I just ran into a problem trying to run Full Throttle with VDMS and would like to present the facts. The problem can be fixed but it still looks very strange, so I believe Vlad could be interested.

If I try to run Full Throttle with VDMS and joystick emulation enabled (the default settings from a LaunchPad shortcut), the game crashes right after presenting the LucsArts logo and playing two or three notes from the opening music. I can see a bunch of messages that look like a register dump and a message about an exception, right before the ntvdm dies. I tried to start a game form a batch file like this (using LaunchPad to run the batch):

d: cd \throttle throttle pause […]
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d:
cd \throttle
throttle
pause

but even with the pause command I cannot read all the messages as they appear garbled and mixed with the opening scene from the game. Sometimes the ntvdm dies without even reaching the end of the batch file. This is the most intriguing problem for me: whatever happens in this case kills the ntvdm without further notice.

In order to isolate the problem, I tried several other ways of running the game and they all work fine:

• Running without VDMS, configured for no sound
• Running with VDMS, configured for no sound
• Running with VDMS, joystick emulation disabled
• Running with VDMS, joystick emulation enabled but no joystick configured in Control Panel

First of all, these are my current system specs:
Athlon XP 1800+ on Asus A7V333
512MB DDR266 RAM
Built-in C-Media 8738 sound chip
GeForce4 MX440 with 64MB
Sidewinder Precision Pro connected to built-in game port
Windows 2000 SP3 - localized version in Brazilian Portuguese
VDMSound 2.0.4 + Update 1 + LaunchPad 1.0.7

The same problem happened in a different system:
Pentium 3 750MHz on Soyo 6VBA-133
256MB PC133 RAM
SoundBlaster Live! Value
Voodoo3 3000 AGP with 16MB
Sidewinder Precision Pro connected to SoundBlaster game port
Windows 2000 SP3 - localized version in Brazilian Portuguese
VDMSound 2.0.4 + Update 1 + LaunchPad 1.0.7

Again, the problem is solved by simply disabling the joystick emulation, but I am somehow intrigued by the way this problem kills the ntvdm, so I would like to know if this can be a bug inside VDMS and if there is any other tests or extra info I can provide.

Regards,