Damn! I guess It must be my luck. Got US navy fighters Gold today. It installed fine, but I can't run it. If I try to run it from windows I get a blank DOS screen with the blinking thing where you type, in the corner. If I try to run it through dos directly, it asks me for the CD.

How are you booting into dos?
Boot disk, Shortcut on desktop, Restart in dos mode from Shutdown screen?

chinny22 wrote on 2023-01-23, 12:16:

How are you booting into dos?
Boot disk, Shortcut on desktop, Restart in dos mode from Shutdown screen?

From Shutdown screen.

In this case you should have 2 files in c:\
autoexe.dos and config.dos.

Which are automaticity renamed autoexec.bat and config.sys when you reboot into dos mode.
If you copy the contents of both files here we can see what's been loaded and what may be missing.

Also I'm guessing D: drive is your CD-ROM? This will need drivers to work in dos
Dos does not support scrolling.
Win9x is alot more fragile then NT versions, blue screens were just one of those things back when these PC's were daily drivers. The occasional hang isn't anything to worry about.

> My specs are in my signature.

Some people don't care for, and disable, signatures - so they don't see those specs. Also, you might later update your sig, which could make earlier questions referencing them nonsensical to read. Just include all important stuff in the post itself. Treat it as self contained.

Now, to not derail the thread further:

> How do I scroll in DOS?

I'll assume you mean text mode, not a graphical one? There's no scrollback, but there's a couple ways to show text one screenful at a time. You can pipe stuff into the "more" command. Some commands also have parameters for pagination, like "dir /p".

Seems that the OP isn't familiar with DOS. "Restart in MS-DOS Mode" from the shutdown screen only executes the DOSSTART.BAT, located in C:\WINDOWS and doesn't run CONFIG.SYS nor AUTOEXEC.BAT.

For something friendlier to beginners, I recommend Phil's MS-DOS Mode Super Easy.

Lastly, get an ISA sound card as a companion for the best sound compatibility in MS-DOS mode. The motherboard mentioned in OP's signature (at the time of this writing, QDI Advance 10T) at least has one ISA slot.

elszgensa wrote on 2023-01-23, 14:00:

> My specs are in my signature. […]
Show full quote

> My specs are in my signature.

Some people don't care for, and disable, signatures - so they don't see those specs. Also, you might later update your sig, which could make earlier questions referencing them nonsensical to read. Just include all important stuff in the post itself. Treat it as self contained.

Now, to not derail the thread further:

> How do I scroll in DOS?

I'll assume you mean text mode, not a graphical one? There's no scrollback, but there's a couple ways to show text one screenful at a time. You can pipe stuff into the "more" command. Some commands also have parameters for pagination, like "dir /p".

Yes, Fixed. I didn't know you could disable Sigs.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-01-23, 14:05:

Seems that the OP isn't familiar with DOS. "Restart in MS-DOS Mode" from the shutdown screen only executes the DOSSTART.BAT, located in C:\WINDOWS and doesn't run CONFIG.SYS nor AUTOEXEC.BAT.

For something friendlier to beginners, I recommend Phil's MS-DOS Mode Super Easy.

Lastly, get an ISA sound card as a companion for the best sound compatibility in MS-DOS mode. The motherboard mentioned in OP's signature (at the time of this writing, QDI Advance 10T) at least has one ISA slot.

I was considering an older soundcard as well, But I decided to go with the soundblaster live for now, and when the need arises, plug one. Thing is, until I resolve the current issue I am having with the Soundblaster live and make sure that it's not that, which is causing the issues, I will avoid it. Let's have one issue at a time.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-01-23, 14:05:

Seems that the OP isn't familiar with DOS. "Restart in MS-DOS Mode" from the shutdown screen only executes the DOSSTART.BAT, located in C:\WINDOWS and doesn't run CONFIG.SYS nor AUTOEXEC.BAT.

As I understand it dosstart.bat calls up the to .dos files in c:\ and renames them to the correct names while in your dos session. I did have to do a quick google on this as I've always done the desktop shortcut even back in the late 90's.
I didn't know about Phils pre configured one, I'd also recommend using that at least while getting the hang of how everything works

chinny22 wrote on 2023-01-23, 15:33:

As I understand it dosstart.bat calls up the to .dos files in c:\ and renames them to the correct names while in your dos session. I did have to do a quick google on this as I've always done the desktop shortcut even back in the late 90's.

In my experience, when executing a PIF shortcut that starts MS-DOS mode with custom CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT settings, the extension of the original ones gets renamed to .WOS during the session.

IIRC, the .DOS files only appears if an older standalone version of MS-DOS was installed prior and in Windows 95, there is an option to start the previous version if the main partition isn't FAT32.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-01-23, 14:05:

Seems that the OP isn't familiar with DOS. "Restart in MS-DOS Mode" from the shutdown screen only executes the DOSSTART.BAT, located in C:\WINDOWS and doesn't run CONFIG.SYS nor AUTOEXEC.BAT.

For something friendlier to beginners, I recommend Phil's MS-DOS Mode Super Easy.

Lastly, get an ISA sound card as a companion for the best sound compatibility in MS-DOS mode. The motherboard mentioned in OP's signature (at the time of this writing, QDI Advance 10T) at least has one ISA slot.

I downoloaded Phil's solution. There is just a couple of issues. For starters on C there is no "drivers" folder. Am I supposed to create it, or is it supposed to exist already? Secondly, Videccd.sys doesn't show up in windows 98 se👻. Like I used my primary PC to both put it in a USB stick and burn on a CD, but it just won't show up. Any ideas?

flightjunkie wrote on 2023-01-23, 17:07:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-01-23, 14:05:

Seems that the OP isn't familiar with DOS. "Restart in MS-DOS Mode" from the shutdown screen only executes the DOSSTART.BAT, located in C:\WINDOWS and doesn't run CONFIG.SYS nor AUTOEXEC.BAT.

For something friendlier to beginners, I recommend Phil's MS-DOS Mode Super Easy.

Lastly, get an ISA sound card as a companion for the best sound compatibility in MS-DOS mode. The motherboard mentioned in OP's signature (at the time of this writing, QDI Advance 10T) at least has one ISA slot.

I downoloaded Phil's solution. There is just a couple of issues. For starters on C there is no "drivers" folder. Am I supposed to create it, or is it supposed to exist already? Secondly, Videccd.sys doesn't show up in windows 98 se👻. Like I used my primary PC to both put it in a USB stick and burn on a CD, but it just won't show up. Any ideas?

If you read the entire information on the site I linked, you will see the following about the supplied drivers.zip which has both VIDECDD.SYS and CTMOUSE.EXE (CuteMouse).

Extract into C:\DRIVERS. This is for the optical drive (CD or DVD) and mouse

The DRIVERS folder should be indeed created in the root of the C: drive.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-01-23, 17:15:

If you read the entire information on the site I linked, you will see the following about the supplied drivers.zip which has bot […]
Show full quote

flightjunkie wrote on 2023-01-23, 17:07:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-01-23, 14:05:

Seems that the OP isn't familiar with DOS. "Restart in MS-DOS Mode" from the shutdown screen only executes the DOSSTART.BAT, located in C:\WINDOWS and doesn't run CONFIG.SYS nor AUTOEXEC.BAT.

For something friendlier to beginners, I recommend Phil's MS-DOS Mode Super Easy.

Lastly, get an ISA sound card as a companion for the best sound compatibility in MS-DOS mode. The motherboard mentioned in OP's signature (at the time of this writing, QDI Advance 10T) at least has one ISA slot.

I downoloaded Phil's solution. There is just a couple of issues. For starters on C there is no "drivers" folder. Am I supposed to create it, or is it supposed to exist already? Secondly, Videccd.sys doesn't show up in windows 98 se👻. Like I used my primary PC to both put it in a USB stick and burn on a CD, but it just won't show up. Any ideas?

If you read the entire information on the site I linked, you will see the following about the supplied drivers.zip which has both VIDECDD.SYS and CTMOUSE.EXE (CuteMouse).

Extract into C:\DRIVERS. This is for the optical drive (CD or DVD) and mouse

The DRIVERS folder should be indeed created in the root of the C: drive.

Uhhh I think I need to rephrase that. I got the file. I can see Videccd.sys on my primary PC. But when I try to transfer it on my retro rig it does not show up in the USB stick or the CD I burned it on.

BTW a heads up I tried running the age of empires games (1 and 2) Both seem to have sound in movies, but not in game. I Also tried to re install the SB live driver to no effect.

flightjunkie wrote on 2023-01-23, 17:47:

Uhhh I think I need to rephrase that. I got the file. I can see Videccd.sys on my primary PC. But when I try to transfer it on my retro rig it does not show up in the USB stick or the CD I burned it on.

.SYS files are hidden by default in Windows 9x, go to "Folder Options" and there is a section mentioning "Hidden Files" in the "View" tab, from there either select "Do not show hidden files" or "Show all files".

I forgot to mention that important detail 😜, my apologies.

BTW a heads up I tried running the age of empires games (1 and 2) Both seem to have sound in movies, but not in game. I Also tried to re install the SB live driver to no effect.

The WDM driver that you downloaded aren't reliable. Try the following one instead which includes both WDM and VxD drivers: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=512

Phil also has a guide explaining how to make sure that the VxD driver for the SBLive! is installed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-HiLp5p820&t=300s

So I got good news, bad news, and I got worse news.

Good news is that thanks to Phil's solution, I got both CD and mouse working in dos. After that I tried running games directly through dos. US navy fighters run without a hitch, and same goes with Longbow which gave me no files and buffers error message. I'd prefer to run them from windows, but still.

The bad news are that 1) The Black knight and Tornado still complained about limited hard disk space and that is trying different dos options. Running Blark knight straight from the disk still yielded the same issues with sound, and 2) The different sound blaster driver did not work. I had the same results. wanted to try and install the VxD on its own, but then the worst happened.

And the worst is that after I uninstalled the old SB driver, It started to throw BSoD at restart. When I tried to boot to DOS, it would stay on windows and I would need to manually reboot. Eventually after a session on dos, when I attempted to restart windows it would not. After another restart, the computer stopped seeing the hard drive at all.

It might be a clear cut case of a faulty hard drive giving up the ghost, but I will have to stick another HDD in there just to make sure. After that I was considering either getting another ide HDD(I know a guy who sells and he has them tested), an IDE adapter for a sata HDD, or an IDE SD or flash card adapter with a card. Still makes me wonder if there is any correlation with other issues(especially the sound one).

About the free drive space issues - Try a smaller drive, or at least making a smaller partition. 80 gigs is way larger that games from that time ever had reason to expect to deal with, so their free space check routines may handle them incorrectly (and, for example, overflow).

flightjunkie wrote on 2023-01-22, 09:58:

DESCENT II

The first game I tried running. It seems to have speed issues. At the highest resolution it goes in slooooooooow moooootioooooooon, while in the lowest itmovesreallyfreakingfast, and I am not really sure, but it might have something to do with the Voodoo3. In regards with the sound, I did not try to recreate it, but I think, right after I started messing with the sound testing and automatic hardware detection, windows seem to started crapping out, with UI elements stop working after I tried to use them.

Descent II is just speed sensitive, nothing to do with the Voodoo card. It can become too fast even on fast Socket 7 chips. I think, it mostly affects some animations though, not the gameplay (like the ship wobbling up and down really fast when you're not moving). In late 90s people were already using source ports for that (D1X and D2X).

jheronimus wrote on 2023-01-24, 16:38:

flightjunkie wrote on 2023-01-22, 09:58:

DESCENT II

The first game I tried running. It seems to have speed issues. At the highest resolution it goes in slooooooooow moooootioooooooon, while in the lowest itmovesreallyfreakingfast, and I am not really sure, but it might have something to do with the Voodoo3. In regards with the sound, I did not try to recreate it, but I think, right after I started messing with the sound testing and automatic hardware detection, windows seem to started crapping out, with UI elements stop working after I tried to use them.

Descent II is just speed sensitive, nothing to do with the Voodoo card. It can become too fast even on fast Socket 7 chips. I think, it mostly affects some animations though, not the gameplay (like the ship wobbling up and down really fast when you're not moving). In late 90s people were already using source ports for that (D1X and D2X).

A workaround is available for the 3dfx version of Descent II (both the original and D2_3dfx) by simply setting the following environment variable prior: SET FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL=2

It caps the frame rate to the half of the screen refresh rate. Example: 30 FPS if 60 Hz is set.

elszgensa wrote on 2023-01-24, 12:45:

About the free drive space issues - Try a smaller drive, or at least making a smaller partition. 80 gigs is way larger that games from that time ever had reason to expect to deal with, so their free space check routines may handle them incorrectly (and, for example, overflow).

What would be an optimal size to allocate? And aren't there any workarounds?

Anyway, UPDATE TIME!

good news! Computer started recognizing the hard drive again. What I did was to remove the battery, disconnect the hard drive and drain the computer of all power, and then run it, shut it down and reconnect everything again. Now it seems to run remarkably well, but I am not sure if it will ever happen again, or if it was an HDD issue or a motherboard issue. Maybe it was something I did on the bios. Anyhow, Another great thing is that sound now seemingly works. I tried Phil's suggestion of directly installing the driver and it seems it worked in windows games.

On the DOS front, I still can't boot USNF and Longbow through windows. And though Longbow has sound this time, I can't get USNF to have sound. See, If I want SB16 emulation to initialize, I need to start DOS with expanded memory. However In that mode, USNF will cause a reboot whenever I try to enter the hardware setup menu. I am positive that should I manage to access the hardware setup, and set up the sound, It will very likely work.

BTW I think I might install that ISA sound card when I am done with the issues. So, I got a SoundBlaster 15, an AWE32 and a SoundBlaster pro 2.0, ESS audiodrive, Vibra 16 and ALS120. I am a bit doubtful about the 16 and awe32, because although they look fine, I literally found them in the garbage.

P.S: I need to find patches for Jane's longbow as it has a very annoying bug with the sound, among other things. I could only find 1.04f but it won't install as it is asking 1.03f to be installed before.(might get gold at some point, but the original is the one I had. That's why I went with it).

EDIT: I got another update. This time with Descent II. I got sound working on that one. Strange enough I could only get sound to work on DOS, since If I tried anything on windows, DOS would crap itself and I would have to close it.

I'd actually install the ISA card now.
The SB Pro or Vibra is probably the easiest starter card as creative is the defacto card of this era.
Unlike the Live dos drivers, ISA cards don't need memory managers running so that should sort your USNF issue. Plus the cards resources (IRQ, DMA) should remain the same in both dos and windows.
I suspect the Live is been given one set of resources in pure dos and another in windows which is why games don't work in both.