Hello, moderator here. Split off and edited the above post.

It's not okay to bump a thread that's been dead without any new replies for 12 years.

It's also not okay to link websites that distribute the software illegally.

StarfireTBT wrote on 2020-10-04, 18:25:

I am having a similar problem to this thread: Metaltech: Earthsiege intro problem

I want to play Earthsiege 1 but my intro is showing just the slide and nothing else. I got the game from some websites and all versions seem to have just the slide intro while one copy is allegedly even missing cut scenes and I wouldn't be surprised if the other is the same.
Where is this FLIC folder with the Intro and cut scenes? Also what is an ISO version of a game?

The entire Earthsiege/Starsiege universe is free, for the most part, from the legal owner just in case you did not realize. An ISO is a full image file of a CD/DVD so you can either burn it to your own CD/DVD or run it through a virtual optical drive utility like Daemon Tools. The light version of Daemon Tools is free. Also, to make a CD or DVD ISO image into a real disc there is a free utility called ImgBurn.

Earthsiege and it's expansion pack do run in DOSBox, but I have found it runs best in version .74 on my system for some reason. The intro plays fine as well as long as you have the ISO mounted in DOSBox. You basically want to mount your C: drive in DOSBox and then mount your optical drive which is usually D: drive in most configs. You do not need Daemon Tools to mount your ISO in DOSBox as it has it's own internal commands to mount ISO images. I also found CPU cycles in in the DOSBox conf file do need to be adjusted from "auto" to a slower speed. I find 50000 cycles pretty good. Maybe even a lower number. Earthsiege ran really well on my Pentium 90MHz system back in 1994.

The command within DOSBox to mount your C drive would be something like: "mount c c:\<path>" where path = where you want DOSBox to consider your C: drive. I usually setup a folder called "dosfiles" and make that my root DOSBox C: drive. So that would look like: "mount c c:\dosfiles" So now anything in the folder "dosfiles" is now my C: drive in DOSBox while DOSBox is running. To mount your ISO file it would be something like this: "imgmount d c:\dosfiles\<filename>.iso -t iso" So the imgmount command tells DOSBox to make D: the optical drive using the iso file in the "dosfiles" folder that you copied there. From there you can just switch over to your D: drive in DOSBox and start the install process of Earthsiege or whatever DOS game you mounted. The -t switch like "-t iso" just tells the command imgmount what you are mounting. Another example would be "-t floppy" if you were mounting a floppy image which can come in the form of an .ima or .img file as two examples. DOSBox figures out what size virtual floppy drive to use by the size of the floppy image file you are mounting.

Definitely read the DOSBox FAQ at the DOSBox website on how to use it. You can even setup scripts to launch different variant configurations of DOSBox so you don't have to constantly type these commands in. So one shortcut could be DOSBox with a mounted virtual floppy drive and 16MB of virtual RAM and another shortcut could be DOSBox with a virtual CD-ROM drive and 32MB of virtual RAM. etc.

Here is the official link to all the free Earthsiege/Starsiege games and it even has the Sony PS2 game as well that you can run in a PS2 emulator or burn and play on a real PS2.

https://www.tribesuniverse.com/

The downloads are slow because they are hosting the files on archive.org which is also the Wayback Machine. Be patient. Also, you can thank Hi-Rez Studios for releasing all of these for free. A couple of notes about the downloads. Starsiege: Tribes says "two games in one", but it only has the download for the Starsiege game and NOT the Tribes 1 game. It was a two CD game with each game on their own respective CD. Unfortunately, Hi-Rez Studios only uploaded Starsiege and not Tribes 1. Luckily Tribes 2 is there, though, and is the better game anyway. Starsiege is basically Earthsiege 3 just so you know. It runs rather well in WIndows 7 64, but I don't know about Windows 10. You may want to hunt for patches for these games on the internet so the games run better. Earthsiege 1 does have an expansion pack of missions, but unfortunately it was not released on that download page. You will have to obtain that on your own. It's a very good expansion and worth looking for.

Hope this helped and if anyone sees a better way than I have here please, by all means, correct me. Btw, Earthsiege is the game that made me upgrade from a 486 DX4-100 to a Pentium 90 and it was well worth it.

liqmat wrote on 2020-10-05, 14:13:

The entire Earthsiege/Starsiege universe is free, for the most part,

the original post wasn't a link to a Hi Rez site and likely was a broken CD rip....

leileilol wrote on 2020-10-07, 02:46:

liqmat wrote on 2020-10-05, 14:13:

The entire Earthsiege/Starsiege universe is free, for the most part,

the original post wasn't a link to a Hi Rez site and likely was a broken CD rip....

I figured it was something like that. I just wanted to help him find it by legal means and get that intro going. Earthsiege 1 is still a tad wonky in DOSBox, but playable. One of those games that really is better played on real hardware.

OK, sorry about continuing a dead post, I assume since my post is at the top a new thread has already been created and you don't need me to do anything but start a new thread next time. I also assumed any link to an illegal site is bad, the sites I linked are the official site to the Earthsiege franchise so I assume that is legal and the other site only hosts abandonware and links to sites where games can be legally purchases such as GOG so I am very certain they are a legal site.
I am ready to try mounting, I tried it long ago but couldn't figure it out but it sounds simple enough, just type the right commands to the right addresses in my computer. I usually use a type of front end program called Launch-Box but that isn't giving me the game with an intro that isn't slides and one of the sites that hosts the game says it's cut-scenes are missing. I have version .74 of dosbox included in Launch-Box.
1. I typed into DOS-BOX "mount c c:\Users\TBTOL\LaunchBox\Games\MS-DOS" where MS-DOS are all my dos games in Launch-box.
2. I typed "imgmount d c:\Users\TBTOL\LaunchBox\Games\MS-DOS\Earthsiege\Earthsiege.iso -t iso
3. I pressed enter and it said "MSCDEX installed. Drive D is mounted as c:\users\TBTOL\LaunchBox\Games\MS-DOS\Earthsiege\Earthsiege.iso
4. I didn't know what to do next as I didn't know how to switch to my d drive but I looked it up and found this site https://www.dosgamers.com/dos/dosbox-dos-emulator/mounting so I typed d: since it was my d drive and not e: but then all I got was this message "d:\>" so how do I now install the iso file? I imagine I should have a folder with all the files and not just one iso file from the offical "tribesuniverse" site.

Once you're at the D: prompt type "dir". Gives you a directory listing. Type "intsall" to install the game to your mounted C: drive. Once installed and you configure the sound card go to your C: drive and then the folder you installed it into. Command "cd" changes directory. So if Earthsiege is installed into a folder called "ES" then the command would be "cd es". Once in that folder type "es" as that is the command to start the game. Hope that helps.

StarfireTBT wrote on 2020-10-08, 18:36:

so how do I now install the iso file? I imagine I should have a folder with all the files and not just one iso file from the offical "tribesuniverse" site.

The ISO file (a CD image), once mounted, acts as if it were a CD in a virtual CD-ROM drive. As mentioned above you need to run the installer to install the game to your virtual C: drive, from the virtual D: drive.

Hope this makes it more clear!

liqmat wrote on 2020-10-08, 19:10:

Once you're at the D: prompt type "dir". Gives you a directory listing. Type "intsall" to install the game to your mounted C: drive.

I assume you mean "install" because that works, the game is installed. The game didn't install to a folder called es but to a folder called "sierra" and then another called "mtech." I typed "cd sierra" then "cd mtech" then "dir" to see the directory, then I typed "es" now nothing happens in dosbox, it's just a blank screen. The top says "Program: PLAYFLIC" if that means anything. When I installed the game I chose a complete install from the Earthsiege iso from the offical tribes universe website.
Also am I going to have to mount my games directory everytime I use dosbox as well as the iso file?

StarfireTBT wrote on 2020-10-14, 20:30:

I typed "cd sierra" then "cd mtech" then "dir" to see the directory, then I typed "es" now nothing happens in dosbox, it's just a blank screen. The top says "Program: PLAYFLIC" if that means anything.

I had a similar problem with the CD demo of the game. I think this was caused by something not being configured properly, like the sound card. I got around the issue but I'm not really sure how.

During installation, did it prompt you to configure the sound device?

When you list the contents of the MTECH directory, are there any other BAT files apart from ES.BAT?

StarfireTBT wrote on 2020-10-14, 20:30:

Also am I going to have to mount my games directory everytime I use dosbox as well as the iso file?

Yes. You can automate this process if you put the mount commands in the [autoexec] section at the bottom of your DOSBox configuration file, or you can create a BAT file that will do the mounting for you.

I got it working, I switched and the video intro isn't slides, it's a complete animation. It gets a little chopping and isn't smooth so I tried changing this part of the dosbox configuration file
core=auto
cputype=auto
cycles=auto
cycleup=10
cycledown=20
to
core=auto
cputype=auto
cycles=50000
cycleup=10
cycledown=20
as I think that's what was recommended but that didn't help so I tried setting it "cycles=50000" to "cycles=max" and that helps a little but it still is very sluggish. But it is showing. If anybody knows how to make it smoother that would be perfect but for now I am very happy to see the intro working.

StarfireTBT wrote on 2020-10-22, 21:44:

as I think that's what was recommended but that didn't help so I tried setting it "cycles=50000" to "cycles=max" and that helps a little but it still is very sluggish. But it is showing. If anybody knows how to make it smoother that would be perfect but for now I am very happy to see the intro working.

I suggest you cap cycles at 26800, that would be enough for this game:

1cycles=auto 7800 100% limit 26800

More details on this setup here. I've been using this as the default for quite a while, it seems better than using fixed cycles or max cycles without cap.

But the intro in the ES demo (which I guess is the same as in the full game) is also a bit choppy, and it seems to be unrelated to the DOSBox configuration as far as I can tell (I may be wrong though).