After messing with this for hours, I finally got it to install. But when I try to run it, I get a CD not found error. I think it has to do with dosbox converting filenames into the 8.3 format--so MPC_BONUS_2 becomes M~1 or something like that. Then when the program tries to access the data with a hardcoded path, it gets an error.

I tried mounting the CD with the label option, but it still doesn't work. Any ideas?

As far as I know DOSBox do not convert filenames (except for maybe some lower/uppercase allowances).

Dark Sun 2 is a 1994 game so it surprises me dearly to see it have names that don't use the 8.3 format. Not only that but on my Dark Sun 2 (Wake of the Ravager) there was not a single file that even resembled the example you gave in name.

Dosbox would of course convert the names, as would any real DOS so the problem is most likely linked to you having an odd version of the game. Where did you get it?

Also, the copy I made of my CD was done dead easy to do. I very highly doubt that a game of that age would have any protection on the CD itself so I would encourage you to find better programs to make bin/cue files (iso is not recommended). Then try again.

MiniMax wrote:

As far as I know DOSBox do not convert filenames (except for maybe some lower/uppercase allowances).

It doesn't exactly convert them, but it alters the name to fit in the 8.3 scheme - so the example he gave would be 11 letters long meaning Dosbox would change it to MPC_BO~1 - but like I said its an old game and it wouldn't have had names like that if it's an original CD he has.

red_avatar wrote:

It doesn't exactly convert them, but it alters the name to fit in the 8.3 scheme - so the example he gave would be 11 letters long meaning Dosbox would change it to MPC_BO~1

That is DOSBox doing this?? Are you sure? If anything, I would assume it was something the host operating system did (e.g. Windows) and DOSBox simply choose to use the 8.3 names. I doubt any 8.3 "alteration" will happen when running on say Linux or MacOSX.

dosbox does the conversion. it is even different from the host translation.
(ask frontend maintainers about the horrors of that 😀 )

Well the mount command and suchlike obviously need to be able to handle files longer than the 8.3 standard because it deals with drives and folders outside of a DOS environment but any files I read inside Dosbox on a mounted drive are altered to fit the standard which is only logical because otherwise there's not way DOS programs could even handle them.

Thanks for the help. I think I was wrong about the long filenames being a problem--I can actually run the game now, but without sound. The reason I mentioned the long filenames is that I bought the game as part of the AD&D masterpiece collection--Dark Sun doesn't have longer filenames, but the CD does. The CD root directory is MPC_BONUS_2 (11 characters), then it has the dark sun specific files. So I tried mounting it like this "mount D /media/MPC_BONUS_2 -t cdrom", and that seems to work (I'm bypassing the long directory name).

As far as imaging goes, I tried it with Nero Express. Nero writes the .nrg with a copyright warning and a read error. Then I converted it to a .iso file, and it seems to work OK--I can do an imgmount and the game will then run. No sound though. I have the sound configured for sbpro1, 220, 7, 1. Do you have any ideas on that? Thanks for all of your help.