... Nicht_Ser_Gut? Nicht, please have a look at this...

(Yes, Ulli, we have a forum moderator here who calls himself "Nicht_Ser_Gut")...

No Privateer in NT. Must use Connectix Virtual PC or the real DOS.

Thank you ..........Connectix Virtual PC $229 !!!!!
Greetinngs Ulli

Unregistered Ulli K wrote:

Iam from Germany and i hope you accept my apologize for possible bad English.

Better than my German, I assure you.

I forgot heres my System its in German

Pertinent data translated:
Processor AMD Athlon XP 2100+
Clock frequency (MHz) 1740 MHz
RAM in DIMM#1 512 MT Samsung GDR PC2700
Motherboard MSI KT3 Ultra
Chip set KT333
Bio version AMI

Manufacturer Creative/Nvidia
Designation GeForce 4 ti4600
Core clock (not Overclocked) 300.4 MHz
RAM clock (not Overclocked) 661.5 MHz
Drive assembly Seagate ST380020A Capacity 80 GB
5400 RPM
Ultra-DMA/100

Drive assembly Matshita DVD Rome Sr-8586
Description CD 48x DVD 6x RD

Drive assembly Sony CD-rw CRX 1611
Description 16x CD burner

Operating system
Operating system WinXP Professional (SP1)

Now i hope to find some Help here or someone who tried to start WingCommander Privateer in WinXP.

Unfortunately, as DosFreak has already said; nobody has figured out how to make Privateer run properly on an NT-based OS (NT/2000/XP).

You have very few options.

1) Virtual PC works, but it doesn't perform as smoothly as a "real" PC. Also, it not really meant for games and (as you have already noticed) it's not cheap.

2) Use an old PC just for playing games like this.

3) My personal choice, Dual-boot.

The easiest way to do this is to install a DOS operating system, first. Then install XP on the remaining free space. XP creates a Dual-boot menu for you automatically.

Since you already have XP installed that means:

<I have removed the steps for this until I can make them a little more clear. Too easy to cause trouble with this method at the moment.>

(Partition Magic is the only tool that I know, that will work on XP NTFS partitions)

A dual-boot is a good "safety-net", as it will run many games that do not run properly on the NT-based operating systems.

Thank you very much !!!
I think i'll take a look for an old PC. May be a P2 or P3 ........iam sure i can get one for less then € 100.
Greetings Ulli

PS. Iam a great Fan of Virtual Racing Online, NascarRacing and Grand Prix Legends
http:http://www.vr-nascar.de http://ullrich.kratochwil.bei.t-online.de/gplcars.htm

P2 or P3 is too new. P100 and below are best for OLD games but even those are too fast. Best option is an old 386/486.

I got a fabulous 486/66DX2 off of eBay for about $50 (including S&H). That'd be, like, €52! 😉 The S&H would probably be a little more, though. So maybe, like, €70. Still, well under what you were quoting. (I was looking very specifically for a 486/66DX2, so you can get a regular 486/66 or 486/33 and still be satasfied. You'll probably need to buy Win3.11 too -- that'll run you about €35.)

95/98 with 98lite with 8mb of ram will run "fine" on a DX2/66. Less processor power than that and I would definetly go the Win 3.1/DOS route for sure.

Naah. Windows 3.1 is the best bet. Or OS/2, even better, I suppose, if IBM-DOS is compatible with MS-DOS. Not much was released for Windows 3. Hell, even Windows 4 didn't have much software in the beginning. Anyway, seriously, it's not worth the extra features to try to install Windows 4 (9x).

Snover wrote:

Naah. Windows 3.1 is the best bet. ... Anyway, seriously, it's not worth the extra features to try to install Windows 4 (9x).

Ech. Not so. Windows 95B is the best compromise (if he can find it). Uses the least amount of resources of Win9x OS's while still supporting FAT32.

The cluster size for the old FAT (on Win95A and DOS) is really inefficient, turning a 2 Gig partition into 1.5 Gig (estimating 512Meg of slack).

If he could get a nice 486-66 or maybe 486-100 machine with 2 gig drive support, put Win95B on it; the he'd be set to run the vast majority of all the oldies. DOS,Win 3.1, and early Win95 titles (especially those ones that used to install DirectX 3 or such without your permission).

It should also be slow enough for many those titles with the timer problems.

Having said all that, I still think Dual-boot is the best way to go.

There are (few, but there ARE) Windows 3.1 programs that won't run under Windows 4. The HDD I received with Windows 3.11 (don't ask) is only 500MB, so the sector size of FAT16 isn't that bad.

I can't believe that NTFS doesn't have smaller sectors than FAT32. It's annoying as all hell!!

Snover wrote:

There are (few, but there ARE) Windows 3.1 programs that won't run under Windows 4.

Odd. Haven't heard of any that refused under Win95. Usually it turned out to be due to something else, like processor speed.

The HDD I received with Windows 3.11 (don't ask) is only 500MB, so the sector size of FAT16 isn't that bad.

If he's got a small drive, that's true. I'm kind of thinking in terms of a DosGames "JukeBox". Filling it with every DOS game that causes trouble on a new machine. 2 Gig seems to be like a reasonable limit (It's about there where installers seem to get "persnickety" about drive size).

I can't believe that NTFS doesn't have smaller sectors than FAT32.

On a really big partition (beyond 20 Gig), you don't have much of a choice as FAT32 starts to get as wasteful as the original FAT.

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

Odd. Haven't heard of any that refused under Win95. Usually it turned out to be due to something else, like processor speed.

No, it was actually due to calls in the C++ DLLs changing/being removed between version 3 and version 4, I think. The game was called "TR-i - No World Order" -- it's a cool interactive music generator. Too bad my CD is almost completely scratched beyond repair. Another one I had problems with was Critical Path, but that WAS probably due to the processor speed. (Anyone with Critical Path want to send it to me? My CD had some of its label ripped off. No label == not playable.)

2 Gig seems to be like a reasonable limit (It's about there where installers seem to get "persnickety" about drive size).

Never heard of an installer having issues with really big drives. *shrug*

On a really big partition (beyond 20 Gig), you don't have much of a choice as FAT32 starts to get as wasteful as the original FAT.

Eh? That doesn't really address my rant on how inefficient NTFS is, considering it's the best FAT system out there.

Yep, some older installshield installers error out when they detect "alot" of HD space. This can be bypassed in NT with ACT and/or APCOMPAT but I never encountered the error under 9x....of course I haven't used 9x at home since....1998. 😉

IIRC, NTFS can go all the way down to 512b per sector......

Default is around 4kb but you can force it to 512.

How do I force it to 512b?? Would this require another reformat?

Yup, Haven't played around with PQ (Partition Magic) in awhile but I don't believe it allows altering cluster size...and even if it did I wouldn't trust it.

The easiest way to test NTFS is to load up VPC or Vmware or make an extra partition on your HD. Then just format and reformat away! It's really reall fun and exciting! Ok, mabye not that exciting.

*shrug* 4KB is highly inefficient but it'll hafta do, I guess. I'm NOT going back and reinstalling everything --again.

Snover wrote:

No, it was actually due to calls in the C++ DLLs changing/being removed between version 3 and version 4, I think.

Ah.

Never heard of an installer having issues with really big drives. *shrug*

I can't remember the names of the games, but I distinctly remember trying install a game that needed a few megabytes and refused to install on a drive with gigabytes free. FWIW, when I was testing Privateer, it insisted my 4Gig FAT32 C: drive was "compressed".

Eh? That doesn't really address my rant on how inefficient NTFS is, considering it's the best FAT system out there.

*shrug* I guess I'm saying that it's not all that bad. Anything else will probably require that leave the Windows OS.

FWIW, I remember that the Amiga OS used a kind of "plug-in" setup for file systems starting with 2.0 There was OFS (Original/Old File System), and FFS (Fast File System). While Commodore (*cringe*) didn't bother to update it much beyond that, I recall some clever programmers took a look (reverse-engineered, probably) the systems and came up with numerous improvements in speed, options, and security. They sold their filesystem commercially and you basically just dropped their file into the proper directory and the OS treated it as if were a part of the native OS (IE:It displayed as an option for a partition format, etc...).

Anything like that possible for 2000/XP?

DosFreak wrote:

Yup, Haven't played around with PQ (Partition Magic) in awhile but I don't believe it allows altering cluster size...and even if it did I wouldn't trust it.

The last I checked, it did. But true, I'm not sure how far I'd trust it.