Armored Fist 2 \ VOGONS

Armored Fist 2

Topic actions

First post, by Sheriff Hobbes

Posted on 2009-04-18, 17:58

Sheriff Hobbes Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 55
Joined: 2009-04-17, 06:58

Hi guys,

I'm new to DOSBox, but not new to DOS, I have started my "gaming career" with DOS games and I have lots of them. I still have a running native DOS computer, but I started testing all my games with DOSBox, mainly for convenience purposes and because my old PC may die one day. I will list all the games I couldn't get to run here. This will a) improve the BOSBox game database and b) hopefully help me getting more games to run. 😀
This is the first problem description. I will always follow the guidlines for help requests.

1.Motherboard: a) Asus P5LD2 SE
b) Asus A8V-VM

2.Processor type and speed: a) Intel Core 2 6600 (2 x 2.66 GHz)
b) AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ (2 x 2.2 GHz)

3.Amount and type of RAM: a) 2 GB DDR2
b) 4 GB DDR

4.Video board w/ RAM amount and type: a) Asus GeForce 7900 GTX, 512 MB
b) Xpert Vision GeForce 7100 GS, 128 MB

5.Sound board: a) Creative Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
b) Creative Soundblaster Audigy

6.Operating system: a) Windows XP
b) Windows Server 2008

7.Game name (and version, if applicable): Armored Fist 2

8.Description of problem: During loading of any level, DOSBox crashes with the following error info:
AppName: dosbox.exe AppVer: 0.72.0.0 ModName: dosbox.exe
ModVer: 0.72.0.0 Offset: 00095800

9.Reproducibility of problem (always, only once, always but only on a specific level, etc.): always

10.Sound mode used: SB16

11.Video mode (Software, OpenGL, Direct3D, or Glide, and resolution): opengl, surface

12.Version of emulator: DOSBox 0.72 with Frontend D-Fend 0.6.1

13.Steps already attempted to solve the problem (please say you've read the README if you haven't, and READ IT IF YOU HAVEN'T!): Yes I've read the whole readme. So far I've tried the following:
- Tested all combinations of memory settings (amounts of MB, Loadfix, XMS, EMS, UMB)
- Tested all other supported DOSBox versions (0.70, 0.71)
- Game works perfectly with same install media on real DOS

As you can see I always test with two totally different platforms [a) and b)].

Thanks,
Sheriff Hobbes

Last edited by Sheriff Hobbes on 2009-04-18, 22:24. Edited 1 time in total.

Marriage is a three ring circus:
-engagement ring
-wedding ring
-suffering

H. L. Mencken

Reply 1 of 11, by eL_PuSHeR

Posted on 2009-04-18, 19:54

eL_PuSHeR Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 6570
Joined: 2003-06-20, 16:39

Congratulations, at least you posted a comprehensive report. 😎

BUT, according to Mobygames, Armored Fist 2 is A WINDOWS GAME.

DOSBox is meant for MS-DOS games.

Intel i7 5960X
Gigabye GA-X99-Gaming 5
8 GB DDR4 (2100)
8 GB GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming (Gigabyte)

Reply 2 of 11, by Sheriff Hobbes

Posted on 2009-04-18, 22:22

Sheriff Hobbes Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 55
Joined: 2009-04-17, 06:58

I wouldn't have been able to install and start it in DOS if it was a Windows game. 😉
Mobygames is wrong.

Marriage is a three ring circus:
-engagement ring
-wedding ring
-suffering

H. L. Mencken

Reply 3 of 11, by peterferrie

Posted on 2009-04-18, 23:40

peterferrie Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 649
Joined: 2008-05-08, 21:54

Yes, Mobygames is wrong. A Windows installer delivers a 32-bit DOS program.
Sheriff Hobbes, does the demo version play on your system?
That one works for me, but maybe the real game is different somehow.

Reply 4 of 11, by Sheriff Hobbes

Posted on 2009-04-19, 09:35

Sheriff Hobbes Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 55
Joined: 2009-04-17, 06:58

I don't have the demo version. The crash surprises me because Comanche 3 has the same engine as AF2 and it runs fine!

Is jyri00555 in this forum?
He made an entry at dosbox.com (http://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?showID=2988&letter=A) but what he says doesn't make sense.
He says 100% supported, but then as a note:
"Everything is fine,until the setup part. IT can't detect CD-ROM speed. Without setup ran first, the game won't run."
I guess he postet this note for version 0.63 and could get it running with 0.72. I would like to know which settings he made for DOSBox.

Just another note if anybody else would like to run the game: you need to stick to the default drive letters, which is C: for the game and D: for CD-ROM. Otherwise you will get an "insufficient memory" error! Same for Comanche 3!

Marriage is a three ring circus:
-engagement ring
-wedding ring
-suffering

H. L. Mencken

Reply 5 of 11, by peterferrie

Posted on 2009-04-19, 19:24

peterferrie Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 649
Joined: 2008-05-08, 21:54

I downloaded the demo from the download.cnet.com. It has one playable mission. Maybe you can try that to see if the problem is common.

Reply 6 of 11, by Sheriff Hobbes

Posted on 2009-04-21, 17:25

Sheriff Hobbes Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 55
Joined: 2009-04-17, 06:58

I found the reason for the problem, but no solution yet.
The game won't run from an ISO file. With the real CD it runs fine. I created the ISO several times, even with different tools.
Maybe the ISO access is too quick, so the game might skip files during level load? Is there a way to slow it down?

Marriage is a three ring circus:
-engagement ring
-wedding ring
-suffering

H. L. Mencken

Reply 7 of 11, by Sheriff Hobbes

Posted on 2009-04-21, 18:19

Sheriff Hobbes Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 55
Joined: 2009-04-17, 06:58

I found a fix!! 😀 😀
I copied the CD data to hard drive and mounted the folder as D:\, which was my CD-ROM drive letter. Works!
However, the game is pretty slow, so I will play it under real DOS as long as possible. 😉

Marriage is a three ring circus:
-engagement ring
-wedding ring
-suffering

H. L. Mencken

Reply 8 of 11, by Pickle

Posted on 2009-04-21, 18:22

Pickle Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 387
Joined: 2008-04-14, 13:15

Try making a bin/cue image

Reply 9 of 11, by rcblanke

Posted on 2009-09-07, 09:36

rcblanke Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1592
Joined: 2005-04-01, 09:44
Location: Sethanon

Just some additional stuff I found out:

* Game does indeed crash when running with an ISO or BIN/CUE (imgmount d game.iso -t iso) with either 'small' or 'normal' installation type
* Game runs fine when running from a real mounted CD (mount d e:\ -t cdrom) with any installation type
* Using reduced cycles (for example 10000) makes the loading screen fail in another way, complaining about a missing .pcx file (I suppose those live inside the big .res files). The strange thing is that, at that point, all files on the emulated cd-drive (d:) have gone missing; dir on d: displays 0 files ?!?
* Game runs fine when running with an ISO or BIN/CUE with the 'large' installation type!

Reply 10 of 11, by Qbix

Posted on 2009-09-07, 10:25

Qbix Offline

Rank DOSBox Author

Rank: DOSBox Author
Posts: 11323
Joined: 2002-11-27, 14:50
Location: Fryslan

hmm nice one to debug then. can you make a topic about on the beta forum ? It is interesting as there are more games that sometimes can't find files on a cue/bin (Xcom apoc, but there it happens random and after long playing so not very easy to debug)

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!