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Descent won't work in DOS

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First post, by Gahhhrrrlic

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I'm trying to get Descent 1 to run in real DOS (prior to OS boot using GUI = 0 option) on a WIndows 98 rig. However I'm getting a general protection fault 2001 at 0DH with DOS4GW. According to the internet this is not a rare problem or anything but I can't get a clear answer on how to fix it. There was some stuff about PATH length but I tried that solution and it didn't work. I'd run it under 98 except I can't get my midi wavetable working so I'd rather run it under DOS where it actually does work. Anybody had this error with Descent before?

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Reply 1 of 25, by xjas

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Try replacing DOS4GW.exe with DOS32A - I did that on my Descent 2 install, but I can't remember the exact error I was getting that led me to do so.

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Reply 3 of 25, by Davros

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Try creating a dos boot disk and boot from that

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Reply 4 of 25, by xjas

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Davros wrote:

Try creating a dos boot disk and boot from that

^^ hmm, didn't realize it was different than Descent 2. Try just running 'dos32a descentr.exe' which should(?) do the same thing. IIRC there's also a patcher available that replaces bundled in DOS4GW with DOS32A.

Note: I'm not *sure* this will solve your problem, just curious if it works.

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Reply 5 of 25, by aleksej

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Try to playing with EMM386 or replace it with JEMM386.

Reply 7 of 25, by retardware

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Early DOS extenders had difficulties not only with whateverEMMbleh, but sometimes even with HIMEM, too.

Reply 8 of 25, by akula65

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Make certain you have updated Descent to at least Version 1.4a. The following links have the Version 1.0=>Version 1.4a and Version 1.4a=>Version 1.5 patches:

http://www.dfiles.de/download/d1/patches/d1_14a.exe
http://www.dfiles.de/download/d1/patches/d1_15.exe

Avoid the Version 1.0=>Version 1.5 patch as it introduces problems with music after Level 7.

Reply 9 of 25, by Gahhhrrrlic

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I tried 1.4a and it still didn't work. I also just tried booting from a 6.22 floppy but now I can't access my c drive. Possibly because it's a different version of dos than what I formatted the c drive from? Not sure.

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Reply 10 of 25, by retardware

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6.22 supports partitions only up to 2GB.
What about showing us your config.sys and autoexec.bat?

Reply 11 of 25, by canthearu

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Strange, never had any real issues with Descent 1 working in MSDOS, with or without the standard Microsoft memory managers.

Have you done a full memtest to see if the memory is working right?

Reply 12 of 25, by dr_st

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So, it works under Win98, but not under Win98 pure DOS mode?

Did you try to start up Win98 DOS with startup files skipped (F5 at startup), as opposed to creating DOS 6.22 bootdisk?

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Reply 13 of 25, by Gahhhrrrlic

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dr_st wrote:

So, it works under Win98, but not under Win98 pure DOS mode?

Did you try to start up Win98 DOS with startup files skipped (F5 at startup), as opposed to creating DOS 6.22 bootdisk?

I suppose I could try that (I think it's called DOS Safe Mode or something).

I didn't mean that it doesn't work with 6.22. However if I can't access my drives with 6.22 there's no way to load the game since it won't fit on a floppy.

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Reply 14 of 25, by Gahhhrrrlic

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Fixed the problem. It was the fact that Win98 by default does not use any memory managers for DOS. As soon as I called HIMEM and EMM386, Descent started working. Interesting to point out that it broke other games though like operation neptune.

I also have problems with Jazz and Towers but apparently that's a CRT? bug. I'll figure that out.

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Reply 16 of 25, by Gahhhrrrlic

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retardware wrote:
Gahhhrrrlic wrote:

I also have problems with Jazz and Towers but apparently that's a CRT? bug. I'll figure that out.

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I think CRT might be a misnomer or it's not as it seems. The bug I'm referring to is the programming language used to compile games like Jazz and Towers. Apparently there was a bug in the code that would cause the game to crash if the CPU was faster than 200MHz. How this relates to a CRT is beyond me but the fix involves some sort of patch which rewrites the exe files to fix the bug and allow them to play again.

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Reply 17 of 25, by zyga64

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CRT is the name of the unit in Borland/Turbo Pascal. It provides functions for screen handling , keyboard etc.
Something like stdio.h in C or iostream in C++. In this unit somwhere there is a loop which causes overflow error on fast CPU (well faster than 200MHz).

It seems that those games are created using Borland Pascal...

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Reply 18 of 25, by gdjacobs

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zyga64 wrote:

It seems that those games are created using Borland Pascal...

Certainly Jazz Jackrabbit was.

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Reply 19 of 25, by ssokolow

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zyga64 wrote:

CRT is the name of the unit in Borland/Turbo Pascal. It provides functions for screen handling , keyboard etc.
Something like stdio.h in C or iostream in C++. In this unit somwhere there is a loop which causes overflow error on fast CPU (well faster than 200MHz).

It seems that those games are created using Borland Pascal...

...and there are various patchers for that too, with names like CRTFIX.EXE and PATCHCRT.EXE.

As I remember, it's some kind of CPU speed measuring loop. (Similar problem to why the first Unreal engine doesn't like it if your CPU's clock speed varies while you're playing.)

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