Make sure you also have the fixPOPF entry added in LaunchPad.
V.

I don't see that option... Where can I go to read about how to enable that option?

It's on the "HOW-TO update" page.

You mean here? showthread.php?s=&threadid=1226&highlight=howto+update

I don't see anything about fixPOPF there.

*scratches head in confusion*

Originally posted by HunterZ I don't see anything about fixPOPF there.

Try here:
showthread.php?threadid=726
For BUILD games, under the subtitle of Common Problem #5. Check Solution #1 & #2.

All BUILD games have this problem on XP with the present incarnation of VDMSound. A few others do as well, like "Death Rally".

Wtf? Bio Menace isn't a BUILD game - it uses the Commander Keen engine!

Anyways, I figured out the fixPOPF thing on my own and it didn't seem to make a difference. Running with VDMS directly (i.e. using the right-click shortcut without the musical note) makes the game work *some* of the time (btw I checked and fixPOPF is set to 1 in my VDMS.INI already).

Would CLI2NOP help? The game doesn't use digitial sound - just adlib music.

Originally posted by HunterZ Wtf? Bio Menace isn't a BUILD game - it uses the Commander Keen engine!

Which is why I said "A few others do as well, like Death Rally". I don't know if this game truly has a POPf problem or not. The BUILD and DOOM engines do, so we know all games based on those engines will have this problem. Fortunately, all the source code for (most of) the DOOM engine games has been released, so the ports have fixed that problem for us.

Running with VDMS directly (i.e. using the right-click shortcut without the musical note) makes the game work *some* of the time (btw I checked and fixPOPF is set to 1 in my VDMS.INI already).

That won't fix it. The problem is in the GUI Launchpad. By default, it's enabled in VDMSound, but the Launchpad was made before the update files, so it's not enabled in the Launchpad. The only ways around it right now are to use the right-click (no note), or use the "brute force" trick with the Launchpad.

Would CLI2NOP help? The game doesn't use digitial sound - just adlib music.

*gah*Not to keen on that... Can you set it to use speaker or "no sound", will it run with that setting?

BTW, does this run in DosBox?

There's got to be something different besides the fixPOPF thing between Run with VDMS and LaunchPad because the former is working every time now and the latter none of the time. I can't figure it out.

I attached a screenshot to see if you all think I am doing the fixPOPF thing correctly in LaunchPad.

BioMenace is a bugged game, uses some null pointer somewhere, that luckily works in dos. Crahes nicely in dosbox 😀
Lot's of debug time wasted on this stupid game only to see the damn programmers made a bugged game.

heh, but did you FIX it? 😉

Originally posted by Harekiet BioMenace is a bugged game, uses some null pointer somewhere, that luckily works in dos. Crashes nicely in dosbox

Unfortunately, that seems to sum it up. Buggy with a capital "B". Game seemed to locked up hard whenever I tried to start it up for the first time. Apparently it auto-detects hardware the first time it's run and XP don't like that. Upon further testing I found that it did work, it's just that it's auto-detect routine for the hardware was causing huge delays when run in XP (much like in "Dark Forces"). Give it five minutes and it should find the hardware.

Running it in VPC5 allowed it to detect and run in Win95 (in VPC), but killed VPC outright after 30 seconds of play. Running it in Win95-DOS (VPC5 again) it simply locked up hard. Re-ran and manually re-configured for silence, then moved it back to XP.

Now it will run, but awkwardly. Delayed response from keyboard input makes it a pain to play, but it does work.

Found that once the initial run in a "real DOS" environment is made and it's reconfigured for silence it seems to will run in DosBox with Speaker or SoundBlaster audio. Unfortunately, it's just like Harekiet said, within about 30 seconds it was bombing out DosBox.

Too bad, runs smoothly in DosBox, but it kills the emulator pretty quickly. Will run in XP (just have to have patience), but gameplay isn't smooth (music and sound effects seemed fine with VDMSound).

Hehe i won't make changes in dosbox to run bugged games, finnster made a little patch to help run biomenace. Should be on the dosbox testing forum somewhere. Run it in dosbox before biomenance and it should work. Stupid game anyway 😀

Yeah it compares values to the one located around 0000:0000

Stupid game.

But maybe we should try to locate our interrupt handlers to +/- the same location as a real machine. (int 2 (the one compared to)) should maybe be located somewhere in the bios segment or so.

But dunno offcourse
Game is the wrong, we aren't 😀

Qbix
But yes it works in dosbox.
But it costed a lot of time of us developpers

Strange - the version I have checks hardware every time I run it. When it does run (under WinXP+VDMS), it runs just fine (I did have to add /LATCHPEL as a command-line argument to get smooth scrolling). I was able to complete the first level and a half (took me a good half hour because I goofed around a lot) without any problems whatsoever.

Originally posted by HunterZ Strange - the version I have checks hardware every time I run it. When it does run (under WinXP+VDMS), it runs just fine (I did have to add /LATCHPEL

Same here, this appears to be the best solution for the moment. Once initially configured, it won't do that on DosBox, but of course, it crashes 30 seconds later.

I don't suppose there's a start-up parameter to bypass the initial auto-config?

Not according to the documentation 🙁 I think it would be fine if I could figure out what the heck LaunchPad is doing differently from straight VDMS+update1.

Originally posted by HunterZ ...if I could figure out what the heck LaunchPad is doing differently from straight VDMS+update1.

True, it's odd. Nothing to do with fixPopF either. Seems like a batch file with the /LATCHPEL parameter and using the Non-GUI VDMSound is the best solution then...

Well, um, er, if DOSBox is supposed to emulate DOS then it should work even if the program is broken, heh

Snover wrote:

Well, um, er, if DOSBox is supposed to emulate DOS then it should work even if the program is broken, heh

True in general.
But some game don't deserve to be run. They are coded way too poor. It runs by fair luck. But who knows: One day Harekiet might become soft harted guy 😉

Well finster made a patch that will run the game. I don't know if the patch works with 0.57. But I think it would.
If somebody tests it.
There is no objection of putting the patch here as well.

Qbix