Hello and welcome!

The "parameter vesa" is simply a command line switch for the executable, example: SCREAM VESA. It is supposed to force 640x480 8bpp VESA video mode, which the Voodoo3 supports.

If running it within Windows: Create a PIF shortcut of executable, select "Properties" by right clicking the shortcut, then go to the "Program" tab and lastly, add the VESA command line switch in the "Cmd Line" text input.

BTW, this isn't a Windows game and should belong to the DOS section of this forum.

Thanks for the info! Sorry for the mis-placed post. Perhaps a mod will move it to the DOS forum.
I tried what you suggested! It gets me an inch closer to success, but still not quite there. After adding the VESA command line switch as suggested, I'm no longer met with the "No supported SVGA type and no VESA VBE were detected" error. However, the program just hangs after displaying a few additional lines of bootup text. Attempting to do the same thing in MS_DOS mode results in a freeze.

Perhaps VESAFIX could help? The VBE implementation of the Voodoo3 is quite the same as with the Voodoo Banshee.

"This little tool fixes some (not all!) bugs in the VESA VBE implementation of 3DFX Banshee based gfx cards. If you have problems with some old dos VESA games/utilities try it, maybe it will solve your problem."
Mok

Although it is "VESAFIX for 3DFX Banshee" but it will work also on other chips, not only on 3Dfx. On the Matrox G550 Flight Unlimited will work only by VESAFIX.

VESAFIX brought me a fraction of an inch closer! When I run VESAFIX prior to starting the game, it appears to WANT to start! The monitor even blanks out for a second, like it's about to show the first in-game screen! But then I slam back to DOS with a "Could not initialize mouse. Mouse is missing, or not enough memory." error... Wow! What an adventure this has become!

Do you have a mouse driver loaded for DOS or MS-DOS mode?

One can be added in DOSSTART.BAT (located in C:\WINDOWS) if selecting "Restart in MS-DOS mode" thru the "Shut Down" menu.

That sounds sensible. I'm not seeing DOSSTART.BAT in C:\WINDOWS, but perhaps that file needs to be added? I've never created a .bat file before, nor have I done anything with DOS drivers in this way. Perhaps I can find a guide.

You can create it if it isn't present. Example:

1@ECHO OFF
2REM Load the mouse driver and any other thing you want.
3C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MOUSE

The batch assumes that the Microsoft Mouse driver (not included with Windows 98) is located in C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND. A popular alternative is CuteMouse (v1.9.1 or v2.0), but it isn't 100% compatible despite what many people believe.

@ECHO OFF ensures that only the application output will be displayed during the batch execution and REM is used for commenting lines. When adding executables into the batch, I recommend adding the full path where it is located.

OK! I used CTMOUSE, and the batch file technique you described. Now, when I start the game in dos by loading the exe directly, the game does run. One (hopefully) last kink to work out is an aspect of the sound. I've run SETSOUND.EXE in the game drivers folder in order to configure my sound card. Automatic detection for both MIDI and Digital Sound of my Sound Blaster 16. I'm getting the midi music when running the game, but I'm not hearing the voices or sfx which I believe are supposed to be present.

Which SB16 model do you have? Some of them are PnP, others aren't. In all circumstances, it needs sound card initialization in DOSSTART.BAT.

Windows Device Manager says it's a Sound Blaster 16 Plug and Play, hardware version 1.0.10. Now let's see, what would I add to my DOSSTART.BAT in order to initialize the sound card?
BTW, thanks for your diligent assistance with this. I'm learning a lot from you!

You're welcome! 😁

Download the following DOS driver for the SB16: http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=630&menustate=0

It does have all the essential files for initializing the sound card, CTCM (found in the ctc folder, I suggest moving that file to C:\WINDOWS) should be used in this case. Example:

1REM Just in case, I add CTCM, SOUND and BLASTER environment variables.
2SET CTCM=C:\WINDOWS
3SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
4SET SOUND=C:\SB16
5C:\WINDOWS\CTCM
6C:\SB16\MIXERSET /P /Q

Those lines must be added and ensures that the content of the ZIP file is extracted in C:\SB16. I put C:\WINDOWS for the CTCM environment variable since the Windows drivers put a file (CTPNP.CFG) in that path for the sound card resources if it is PnP.

MIXERSET is for adjusting the sound card mixer.

Edit: If anything mentioned here is a bit complicated, UNISOUND is an excellent program and being much simpler.

Cool, thanks. I'll give that a try. I'll try your suggestion first, and fall back on unisound. I'm trying it now, I'll let you know how it goes.
Another thing I just thought of was that maybe the sound card is already configured properly (since the midi sounds are working fine in game) but the audio files need to be played from the CD (maybe they're CDA tracks or something?) I have the game CD, and I could try to run the program from the disc in DOS, but I don't have CD drivers set up in my DOSSTART.BAT. Any tips on adding CD ROM drivers to my DOSSTART.BAT file?

If audio comes from the CD, you must load a DOS CD-ROM driver (try with VIDE-CDD.SYS) followed with MSCDEX. The former gets normally loaded in C:\CONFIG.SYS but there are ways to do it in a batch file with utilities such as CTLOAD.

1C:\CDROM\CTLOAD C:\CDROM\VIDE-CDD.SYS /D:CD0
2C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX /D:CD0

Well, at the moment, it seems to be working. Thanks to your help I now have sound, mouse and CD drivers when entering DOS from Windows. That's all incredibly useful, and will no doubt assist me in playing future dos games. The trick in this case turned out to be copying all the "Voices.RES" files from the original game CD into the install folder. Running the software from DOS, even with the CD inserted, didn't work. But copying all the voice files did. Unless there's some way to increase the size of my main C drive partition, I won't be able to keep the files on there forever. But for now at least, I should be able to play the game!

FYI this game is fully supported by ScummVM on modern systems.

feda wrote on 2023-06-18, 19:25:

FYI this game is fully supported by ScummVM on modern systems.

I know, there's always an easier way. And ScummVM is a gift to humanity. But I prefer to play on era-appropriate hardware. I collect old systems, and I get a kick out of the process of making games work on them. Of course I couldn't do it without the help of communities like reddit, VOGONS, and the like. But that's also part of what I enjoy about it. Reaching out through the vastness of the internet, to draw upon the knowledge of others who are willing to help. It's a good time, for me.