I would start by disabling the unwanted sound devices in dosbox.conf. Find the lines that says "gus=true", "speaker=true", "disney=true", etc, etc, and set them all to "false", leaving just "sblaster" enabled. Perhaps you can also try different types of "sblaster": sb1, sb2, sbpro, etc, etc.

Search the forum for "innocent until caught"
The solution is the same.

Thank you very much. I will try to do, what you are adviced for Innocent. Maybe itll be work, but thnx anyway.

Hello there!

I am using DOSBox for such a long time, I can't even remember. It's definitely one of the greatest progs around I can't imagine using my PC (after I resigned from Win 98 SE) without it. A big thank You to all, who made it (or just a part of it).

But this game really gets on my nerves - I rememeber playing it and hearing really superb tunes playing on my good old Sound Blaster AWE32, but now I am not able to use that soundcard, and DOSBox was obviously the only solution to use (VDMSound really sucks IMHO : P). The only problem is, the sound is not playing - I get the:

"
Sound blaster enviroment not set
- SOUND DISABLED
Press any key to continue
"

error and games runs fine - only without the sound. So my situation looks quite grim with this one.

HG.BAT is theoretically needed to run the game.
It's listing is:

"
@execute\hgmain
@mem > tmp
@del tmp
"

I tried to directly run HGMAIN.EXE from EXECUTE subdirectory (as the .bat is quite simple) - alas, I got another error message:

"
Couldn't get configuration details
"

and it exited to DOS : P So far, so bad. I tried relocating/copying directories containing the configuration - I only got a new error, when I didn't copy some directories containing the REST of the game 😀. When I copied them all, all I got was the first error message.

So I tried to copy the configuration file (HG.CON) from DATA subdirectory directly to EXECUTE subdir (where all .exe'cs reside). After running EITHER HGMAIN.EXE (sic) _OR_ HG.BAT (didn't matter which...), I only got the first error message. Just then my ideas ran out. I though vaguely of changing some directory associations in DOSBox configuration, but I gave up - I did some changes here and there, but I am hardly an expert. Rather a beginner : P

And alas, this game seem to be VERY problematic. I've searched the forum for the solution suggested above by robertmo and frankly, I got lost reading various topics and didn't find the right (?) topic. It was apparently easier to find the right topic back in 2004, when there were less topics here. Or maybe I just can't find a good solution. I did found two other topics, that suggested problems with sound/music with this game.

To put it shortly: I would greatly appreciate, if ANYBODY could help me with a right solution (or a link, perhaps) to run Hired Guns with ANY kind of music (and sound) using DOSBox - though I would prefer Sound Blaster (in Install/SetUp program, also Adlib and Roland is available, but SB would be just fine) !

Of course, I would frankly only listen to those tunes not running the game, if I would know how - but even if I know .VOC extension and know what to do with it, I really don't know what to do with .ETD (in SB subdir) or .RLP (in ROLAND subdir). I would greatly appreciate if someone would help me in finding a matching plugin for WinAmp, or maybe a seperate player for those formats. I zipped all those files in one archive and uploaded it to my hosting here: http://www.XXXXX.XX/hired.zip - so anybody trying to help would have these data available.
I hope I'm not breaking any laws, let me know if I do - since this game is not sold anywhere ; I don't know what is the current situation of it - I haven't seen it as freeware, but then again didn't seen any company claiming the only rights to it and not allowing to distribute the game eg on Underdogs. So I hope it's all legal and fine. Hopefully 😀

Thank You all in advance, I am impatiently awaiting for Your answer... ASAP, I hope : ) 😮

Best regards,
Kamil Zalewski

Link removed by MiniMax

To solve this problem add

@set sound=c:\

to HG.bat

The game is being anal: it needs the sound variable set even if it doesn't actually point at anything real.

red_avatar wrote:

To solve this problem add […]
Show full quote

To solve this problem add

@set sound=c:\

to HG.bat

The game is being anal: it needs the sound variable set even if it doesn't actually point at anything real.

Oh, thank You, thank You, THANK - YOU! 😀

I owe You one, You really don't know how many times I've been getting back to the same problem and still wouldn't find a fix for it (neither do I).

But You prolly don't live in Poland (Warsaw). Nevertheless, I am really, REALLY grateful for Your help! 😀

Just now I'm listening to tracks I've recorded in the game using DOSBox (the "Team Selection" theme simply rocks 😀 in .ape (also prepared some .mp3s for the mobile player 😉 At least three music themes in the game are absolutely superb - apart from the aforementioned, the Intro screen and the Options screen music. Nevertheless, "Team Selection" is simply the best, I encourage You to listen to it just once (at least) 😉

And I agree the game is anal... 'empty' sound variables pointing to pointless (guess it could be non-existent too 😉 directories , something new for me 😀

Later I'm going to record some .wav'es (again) from "Mortal Kombat I", though I had some problems there last time (couldn't set unlimited time (didn't hack the timer using eg. Game Wizard or such) or turn off the beeping at the end of the round (selecting several music options in the configurations screen didn't help - so I guess I would have to try turning off sound variables in DB 😀

Nevertheless, a big THANK YOU - one more time ! : )
Have a great week, a great December, great Christmas and New Year time and of course, a great 2009 year! 😀
Hey 😀