Run setup or install and make sure the SB IRQ is set to 7 (or let it autodetect, I think Duke does that), or follow the 60 seconds guide and install it fresh.

Thanks for your reply, Dominus. I reinstalled it, but it still won't work. I have been playing Duke Nukem 1, 2 and Duke 3D on my XP computer for years. I've not needed DOSbox for any of them. Here's the really odd thing: while I was reinstalling it, I was reading the booklet that came with the Duke 3D disk. Under system requirements it says 8 mgs of RAM required. But the desktop running XP only has 4 mgs of RAM. Go figure.
I am not crazy. I have been playing Duke 3D Ver. 1.3 on that computer until this last time I tried to play it.

I don't know how to set the SB IRQ, and if Duke autodetects it, it didn't.

Then I tried to install it on a laptop with Windows 7. Wouldn't install. It says: The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need an x32 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher.

You need to install it in DOSBox, not just play it in DOSBox.

Do you have to use DOSBox or the command prompt?

eduke32 runs DN3D quite well and will perform much better than DOSBox on that POS P4.

Tempest in a teapot on the XP machine. Although I reinstalled it, I had forgotten to run Setup, which DOSBox pointed out. The sound is screwed up, so I don't use it. But the game does run in DOSBox. I'm just surpised it works, considering the RAM discrepancy I mentioned.

And then there's eduke32 on the Windows 7 machine. After my post I did some researching. I downloaded suggested files, copied required files from the installation disk, and when I run eduke32 the game plays, without the use of DOSBox.

So it seems my problem is resolved. Thanks everyone. I hate the fact that Microsoft has taken DOS away from those of us who enjoyed working with it.

Just one question to Collector: I don't understand what you mean by installing a game in DOSBox. Whenever I play a game that must use DOSBox, I indicate where the game is on my computer and have had no problems. How would you "install" a game in DOSBox?

by following the 60 seconds guide 😀
(basically doing what you would be doing with real DOS)
Some games *will* have problems or just won't run if the paths in DOSBox don't reflect the paths that were used when you installed them.

Susan wrote:

Just one question to Collector: I don't understand what you mean by installing a game in DOSBox. Whenever I play a game that must use DOSBox, I indicate where the game is on my computer and have had no problems. How would you "install" a game in DOSBox?

In short, "as usual", experienced answer = "INSTALL.EXE".

I'm not sure that's what Collector meant. Of course you have to install a game on a computer before you can play it. And DOSBox has a particular set of commands necessary to play an installed DOS based game. I just didn't understand what was being said by: "You need to install it in DOSBox, not just play it in DOSBox." It was a curious statement (to me).

What collector meant is what I wrote. For some games it is best to install them within dosbox not outside of dosbox.

Susan wrote:

Under system requirements it says 8 mgs of RAM required. But the desktop running XP only has 4 mgs of RAM. Go figure.

I assure you with absolute confidence that you were not running XP on a computer with "4 mgs of RAM". Most likely the computer had 4 gigabytes of RAM. There is no discrepancy here.

As Dominus suggested, if you are going to use DOSBox for this, you need to follow the 60 Seconds Guide, which describes how to install a DOS-based game from its original media. This is not at all uncommon.

You are absolutely right, Jorpho. The game requires 8MB of RAM. I misread my XP machine's RAM as MGs instead of GBs (duh). I'll have to go to the website and read up on the 60 Seconds Guide. Thanks.

Susan wrote:

I misread my XP machine's RAM as MGs instead of GBs (duh).

For future reference, the proper abbreviation of Megabytes is MB, not MGs.

... And leaving the B lowercase makes it Megabits, which is eight times smaller: Mb 😀

Apologies if you know this already, just nitpicking much like Jorpho 😉

I knew that, but my fingers forgot. And a hearty 1024 to you Stiletto. Thank you all for your advice, comments and critiques. Now let's just move along to repeatedly smacking someone else over the head with a newspaper, shall we?

Susan wrote:

I knew that, but my fingers forgot. And a hearty 1024 to you Stiletto. Thank you all for your advice, comments and critiques. Now let's just move along to repeatedly smacking someone else over the head with a newspaper, shall we?

Fair enough, my apologies 😀