I would suggest that you check your sound card settings, otherwise make sure you can run these games in DOSBox to rule out damage to your files.

Try running with clean DOS start without any drivers (press F5 at boot).

Otherwise my guess is something with memory. Does Speedsys work?

kixs wrote:

Try running with clean DOS start without any drivers (press F5 at boot).

Otherwise my guess is something with memory. Does Speedsys work?

Running after F5 results in another Divide by zero.

Speedsys doesn't work, it gives me this:

"Determining system contents... CPU clock/ERROR: Divide overflow."

Great Hierophant wrote:

I would suggest that you check your sound card settings, otherwise make sure you can run these games in DOSBox to rule out damage to your files.

DOOM works under DOSBOX. Tried disabling all sound in the setup utility — same result.

Here is the image corruption freeze I've mentioned.

Have you physically pulled the sound card out and tried? Make sure any sound card settings are REM'd out of your autoexec and config files. Speedsys does not like EMM386. Do you have an add-in graphics card you can try? Any BIOS settings you've toggled?

clueless1 wrote:

Have you physically pulled the sound card out and tried?

Do you mean, to run DOOM2 or to run speedsys?

Make sure any sound card settings are REM'd out of your autoexec and config files. Speedsys does not like EMM386. Do you have an add-in graphics card you can try? Any BIOS settings you've toggled?

I actually tried both rem-ing everything and just running under F5. Originally speedsys says if there is EMM386 or anything else it doesn't like, it didn't say anything with rem-ed files and after F5. But it didn't work, too.

Either. Since neither Doom2 nor Speedsys are working, I'm just wondering if there is a hardware conflict that could be determined quickly by running without the sound card installed.

clueless1 wrote:

Either. Since neither Doom2 nor Speedsys are working, I'm just wondering if there is a hardware conflict that could be determined quickly by running without the sound card installed.

Tried that: removed the sound card, booted under F5. Speedsys doesn't work. DOOM2 allows me to a bit further (I can see the demo behind the menu) before giving me the same glitch and freezing.

Are there any BIOS settings with the word "Shadow" in it that you can toggle between enabled and disabled? Different BIOSes refer to the setting differently, so it might be called BIOS Shadow, Shadow Memory, Shadow RAM, etc. Try toggling them one at a time between tests to see if any of them might fix the issue.

clueless1 wrote:

Are there any BIOS settings with the word "Shadow" in it that you can toggle between enabled and disabled? Different BIOSes refer to the setting differently, so it might be called BIOS Shadow, Shadow Memory, Shadow RAM, etc. Try toggling them one at a time between tests to see if any of them might fix the issue.

No, there isn't.

Darn it. I have a DOS game (US Navy Fighters) that uses the Phar Lap DOS extender. This is incompatible with some motherboards unless you disable BIOS Shadowing. On my Packard Bell Multimedia C110, this game does not work and I have no BIOS settings to adjust, so I'm out of luck. On my other DOS machine, it does work and I don't even have to mess with BIOS settings. I don't know if this is what's going on with you, but your issue made me think of my own, hence why I brought it up. Hopefully someone else can give you some more things to try! Best of luck, mate.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong. A lot of you seem to assume that there is something wrong with my RAM, and so, less resource-hungry games are fine, while DOOM hits some kind of a damaged segment (that older games don't reach) in my RAM and crashes. I've just tried playing Elder Scrolls: Arena and had no issues — isn't that a resource-hungry game as well?

Also, I have 30 games installed right now. None of them had any issues with my sound or RAM. Could it be that DOS4GW error was unrelated (since it was largely resolved with an update) and it's something about ID's engines? Maybe it has issues with my integrated Cirrus Logic card? How do I check for that?

clueless1 wrote:

Darn it. I have a DOS game (US Navy Fighters) that uses the Phar Lap DOS extender. This is incompatible with some motherboards unless you disable BIOS Shadowing. On my Packard Bell Multimedia C110, this game does not work and I have no BIOS settings to adjust, so I'm out of luck. On my other DOS machine, it does work and I don't even have to mess with BIOS settings. I don't know if this is what's going on with you, but your issue made me think of my own, hence why I brought it up. Hopefully someone else can give you some more things to try! Best of luck, mate.

Well, Wolfenstein doesn't use an extender, right? I mean, the only thing these two games have in common is that they are both made by Id?

jheronimus wrote:

Also, correct me if I'm wrong. A lot of you seem to assume that there is something wrong with my RAM, and so, less resource-hungry games are fine, while DOOM hits some kind of a damaged segment (that older games don't reach) in my RAM and crashes. I've just tried playing Elder Scrolls: Arena and had no issues — isn't that a resource-hungry game as well?

Also, I have 30 games installed right now. None of them had any issues with my sound or RAM. Could it be that DOS4GW error was unrelated (since it was largely resolved with an update) and it's something about ID's engines? Maybe it has issues with my integrated Cirrus Logic card? How do I check for that?

I don't suspect RAM. The fact that so many other games work led me to believe it was an issue more along the lines of my previous post (id software's DOS extender issue with your BIOS). If that is the case, you may not be able to do anything about it. I suppose it is possible that there are other BIOS versions to try that might allow you to change this setting, but it may not be worth the risk for two games. Do you have any way to install any other video card besides the onboard Cirrus Logic? If you can disable onboard graphics and use another graphics card, that will at least eliminate that possibility.

clueless1 wrote:

jheronimus wrote:

Also, correct me if I'm wrong. A lot of you seem to assume that there is something wrong with my RAM, and so, less resource-hungry games are fine, while DOOM hits some kind of a damaged segment (that older games don't reach) in my RAM and crashes. I've just tried playing Elder Scrolls: Arena and had no issues — isn't that a resource-hungry game as well?

Also, I have 30 games installed right now. None of them had any issues with my sound or RAM. Could it be that DOS4GW error was unrelated (since it was largely resolved with an update) and it's something about ID's engines? Maybe it has issues with my integrated Cirrus Logic card? How do I check for that?

I don't suspect RAM. The fact that so many other games work led me to believe it was an issue more along the lines of my previous post (id software's DOS extender issue with your BIOS). If that is the case, you may not be able to do anything about it. I suppose it is possible that there are other BIOS versions to try that might allow you to change this setting, but it may not be worth the risk for two games. Do you have any way to install any other video card besides the onboard Cirrus Logic? If you can disable onboard graphics and use another graphics card, that will at least eliminate that possibility.

No, unfortunately, this system only has ISA slots, and I don't have any ISA videocards. And since it's an all-in-one it doesn't make sense to use anything but an integrated card (I'd have to use an external screen as well). BIOS isn't flashable to my knowledge, it's one of those Compaq F10 setups that are fairly limited.

Yeah, I know it's a system with a lot of limitations, but I've seen people on YouTube playing Doom on this machine 😀

OK, I accidentaly tried running Wolfenstein under F5 and it worked. Looks like it did have issues with my sound card. DOOM2 doesn't run in this mode, though.

I just checked the source code. Wolfenstein 3D uses EMS and XMS memory if available, but no DOS extender.

It seems there is a kind of hardware problem or conflict in your PC, and that's not specific to DOS4GW.

Could you post your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT?

Azarien wrote:

I just checked the source code. Wolfenstein 3D uses EMS and XMS memory if available, but no DOS extender.

It seems there is a kind of hardware problem or conflict in your PC, and that's not specific to DOS4GW.

Could you post your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT?

Here you go, thanks!

autoexec.bat

1LH /L:0;2,45456 /S C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /X
2LH C:\APPS\DOSKEY.COM -I
3@ECHO OFF
4PROMPT $p$g
5PATH C:\DOS;C:\APPS\PHOENIX
6PATH C:\APPS
7PATH C:\NC;%PATH%
8SET TEMP=C:\DOS
9LH /L:0;1,3104 /S C:\APPS\CTMOUSE.EXE /3
10
11@SET PHX=C:\APPS\PHOENIX
12C:\APPS\ESS\ESSCFG.EXE /A:220 /I:5 /D:1 /E:3 /B:330 /J:E
13C:\APPS\ESS\ESSVOL.EXE /V:6 /L:0 /W:7 /M:7 /C:7 /S:7 /A:0 /P:0
14SET BLASTER=A200 I5 D1 P330 T4

config.sys

1DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
2DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM HIGHSCAN I=B000-B7FF
3BUFFERS=15,0
4FILES=40
5DOS=HIGH,UMB
6LASTDRIVE=E
7FCBS=4,0
8DEVICEHIGH /L:1,12048 =C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
9DOS=HIGH