Well, first, don't call the game the way you are. Just call CDSHOCK. Um, if it's really running that poorly, there is something else going on on your system outside of this. I NEVER had a problem with SS that wasn't fixable on Win2K SP3 OR SP4 outside of the crashing and the choppy intro music. SPEEDSET..probably won't work. But you can try.

I'll do as I did when I couldn't get my Dreamcast working properly; I'll buy a new TV. Or, in this case, an old[er] computer with Windows 98 😀

Originally posted by daoloth I run Windows 2000 SP3, and I have the original game (CD version of course), and I do get it running, but it's painfully slow,

The program in general? That shouldn't be, ran fine on my 1.7GHz Celeron.

and after trying out Speedset (without really knowing how to use it,

SPEEDSET doesn't work well (if at all) in protected mode.

EMs memory, basic VESA support and MSCDEX enabled.

EMS shouldn't be needed, but I doubt disabling it will help.

If you drop the resolution to 320x400, the mouse should work properly and NOLFB shouldn't be needed.

I think that's about it. I got the game running fine when I had Windows XP Pro, but XP gave me all sortsa trouble, so I installed Win2k instead, and never had any problems.

...until now.

Oh, and this picture shows a resized version of the nice garbled Windows I get when exiting System Shock.

AFAIK, this is almost always related to your video hardware (ATI hardware seems especially susceptible). I don't recall this kind of video garbage (of this level, at least) from my card with any program in XP.

The only solution to this is to restart Windows,

Have you tried doing a quick resolution/color-depth change instead? I use MultiRes to change resolutions quickly.

Ok, tested chaning color depth, it solved the problem with the on-screen crap.
It seems to me that whenever I start the game and the mouse cursor is not visible on the main menu, that's when I won't get the game to start at all, but when the cursor is there, the game will start. It all seems very random, though. And the problem with the mouse not wanting to leave the corner seems to be random as well.
And it's still slooooowww...it should most definetly not be slow, I can run Unreal 2 at 1024x768 full color depth without problems...weird.
Well, I'll keep on trying, and if I find a solution I can post it here for your amusement, I'm sure it's, like all other problems I encounter in my life, just some small and stupid thing that's causing big problems.

Originally posted by daoloth Ok, tested chaning color depth, it solved the problem with the on-screen crap.

Ok, that's a good thing.

And it's still slooooowww...it should most definetly not be slow, I can run Unreal 2 at 1024x768 full color depth without problems...weird.

Well, that's a Windows program created specifically to be compatible with Windows 2000 and XP. You're running a DOS program environment using hardware and software that didn't exist when it was created. You've got to expect anomalies of this type when running "oldies" on a modern PCs.

just some small and stupid thing that's causing big problems.

Try setting sound and music to "none" and see if it still runs poorly. Like I said, I experienced the "slow mouse", but the game ran at full-speed for me.

Hello there.

I posted ages ago regarding sound issues with System Shock.

Do you guys know of any PCI card I can get that has DOS drivers and I'll try and get hold of it. even tried a hack for PCI128 SB, but to no avail, but the game does run with no sound now.

Thanks.

Originally posted by Soniclen Do you guys know of any PCI card I can get that has DOS drivers and I'll try and get hold of it.

They are getting harder and harder to find. You will still see "command prompt" support among some, but that only applies when running the DOS program within Win9x (with the GUI loaded).

There are very few "true", hardware-level soundBlaster-compatible soundcards available. The only one I can think of at the moment is the AW540, but there might be a few others.

removed windows 2000, installed windows xp. the game runs fine now, smooth as silk, fast as a shark, stable as...a really stable thing.
the only downside is a CTD that occurred (sp?) as I entered cyberspace, but I didn't understand anything [of cyberspace] anyway, so...I'm happy 😀

And just for fun, here are the steps I went through (also posted on ttlg.com):

The things I went through to play System Shock

1. I had Windows 2000 installed. Tried to get SS1 running for several weeks, to no avail. I got the game up, yes, but it was painfully slow and crashed to desktop all the time. unplayable.

2. decided to install windows 98 on a separate partition. found out that it can't be done w/out having to format and install win98 first, then win2k.

3. on tuesday evening I formatted C:\ and installed windows 98. installed partitionmagic 8 and made a partition for installing windows 2000. went out for a beer.

4. wednesday morning: tried to install windows 2000 for about seven hours, it failed every time due to some mysterious "hardware error". the last time I installed it I got the same problem, but after trying a few times it worked. not this time. seven hours. s e v e n.

5. decided to install windows xp though my experiences with xp have been nothing but evil shit, it crashed all the time and so on, that's why I had windows 2000, which worked like a dream until I had to remove it and was unable to install it again. anyway.

6. after a few hours of fiddling with XP I got it up and running and largely configured to suit my needs. and I still haven't got SS1 running. Yet.
Be sure that I will, because the things I have gone through (I have not counted the times my harddrive seemed to crash, the times my cat run away with my install cd and so on) must be worth it. I must play System Shock.
Now it feels a little pointless to have installed Windows 98 since I can get SS running in XP (I could the last time I had XP anyway), but I'll keep it for safety.

There.

Sounds like your computer has serious issues...heh

I blame Windows. But yeah, I have some hardware issues, dunno if it's the cooling or if the motherboard is quitting. I'm getting new stuff soon anyway.