VOGONS


First post, by Johnno

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Hey all. So I've had dos box for awhile, and I've mostly used it to play games that I downloaded from the underdogs and it's working great. I was browsing through some old cds and I found darksun so I totally had to play it, but I've never used dosbox to run a cd so I need some help.

I put in the cd and manually installed it by opening my E drive and double clicking on the install icon. It set I didn't have enough virtual memory but i knew dosbox would handle it and it let me install it anyway. Was this my first mistake?

Anyway, after that I downloaded the darksun patch from the web since it's a really buggy game and installed it with dosbos. Then, I typed in:
mount e e:\ -t cdrom
mount c c:\ravager

That should tell my computer where the cd is and the right directory. So I try to use dosbox to run the game and it looks like it's starting up and my speakers pop the way they do when they're about to play an old game. Then I get this message:

Mel fatal error #: 26 Trap #: 16
Mel real mode version 2.2.5, 4/28/94
Error Message: DSP detect fail

Can anyone help me out?

Reply 1 of 14, by h-a-l-9000

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Check your sound settings or try without sound.

1+1=10

Reply 2 of 14, by mirekluza

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Clearlywrong sound card setting...

Mirek

Reply 3 of 14, by Johnno

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So I turned off the sound and now it's starting, but then nothing happens. It's not that dosbox is locking up either, because it lets me click the X and exit out just fine.. the game just isn't running.

I'm very new to this program and would love some basic help to point me in the right direction. I've heard talk of CPU Core.. how it's normally set to dynamic in Dosbox but can be changed to full or normal and this helps certain games run. I've also heard that adding or subtracting certain forms of memory can help. Is this done via the autoconfig file, and is this the location of my new problem?

Thanks for the sound tip guys, at least it starts now. Also, when tinckering with sound I sometimes get the message "Cannot delete.*adv file. Is this part of the problem? Cheers.

EDIT: I just installed D-Fend and I've been messing around with the settings to get this thing working. Man D-fend rules. So I've tried enabling and disabling EMS and XMS, I've tried different memory settings, different core settings, and different frame rates. Can anyone who got this game to run tell me what settings they used? I'd really appreciate it. Cheers.

Reply 4 of 14, by firefighterlee

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Hey, I found your forum post while looking up info about dark sun. I just reinstalled it tonight so I can play it for the first time in ages. This game has always given me funky little problems exactly like you mentioned. The same thing is happening to me, and I know your problem. You just THINK it's not working. First off, try using dosbox, and mounting your drive and cd rom, then change the the darksun directory and type "sound_ds" set the sound card as "soundblaster" regular version with all the default settings (just hit enter enter enter until it exits).

Second, what I meant by you just think it's broken, is that the intro is all messed up. It's going to sit there with a black screen for like 3 minutes while the audio runs for what is supposed to be the intro video, but is instead a black screen. Then after like 3 minutes, you'll see some video with NO SOUND. Just either watch the intro video with no sound, or hit the LEFT SHIFT button to skip. You'll then see the start screen and a loud LOUD LOUD screeeeeeech. Either start a game real freakin fast, or turn your speakers off while you creat a new party of characters to play with. After these initial mess ups, you should be able to start this wonderful game without a hitch. I think you may have just assumed it was broken after you didnt see video for so long and your sound settings were wrong. Good luck bro!

Also, I recommend you forget about all the weird tweaks you're using in dosbox. I'm running Ravager without any special commands.
Sound is set to Soundblaster defaults. And Ctrl-F12 up to 7500 cycles (I dunno if this even matters, but that's what I'm doing)
Just type:
mount d "i:\" -t cdrom
and mount c c:\
c:
cd ravager
ravager

Reply 5 of 14, by mirekluza

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The intro works ok in DOSBOX, it just needs more precise CD ROM mounting (using -ioctl or -aspi when mounting the CD - see the syntax of the mount command).

Mirek

Reply 6 of 14, by corhub

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I've read everything posted here and I still can't get this to run. I'm using D-Fend with the default settings. Can someone tell me what I need to change to get Wake of the Ravager to run? I'm getting the same error messages as posted above:
Mel Fatal Error #: 26 Trap #:16
Mel Real Mode Version 2.2.5, 4/28/94
Error Message: DSP Detect Fail

I did disable the sound and got the same message. I am new to this and really need detailed information. I tried what the one persion suggested in mounting d "i:\" -t cdrom but that must have been specific to a particular environment because it caused an error for me.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Reply 7 of 14, by `Moe`

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Use the sound setup of dark sun to choose correct settings for DOSBox. Moreover, you have to use your own CD drive instead of i:, of course. Read the README file or the built-in help to find out what the mount command does.

Reply 8 of 14, by robertmo

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By the way:
Dark Sun I and II have

Sound Blaster Pro III

in their setups.
What the hell is that?

Reply 9 of 14, by eL_PuSHeR

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Yeah. I have always asked myself the same question. Maybe they are labelling them:

SBPRO II - Two OPL2 chips
SBPRO III - One OPL3 chip

But, then again, what about regular SBPRO?

Intel i7 5960X
Gigabye GA-X99-Gaming 5
8 GB DDR4 (2100)
8 GB GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming (Gigabyte)

Reply 10 of 14, by Perplexia

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Sweet.

I've been trying to figure out how to get this game intro to work right. Thanks to this thread I stumbled on, it works perfectly.

For any newcomers I'm gonna sum up:

The intro starts with a black screen, and merely plays audio. If the audio doesn't work, make sure it's set to regular soundblaster or soundblaster pro I with the default dosbox settings.

Following the audio, it will then play the video of the intro. To correct this (using win xp) mount the cd rom as such:
mount D D:\ -t cdrom -usecd 0 -ioctl (assuming your drive letter is D and drive # is 0). The intro should actually play the video & sound together.

Thanks for the help.

Reply 11 of 14, by corhub

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For anyone who is getting the Mel Fatal Error #: 26 Trap #: 16 error when trying to run Wake of the Ravager, the problem appears to be an IRQ setting. The default sound IRQ for DOSBox using D-Fend is 7 but the default for the game is 5. If you change your sound IRQ setting from 7 to 5 (matching what the game wants), you will not get the MEL error anymore.

Reply 12 of 14, by twistedemotions

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Dark Sun 2 is such a pain in the arse. Buggy as all hell.

I have the CD version from the Masterpiece Collection.

My issue was that after the intro plays at the starting menu the game plays LOUD static. Just like the static from an untuned radio. This occurs even when mounting using -ioctrl. In fact the game wouldn't load without -ioctrl.

Beyond that static the music (which is on the CD in tracks) plays fine in the game, along with the voices. When I use Windows Media Player to play the 1st 2 tracks of the CD, I get the exact same static also.

I just gave up and came to the conclusion that is was a production error.

Research shows this issue also existed back in 1996:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.ibm.p … dba76b9dcaa0dbb

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.ibm.p … 9b05c91c4e90a81

I just know if people were suffering this same problem in 1996 playing the game non-emulated (on Windows 95 or DOS I presume), then its probably not a DOSbox issue.

The game was orignally released around 1994.

Reply 13 of 14, by twistedemotions

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Broderbund has a support page for the jewel case version of this game:

http://support.broderbund.com/faq_list.asp?id=437

They nicely provide workarounds for the 2 problems not fixed by the patch:

  • Entering Elevator Results in Crash or Freeze
    Graphics Disappear During Play

Apparently there were 3 different versions:

  • Floppy
    Boxed CD
    Jewel case CD

Each version requires a different 1.1 patch. They are all available on:

http://www.patches-scrolls.de/

Reply 14 of 14, by twistedemotions

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Not many references to a Sound Blaster Pro 3 on the net... here is one:

http://www.synrise.de/docs/types/c/creativela … waveblaster.htm

SOUND BLASTER PRO 3.0 BASIC (1992)
Modul zum Anschluss an ein IBM kompatibles System (PC/AT). Das Gerät besteht aus einem Stereo FM Synthesizer mit allerdings nur 2 Operatoren und wird von MS-DOS und Windows 3.x unterstützt. Ausserdem ist dem SOUND BLASTER PRO eine 8 Bit Sample Option spendiert worden. Die Karte wurde auch im Bundle mit Windows 3.1 angeboten.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SOUND BLASTER PRO 3.0 STANDARD
Verbesserter SOUND BLASTER PRO, jetzt mit 20 FM Stimmen.