Very tired at the moment so i'll post links/detail tomorrow.

In order to get it to save you need to either
Use lec quick and easy which does the file mixnmatch for you
or
Do the floppy/cd filemmixnmatch for DOTT in the same way as SamNMax.
This will let you save (as well as letting you play with adlib without problems, as queried in an earlier thread).

I'll look for detail tomorrow. Unfortunately, however, I have only the cd version and I can find the floppy version files to mixnmatch. Same thing goes for attempting mixnmatch on samnmax. I tried using the files from the sam.exe that someone here linked to at the lucas arts site, and following the instructions given here, but that was also a no-go in samnmax.

I believe that the game runs the executable off the CD -- the only thing installed is a batch file and a configuration file. As such, the program doesn't know any better, and is trying to save to the CD! "Change Directory" and choose someplace on your C: drive.

But then, I could be wrong, and it could just be stupid. 😁

That's not how it works. The batch file for the game sets the working drive as the local hard drive on which the game is installed. It access most files off of the cd, but, when working correctly, saves and loads games from the hard drive. Also, there's no option in the game to change the save game directory or drive. That's all determined by the batch file that runs the game. I've tried editing the batch file to run the game and save and load games from the zip drive, but this too gives a disk full error. That game is not attempting to save to the cd drive. Also, the CDROM drive light doesn't go on when the game tries to save or load. If, for some reason, it is trying to load and save game on the cd in XP (I'm not clear why this behavior would be OS dependent), there's no easy way to tell it to save and load the games at another location. I still think it might be that DOTT simply can't understand NTFS, or that GoBack 3.11 under XP's hooks don't catch DOTT's calls to the hard drive.

edelbeb wrote:

That's not how it works. The batch file for the game sets the working drive as the local hard drive on which the game is installed. It access most files off of the cd, but, when working correctly, saves and loads games from the hard drive. Also, there's no option in the game to change the save game directory or drive. That's all determined by the batch file that runs the game. I've tried editing the batch file to run the game and save and load games from the zip drive, but this too gives a disk full error. That game is not attempting to save to the cd drive. Also, the CDROM drive light doesn't go on when the game tries to save or load. If, for some reason, it is trying to load and save game on the cd in XP (I'm not clear why this behavior would be OS dependent), there's no easy way to tell it to save and load the games at another location. I still think it might be that DOTT simply can't understand NTFS, or that GoBack 3.11 under XP's hooks don't catch DOTT's calls to the hard drive.

NTFS has nothing to dow ith this. No game that I know of ever complained about NTFS (and I run eveything off NTFS). There should be an option to change directory on the Open/Save box itself. Then again, it could be a bug in WinXP. Try ScummVM from SourceForge for a change. 😀

V.

No game complained about it... except for the ones that you couldn't run at all, right, Vlad? 😉

In any case, I'd say that the first thing to try is to shut off GoBack. I've got only an idea of WHAT it does, and no idea of HOW it accomplishes it, but it seems like a first step.

And yes, Vlad is correct, there's no difference to ANY program if it's a FAT, FAT32, or NTFS partition. (It's all handled by the OS.)

AFAIK, ScummVM doesn't work with any of the "newer" LAC games (anything running with sound card support), but I haven't tried it, so I could be wrong.

That was me with the first reply.

Quick And Easy here - http://www.mixnmojo.com/temp/quickandeasy3.exe
And yes its ugly, but it was my first program and written in vb. A new, much improved version written in delphi, is in the works and should be released fairly soon.

Unfortunately its nothing to do with goback its a weird bug that occurs with the cd scumm interpreter on 2k/xp using vdmsound.

I think theres a DOTT floppy patch on lucasarts, that should work, just use the floppy interpreter(exe) to play.

ScummVM is quite good with the newer LEC games now and DOTT works. BTW if you'r looking for a scummvm frontend i'll be releasing mine in a couple of days:p

Great stuff, Bgbennyboy! I'll add it all to Deep Thought's database.

quickandeasy does the job, with one minor problem. In order to work, quickandeasy apparently needs to be installed on the c: drive, or at least the same drive as VDMSound. It also give a joystick error (no problem, just click continue), and in SamNMax, gives an "Unplayable" error referencing heap space but runs fine anyway. I'm delighted just the same, since the games play well. Thanks.

Yes it needs to be installed on the same drive as vdmsound in the current version. The bat files it generates for games are a little flakey in the current version too.

The SamNMax heap space error is a consequence of the file mixnmatch and is nothing to do with quick and easy really.

But the joystick error is a new one on me, no-ones mentioned that to me so far. Could you give me a bit more detail please?

Here's the message, as best as I can retype it:

"Unable to initialize and configure emulation module 'Joystick Controller'

0x80004004 - Operation aborted
Could not locate the configuration property 'MapFile' in either of the [Joystick Controller.config] or [*.config] INI sections (see C:\QUICKA~1\samnmax.ini:244).

Do you want to continue?

Yes No Help"

Choosing continue allows everything to proceed normally. The analogous error happens with DOTT. I'm running the 5/02 update for VDMSound.

edelbeb gets the joystick error because he uses VDMSound 2.0.4 "Update 1" which needs additional entries in VDMS.INI for its enhanced joystick support. If he chooses to continue everything will be fine except that he won't have joystick support. So someone has to update the quickandeasy .ini file to add this. When LaunchPad becomes official I'd recommend using .vlp files instead of .ini files since .vlp files give full control over memory settings (and other .pif settings), and any missing values are filled in by defaults anyway, which is not the case with all .ini entries.

V.

Unregistered wrote:

Yes it needs to be installed on the same drive as vdmsound in the current version. The bat files it generates for games are a little flakey in the current version too.

The SamNMax heap space error is a consequence of the file mixnmatch and is nothing to do with quick and easy really.

But the joystick error is a new one on me, no-ones mentioned that to me so far. Could you give me a bit more detail please?

Cheers Vlad.
Ive just realised that ive made quite a few forum posts in the past and ive never actually said how good VDMSound is. Thank you very much for a wonderful program, keep up the good work.

Vlad, I was thinking of creating a NSIS installer to combine VDMSound, VDMSound Launchpad, and other qualified utilities (like Quick and Easy) into one easy installer. (Perhaps MSI has a bit more functionality, but NSIS surpasses it in most other aspects. (Hey, it's open source and it can use bzip2 compression! how much better can you get?)

Just a thought. (At the least, VDMSound Launchpad should have an installer.)

You mean NullSoft's PIMP? Does it support setting environment variables and not needing a reboot/logoff before they become effective? Does it support "upgrades" (checks DLL versions and "is this file newer, do I overwrite it or not?").
I will redo the MSI package one of these weeks using Wise IfW (I ***hate*** InstallShield-type installers). Laucnhpad will be part of the next official VDMSound installation (i.e. everything will be packaged together).

Cheers,
V.

Snover wrote:

Vlad, I was thinking of creating a NSIS installer to combine VDMSound, VDMSound Launchpad, and other qualified utilities (like Quick and Easy) into one easy installer. (Perhaps MSI has a bit more functionality, but NSIS surpasses it in most other aspects. (Hey, it's open source and it can use bzip2 compression! how much better can you get?)

Just a thought. (At the least, VDMSound Launchpad should have an installer.)

Not PiMP, NSIS. PiMP is a dumbed-down version of NSIS used primarily for Winamp plugins (though I have used it in the past for stand-alone software). At least, it was the last time I checked. They MAY have merged. (SuperPiMP|Scriptable) In any case, I'm pretty certain it can do all that you ask, and if not, you can just make registry keys 😉