could not wrangle enough conventional memory out of XP. The game needs 582k and that’s just a ton, even back when the game was made!
I am going to assume a default install of the game and XP. Just change the paths if your system is different.
Step 1: Install VDMSound.
Step 2: Install Millennia. Do not set your sound options or simply make sure they are set to NA or nothing.
Step 3: Go to C:\WINDOWS\system32 and make copies of AUTOEXEC.NT and CONFIG.NT. Name these copies AUTOEXEC_MIL.NT and CONFIG_MIL.NT.
Step 4: Right click on your desktop and choose New then Shortcut.
Step 5: In the location text box type COMMAND.COM. Click Next then Finish.
Step 6: Right click the icon you just made and choose properties.
Step 7: Click the memory tab and set everything like this:
Total: Auto
Initial Environment: Auto
Expanded (EMS) Memory: 16384 (or the maximum it will let you).
Extended (XMS) Memory: Auto
DPMI: Auto
Protected and Uses HMA can be checked. Doesn’t seem to much difference either way.
Step 8: Choose the Program tab. Type "C:\Program Files\VDMSound\VDMSRun.bat" C:\WINDOWS\system32\command.com in the Cmd Line text box. Use the quotes. Working text box should say C:\WINDOWS.
Step 9: Click the advanced button and set the autoexec and config filenames to autoexec_mil.bat and config_mil.bat respectively.
Step 10: Click OK. Click OK again.
Step 11: Double click the icon. Dos should start up with VDMSound loaded.
Step 12: Go to the Millennia directory (usually c:\take2\millenia) and run setup
Step 13: Set your sounds and save your settings.
Step 14: Close the Dos program and open AUTOEXEC_MIL.NT for editing.
Step 15: Put an REM statement in front of the lines lh %SystemRoot%\system32\redir and lh %SystemRoot%\system32\dosx. The sound setup needs DPMI but the game itself doesn’t. The joy of the Miles Sound System! This used to take 2 boot disks back in the day. You kids got it so easy…grumble grumble. Save you changes.
Step 16: Double click your icon again and go to the Millennia directory and run MIL.
W00T, you like TOTALLY have sound!
Note: this works on my system because it manages to clear up enough EMS. Your system might be different. Try REMming out more lines in your custom Autoexe_mil.com and Config_mil.sys if it is still complaining about RAM. Let me know if this clears up anyone else’s problem.
-saladpuncher
saladpuncher@saladpuncher.com