AMD K6-3+: Problems with some DOS games \ VOGONS

AMD K6-3+: Problems with some DOS games

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First post, by DoomGuy II

Posted on 2016-02-23, 06:51

DoomGuy II Offline

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I have an AMD K6-3+ build that I use for DOS games from around the 386 era to the Pentium era as well as games made specifically for Windows 95 before 98 came around. It works very well, but there are some problems with some older DOS games. Here are a couple to note:

CD-Man v1.5 [L1 and L2 disabled with 2x multiplier]: Twitchy intro screen (otherwise stable gameplay)
Dark Ages [L1 and L2 disabled with 2x multiplier]: Episode 1 returns a divide by zero error unless if I use the SLOWDOWN.COM utility. Episodes 2 and 3 return the same error no matter what.

Specs are as follows:
ASUS P5A Rev 1.04 Motherboard
AMD K6-3+ 450 (underclocked at 400mhz with 66mhz FSB)
128MB RAM
3DFX Voodoo 3 3500 TV 16MB Video Card

I've tried everything that I know, especially in the BIOS, to reduce the twitchiness and avoid the divide by zero error, but to no avail. Any suggestions?

Official Website: https://dg410.duckdns.org/

Reply 1 of 5, by carlostex

Posted on 2016-02-23, 10:18

carlostex Offline

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The only problem i found with DOS games and AMD K6's so far has been with FIFA 94. The problem you describe with Dark Ages is the result of old Pascal compiler bugs which will return an invalid operation because the system is too fast.

Reply 2 of 5, by idspispopd

Posted on 2016-02-23, 10:45

idspispopd Offline

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I don't know which speed these games expect.
Did you try DOSBox or PCem for these games? Maybe you can use those to determine which performance level is needed for them to work.
IIRC correctly your system should run run at about 386 level, probably with faster video. I wouldn't expect it to trigger the Turbo Pascal Bug, but maybe older versions would fail on a 386 already. (I remember Borland kind of tried to address these problem, but only pushed the limit a bit in each version.)

Reply 3 of 5, by bjt

Posted on 2016-02-23, 12:21

bjt Offline

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I remember playing CD-Man on a 286 with VGA, so perhaps your system is too fast even with everything turned off/down.

Reply 4 of 5, by Gamecollector

Posted on 2016-02-23, 13:16

Gamecollector Offline

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Search "Pascal error 200 fix", download a patcher and fix the game.

Asus P4P800 SE/Pentium4 3.2E/2 Gb DDR400B,
Radeon HD3850 Agp (Sapphire), Catalyst 14.4 (XpProSp3).
Voodoo2 12 MB SLI, Win2k drivers 1.02.00 (XpProSp3).

Reply 5 of 5, by DoomGuy II

Posted on 2016-02-24, 05:00

DoomGuy II Offline

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Just tried patching Dark Ages with the RTE200 patch, at least two of them that I could find (PATCHCRT.EXE and TPPATCH.EXE). Unfortunately, both didn't work for me. Even went as far as decompressing the EXE files and using the TP7P5FIX.EXE TSR. No dice.

Official Website: https://dg410.duckdns.org/

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