The Daggerfall installation in XP uses some weird video access. There was some 3rd party utility I had to use to get it to install, it may also work with the vgafix utility which modifies XP's VGA.SYS to allow proper video access (haven't tried it with Daggerfall tho).

Since I can't remember the utility that I used and I don't know if vgafix will work for the DaggerFall installation your best bet is to use DosBox to install AND play Daggerfall. This is proven to work.

Can you post the process that you are using to install Daggerfall in DosBox? Make sure that your using the latest CVS too....

I edited my original post with some more issues including the command line I am using the launch Dosbox. I have Dosbox 63 installed.
I am now able to launch the install process but it does not think I have any space left on my hard drive to even install the min installation.

Yeah, DosBox only shows about 110mb of space for older games.

You need to use the -freesize (mb) parameter.

EX: Mount c c:\ -freesize 500

for 500mb of free space.

Sweet! That worked! 😀 Now if I can just get the rest to work when it installs we will be golden. 😀

DosFreak wrote:

Yeah, DosBox only shows about 110mb of space for older games. […]
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Yeah, DosBox only shows about 110mb of space for older games.

You need to use the -freesize (mb) parameter.

EX: Mount c c:\ -freesize 500

for 500mb of free space.

Ok looks like I got it installed and can get it to play. Only problem I have run into now is when running the patch and trying to correct the duplicate names on the maps I get unrecoverable error messages in Dosbox and illegal read of file messages in the background window that loads with DosBox..
Anyone else run into this? I cant remember how important it is to run that part of the patch.

Are the files set to read-only?

You can probably also run fixmaps (I think that's what it's called) from a WinXP NTVDM command prompt.

HunterZ wrote:

Are the files set to read-only?

You can probably also run fixmaps (I think that's what it's called) from a WinXP NTVDM command prompt.

They shouldnt be read only because I was finally able to get it to install off the CD (duh forgot when mounting D: to make it a CDROM drive and tell it to usecd 0). I will try running it from the windows command prompt tonight.
Here are two more snags I ran into:
1. When running in Windowed mode (to see cycles/cpu usage) I was unable to use the mouse pointer so was unable to create a character, had to go to full screen to do it. {not really a big snag because I was still able to do Ctrl-F12 to increase cycles and Alt-Tab out of Dosbox to see the number} I think about 6000 or 6500 was the best, still a little choppy/wavey when walking through dungeons though. How far up can a typical 2.4Ghz Pent 4 go in Dosbox?
2. While going through the first dungeon Dosbox just closed out, no error message was given. Just eneded up back at the desktop. I was wondering is possibly it could be due to using Dynamic instead of Normal or Full? Someone said that Dynamic is better but more unstable.

Unwritable files: It's possible that DOSBox copied them over from the CD with the read-only attribute set. Try pulling up the Windows Explorer properties for one of the files for which it reports error messages.

Also, you did you install to a path that has long filenames in it by any chance? Or maybe under a different user account in Windows?

Mouse pointer: Again, check the readme:
- There's a hotkey (don't remember which) that gives DOSBox control of the mouse
- There's a config file option (autolock maybe?) that gives DOSBox control of the mouse when you click on its window

Cycles: 6500 is way low. I'm surprised that you're using the dynamic core; I'd expect you to be able to get at least double that.

Dynamic core: Yes, dynamic core is faster but more unstable. Daggerfall is already unstable, so crashes are probably going to be frequent. It's up to you whether it's worth it to have more crashes in exchange for being able to run faster/smoother. Also, check out the latest CVS build if you haven't yet, as it's probably faster and more stable than 0.63.

Useful threads:
DOSBox SVN Builds
How to speed up DOSBox (by robertmo and mirekluza)

There is a newer version of DosBox than 63? I thought that was the new one. I'll check it out when I get home. Will also play around with changing it to full or normal and upping the cycles to about 10,000 and see what that does for me.
As for the unreadable files are you talking about my post from trying to do the install? That was due to me forgetting to mount the D drive as a CD-Rom 😀
But the patch illegal read of errors and unrecovereable errors do not give file names only memory addresses. So I will try running the fixmaps.exe from a windows command prompt.
I also did see something in the read me about if your mouse does not work put a certain command in the line used to launch DosBox, so I will check that out as well. Would be niec to have windowed mode for the first few minutes so I can see how far up I can go in cycles, then save, change my cfg file and relaunch in full screen.

Well the current official version is 0.63, but it's an open-source project and the developers are actively working on it and storing their changes on Sourceforge.net. Others in the community build experimental dosbox.exe's from the latest source so that everyone has an opportunity to test the newest fixes and features. Turns out that the CVS builds are usually very stable (a testament to the good coding practices of the developers I guess), so I often recommend trying them.

Also, the two methods for capturing the mouse both work. I run DOSBox almost exclusively in a window myself.

Thanks for the info I will try these changes tonight and look for the new code for DosBox as well.

You've been very helpful. 😀