Get a faster computer.

did you try the how to run demanding games section of the readme ?

Wow!

Dosbox 0.63, just use Dos4gw from http://dos32a.sourceforge.net/ 😜

So, magic carpet plus is runable with dynamic core, just use dos4gw from http://dos32a.sourceforge.net/, what means that it runs too fast on my Athlon 1.9 (2.5+) !!! so i can play in hi resolution.

dosbox is great, thanks again for Qbix and his team 😜

Try it, I guarantee that it will work nice on 320x200

I'll put that info on wiki (that some games run on dynamic core with dos32a, but don't run with dos4gw)

"Magic Carpet" ran just fine for me on my AMD Athlon 1.4 GHz system after I increased the DOSBox cycles to maximum (Ctrl-F12) and frameskip to just a hair below max (Ctrl-F8 ). Now, granted, I wouldn't try running it in VESA mode with this system, but the speed in standard VGA resolution was perfect when I increased those two values.

Now, if only I could figure out the general MIDI/SB16 problem and random map crashes, I'd be in paradise with this game once again.

Please, if you can test it with dos32a instead of dos4gw (just in case you didn't). I can't manage it to crash anymore...

some settings:
sbpro2 (music/sound)
32mb ram

I do plan on doing that, but I need to figure out how to get it set up within the DOSBox environment. (Just so the "RTFM" zombies don't start harping, I have it downloaded but I haven't tried to install it yet.) Hopefully, it will solve all and I can enjoy this game once again in its entirety.

No difference. I got farther when I first fired it up, but something is still sending a Shift-Q. The next time it exited as soon as I entered the spell/map area. The same does load much faster with DOS32A, but there is definitely still a problem.

Now, HERE'S an intersting little twist! I selected a spell from the map, then pressed the button to activate it on that particular button. Magic Carpet existed WHEN I PRESSED THE BUTTON ON THE JOYSTICK! Something's definitely amiss here. For whatever reason, MC keeps getting a Shift-Q sent to it telling it to exit. I know that it's a clean exit, too, because it gently fades out then displays the Magic Carpet copyright information at the top of the screen.

Could it be the copy protection? The copy protection checked the cd when you went to the Map and Spell screen on the original Magic Carpet. It would kick you back to DOS if it detected that it wasn't an original. I have played it up to about the 7th map or so just mounting the original cd with no problems other than some sound skipping on a P4 2.5g/512m ram.

Are you telling the truth on that or are you trying to trap me? 😉 I've never heard that one before. I suppose that it's possible, but I was using my original CD from the beginning. I had to dump it to the hard drive to try out the DOS32A, but it didn't make the propblem any better or worse. In fact I was able to play longer with DOS32A and a local dump of the CD than using the CD itself. That's an awfully bizarre copy protection.

So yes, I *do* have an original CD as I bought both MC and MC2. I'd be very surprised if a new DVD drive can't read an old copy protection. I can always try it on the other drive in my system to see if it's possibly a compatibility issue.

Well, I'll be! After doing a search on Google Groups, I found several references to their "copy protection", which isn't really much. Apparently, the "copy protection" is not that it looked for an original disc but that it made sure that you were playing from a CD. Supposedly, if it thought that you were playing from the hard drive (as in, not from a drive that is controlled by MSCDEX), it would exit to DOS. Since the CD is mounted like a hard drive in DOSbox ... well, we can all add 1 + 1 and come up with the answer to why MC keeps bombing out to DOS. I never tried to run it from my hard drive, so I never experienced this.

I did also see several mentions to a "no CD" crack that allows you to play from the hard drive, but since the game is so old, I can't find the thing, which is certainly not unexpected.

I added the following line to my dosbox.conf file:

mount e "D:\DOSGAMES\MCARPET" -t cdrom -label "CARPET"

Unfortunately, it's 12:20 AM and I need to get to sleep. I'll try this tomorrow and let everyone know whether it works or not.

Try creating an .ISO of the CD and loading that in Dosbox using IMGMOUNT.

Well, so much for that. I tried EVERYTHING in the CD-ROM FAQ as well as the ISO. Nothing works. MC still craps out to the DOS prompt at seemingly random times. I guess there's nothing else for me to do except hope that somewhere I can get my hands on the no-CD crack, which I think will be VERY unlikely. I don't see how I have any other alternative short of getting a separate PC with a true DOS environment and CPU reduction tool.

Damn.

Maybe your problem is taht you have turn on some video corection mode in DosBOX.

You can try set up MC like this (game configuration):
Turn off:
Double buffering - off
Aspect corection - off
Full fixed - off
Render method: surface
Resolution: default
Scale: none

This configuration makes new game much more faster, but with original graphics (no rendering so lovely rendering). And I recommand it for all "new-old" games, I think games to year 1991/2. But its depend on your hardware.

I have athlon 1200, 256 MB Ram, Nvidia mmx400.

The slowness I found a solution for.

The crashing on spell change, not so much so... I guess that *is* copy protection... Hmm... I can run the game from the CD, but there's no way to make the game realize that that is indeed the CD-drive and not a hard-drive... At least, none that I can think of.

It's very odd that it doesn't dump you to DOS every time you change spells - just once in awhile, but it does make a clean deliberate "non-crashie" exit,(Fades out, gives credit message, etc.), so yeah, that could be deliberate.

The solution for the slowlness: unplug your analog joystick. My FPS quadroopled when I did this. If you played MC with a joystick, get a USB one. I read this somewhere... Can't remember where... One of the stickies me thinks.

I run it in an openGL window now, runs fine at about 10,000 CPU cycles on my system ( P4ht 3.0 Ghz 800FSB, BFG 6800 Ultra OC, Abit IS7-E board ). That is, until I change spells, then *poof* dos prompt.

Any solutions to this?

This I've tried:
DOS32A: no change
Mount the CD-rom with -t cdrom for MSCDEX EMU: No effect
Imgmount: Can't seem to make it work ><
Attempted to get Dos 5.1 MSCDEX running under DosBox (no go)
Disabled EMS/XMS memory (didn't hlelp)

Other idea was to make a bootable floppy image and boot that, but I've no idea how to make an IMG file that Dosbox BOOT command will accept.

Don't have MC1 so can't help there but:

You shouldn't have to unplug your joystick. Just modify dosbox.conf and disable the joystick port. Should work.

Well, I have it, so that's not an issue...

...I'm not entirely sure it really is copy protection. If it is, it's very odd copy protection - to have something that exits "sometimes" - I see no evidence of cracks for the game - just trainers. Does DosBox work with games that verify the CD for auth in some odd way?

If so, I wonder if anyone else may have an idea as to what causes this.

If not, consider this a call for better CD/MSCDEX emulation! 😉 (I notice DosBox never even accesses the CD drive after it mounts it - maybe it doesnt read in those "odd sectors")

As for the joystick. Err... I searched the config file for 'joy' and got squat - so I'm not sure what I'd have to add to it to disable the joystick that way. Unplugging it works wonders though. 😉 (I guess we need better joystick emulation too)

Anyways, unless someone has conqured this bug, please downgrade its status from 'playable' to 'runnable' in the games list.

What options are you using to mount the CD in DOSBox? You should be suing -t cdrom -ioctl on Win2K/XP to get maximum compatibility.

Hmmm... I didn't try -octl... Letmesee...

Nope. 😒 Same thing.

I've come to the conclusion that this is either A) Copy Protection that doesn't work under the conditions the emulator provides or B) Particular to a specifc version of Magic Carpet. The reason being, is that I downloaded a new copy of Magic Carpet via P2P (I know *gasp*) - and THAT one works. It crashes now and again, but it never was the most stable game, and it's more than tollerable (doesn't exit mysteriously while changing spells).

The version I DL'd doesnt say anything about being cracked, but I think it's a newer version than the disk I have, as it includes something called "Hidden Worlds".

I know it's not just my disk, since so many people report this same issue.

Very odd. I guess my advice is: try to find a different version of the game.

You know what would be a really nice feature for this emulator?: A SAVE/LOAD STATE feature. It would certainly help with the longer less stable games like this where you can only save so often.