For both U7 games I suggest using default settings in DOSBox except ems=false and cycles=10000. Doesn't have to be exactly 10K; you can use a higher amount of fixed cycles if the game runs better for you or if Serpent Isle is less crashy with more.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

For both U7 games I suggest using default settings in DOSBox except ems=false and cycles=10000. Doesn't have to be exactly 10K; you can use a higher amount of fixed cycles if the game runs better for you or if Serpent Isle is less crashy with more.

I tried the default settings plus ems=false and cycles=10000 and I get the same crash. I played around with the cycles setting and it doesn't seem to matter in terms of the crash.

If other people can run U7 Serpent Isle with DOSBox okay, then I suspect that somehow my 3.5" floppies have become corrupted over the years even though I cannot detect anything wrong with them (i.e., chkdsk returns okay on all seven of them) and it seems like I have all the necessary files.

Grab another copy, preferably from a complete Ultima 7 or from GOG. Otherwise you are missing out on Silver Seed and probably a fair share of fixes that went into SI after the initial release.
Or play via Exult only 😉

I suspect that you are either having a file problem or you've run into a bug with Dosbox that no one else encountered yet because they are using the version with the addon.

Is it the English version or by chance the Spanish one?

I can reproduce the error by mounting the game directory directly. When you mount C: directly to the game directory, it looks to the game like it's installed in the root directory of the drive -- some games tolerate it, some don't, so you should avoid doing it as a general rule.

You're probably doing something like:

mount c c:\dos\u7si
c:
serpent

You should do something like:

mount c c:\dos
c:
cd u7si
serpent

ripsaw8080 wrote:

You're probably doing something like: […]
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You're probably doing something like:

mount c c:\dos\u7si
c:
serpent

You should do something like:

mount c c:\dos
c:
cd u7si
serpent

You are correct that I was mounting the u7si directory directly, but when I changed it to the second form, I still get the same crash.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Dominus wrote:

Grab another copy, preferably from a complete Ultima 7 or from GOG. Otherwise you are missing out on Silver Seed and probably a […]
Show full quote

Grab another copy, preferably from a complete Ultima 7 or from GOG. Otherwise you are missing out on Silver Seed and probably a fair share of fixes that went into SI after the initial release.
Or play via Exult only 😉

I suspect that you are either having a file problem or you've run into a bug with Dosbox that no one else encountered yet because they are using the version with the addon.

Is it the English version or by chance the Spanish one?

I found an online copy of Ultima 7 Serpent Isle plus Silver Seed. You were right - I tried running it and it worked fine. So maybe I will just buy it from GOG to "solve" the problem.

By the way, it is the English version.

Thanks for the suggestion.

You could compare hashes of the files to see if you can spot the difference but if you already have a working copy then not much point there.

DosFreak wrote:

You could compare hashes of the files to see if you can spot the difference but if you already have a working copy then not much point there.

That's a good idea but my copy is only Serpent Isle while my reference copy is Serpent Isle + Silver Seed. I tried a diff between the two but there are too many differences to make it worthwhile (in my opinion).

Thanks for the suggestion.

You could attach the hashes, I do have the Serpent Isle only version as well, so we could compare notes 😉
(But that's besides the point, playing makes more sense with the complete SI)

Dominus wrote:

You could attach the hashes, I do have the Serpent Isle only version as well, so we could compare notes 😉
(But that's besides the point, playing makes more sense with the complete SI)

Reading between the lines, does that mean you have a Serpent Isle only version that does work with DOSBox?

Since you offered, I have seven 3.5" floppies and here are the md5 checksums for all the files on them:

disk1
f56520fa822b45baa86b6cdf274d7d45 *386STEP.EXE
4c1f78d6b1b9d4339621fe3f6b6a89d2 *INSTALL.EXE
a597507c7c699eda74ddccf8cff187a2 *INSTALL.PRM
854bc22a2ba2137fe9b3996703920a00 *PKUNZIP.EXE
abbc564b89daf68abbef0fd8a02b1d45 *SIDISK00
84e2adb5f172f13ad4860d3da2e09911 *SIDISK10

disk2
60e7a211ccd881580b1cefbb7e1888a0 *SIDISK11

disk3
66669b84d1a4987f50ef4afccec43bda *SIDISK12

disk4
880b43b58c1b0c0dc27485c24dd712d0 *SIDISK13
3d2121716a03c2ffd692c816cd90ea5a *SIDISK20

disk5
c14c1780a569e563ce6fb4fb7c49f1f4 *SIDISK21

disk6
11bab3924a8ad1769f1a30712313e1c4 *SIDISK22
75f96fea24093a537caac5297323c337 *SIDISK30

disk7
9c083f7b846cc7fee231e62999e6e70d *SIDISK31
ba0777b2ec15142ad586ccb5064fbd52 *SIDISK40

Thanks!

I have a working SI only install for Exult which has everything but the static folder stripped away...
But I do have the disks as well and wanted to image them anyway...

The 3.5" floppies I have seem to be different, but hashes of the program files are more useful than hashes of the archives. The SIDISK* files are actually ZIP archives, and these are the details of the files contained in SIDISK00:

14E957A5BB2FD04E394C2E72CA3393AC8  ENDGAME.EXE   104,056  03/15/1993  03:14 PM
2485717A98448BA3C1A8FA3AEB0EE083F  INTRO.EXE     108,528  03/15/1993  03:14 PM
37A9F05E9035F49FBEEBDFB29DE40C9BF  MAINMENU.EXE  132,080  03/15/1993  03:14 PM
4B373581E15DBE3FF5EE0E4B40B1EE9EF  READTHIS.TXT    1,673  03/15/1993  03:14 PM
5C28F47BE7C618F4C53B983CC0DE84CDD  SERPENT.COM       694  03/15/1993  03:14 PM
6F07E7326D6B63F5EB8908BAD720ED2BC  SETUP.EXE      13,328  03/15/1993  03:14 PM
70071D73DCE17EB29D98CACF566506B64  SI.EXE        750,944  03/15/1993  03:14 PM

The version number in SI.EXE is: Ver 1.02 Final

ripsaw8080 wrote:

The 3.5" floppies I have seem to be different, but hashes of the program files are more uself than hashes of the archives. The S […]
Show full quote

The 3.5" floppies I have seem to be different, but hashes of the program files are more uself than hashes of the archives. The SIDISK* files are actually ZIP archives, and these are the details of the files contained in SIDISK00:

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14E957A5BB2FD04E394C2E72CA3393AC8  ENDGAME.EXE   104,056  03/15/1993  03:14 PM
2485717A98448BA3C1A8FA3AEB0EE083F  INTRO.EXE     108,528  03/15/1993  03:14 PM
37A9F05E9035F49FBEEBDFB29DE40C9BF  MAINMENU.EXE  132,080  03/15/1993  03:14 PM
4B373581E15DBE3FF5EE0E4B40B1EE9EF  READTHIS.TXT    1,673  03/15/1993  03:14 PM
5C28F47BE7C618F4C53B983CC0DE84CDD  SERPENT.COM       694  03/15/1993  03:14 PM
6F07E7326D6B63F5EB8908BAD720ED2BC  SETUP.EXE      13,328  03/15/1993  03:14 PM
70071D73DCE17EB29D98CACF566506B64  SI.EXE        750,944  03/15/1993  03:14 PM

The version number in SI.EXE is: Ver 1.02 Final

Thanks for the list. I unzipped SIDISK00 and everything matches except SI.EXE. Mine is:

f732f728c35d89a8c51a4b32c05779c6 *SI.EXE (03/15/1993, same size as yours)

I looked at SI.EXE and my version number is also: Ver 1.02 Final

So if I had to guess, it seems like my Disk 1 is corrupted. Although now I wonder why it seems like that disk doesn't give me any warnings (i.e., chkdsk).

Thanks for the md5s!

ZIP files have CRC32 hashes; not as thorough as MD5, but the chance of it not catching file corruption is very small, so you should get a warning when unzipping if the archive file is damaged.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

ZIP files have CRC32 hashes; not as thorough as MD5, but the chance of it not catching file corruption is very small, so you should get a warning when unzipping if the archive file is damaged.

When I unzip my SIDISK00 archive, I get no error message.

My "Modified" time stamps are different than yours but on the same date (3/15/1993). The files are either 11:37AM EST or 11:38AM EST.

When I did a search for "f732f728c35d89a8c51a4b32c05779c6", which is my SI.EXE md5 checksum, I came across this:

http://exult.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f … i=19482&t=19482

I had been trying to install the game using these instructions:

http://exult.sourceforge.net/docs.php#si_manual

but when I tried installing by mounting floppy images with ImDisk (plus mount a a:\ -t floppy), and running INSTALL.EXE, it worked!

I am sorry I wasted your time on this but thanks for all the suggestions. The md5 for SI.EXE led me to what I was doing wrong and I wouldn't have thought to search for that if it hadn't been for your input. So thanks again!

Ha, there you have it! Memories what a wonderful thing to waste... I'm sorry, obviously I once knew that there is a problem with the manual install but not only forgot this, but also never updated that guide accordingly... Very strange...

Ripsaw, if you have time, can you see what the installer does in the debugger? Just out of interest 😉

Not sure what you're interested in knowing... the installer works okay in DOSBox, but it looks for volume labels on the disks, so floppy images in SVN or a mounted floppy drive (real or virtual) are needed.

just wondering what it does to the exe to make it a good one. I'm going to investigate later as well with images to see what it changes in the exe compared to the unzipped one.