My all-time favourite game is an underrated time-travel game named 'Millennia: Altered Destinies' - an old DOS game that was released back in 1995.
Up until a year ago I had two PCs - one of which was an old one just for DOS games. That PC died and I moved house and got rid of the other PC - so now I've just got Macs - but miss my old DOS gaming days.
I've got a few DOS games running under DOSBox on OS X without any problems - but I cannot for the life of me get Millennia working on it (even though it's listed as "supported" over at http://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?showID=2265&letter=M)
I found an old thread on here (Millennia) that seems to have been inactive since 2006 and is primarily aimed at Windows XP users (VDMSound doesn't run on OS X).
I have two macs - one is Intel, the other is PowerPC. I've tried using DOSBox on both and have configured the preferences to make sure that there's more than enough memory for the game to run - but the moment it does (where it would normally be accessing the disc) is when DOSBox quits completely. It makes no difference if I've mounted the CD from the optical drive or from a folder on my hard disk.
I've also tried it under VirtualPC on my PowerPC mac. I've got DOS 7.1 running on there and spent ages configuring config.sys and autoexec.bat to make sure that I have enough EMS memory running etc.
Under VirtualPC I can get the fmv at the beginning to run. That's not a problem. It then throws up the loading screen - which is fine. However, the moment that it jumps into gameplay the entire game freezes and won't do anything.
So I'm at a loss. DOSBox is supposed to support it, but I can't get it to do anything other than crash. And VirtualPC seems to work for the most part, but freezes when the game itself starts to run. I'm having no luck and wondered if anyone on here might possibly have some ideas?
This is my preference file. Everything works fine with all my other DOS games.
1### ____ ___ ____ ____ ___ _____ ____ 2### | _ \ / _ \/ ___|| __ ) _____ __ / _ \|___ |___ \ 3### | | | | | | \___ \| _ \ / _ \ \/ / | | | | / / __) | 4### | |_| | |_| |___) | |_) | (_) > < | |_| | / / / __/ 5### |____/ \___/|____/|____/ \___/_/\_\ \___(_)_/ |_____| 6### 7### Lines starting with a # are commentlines. They are used to (briefly) document the effect of each option. 8### 9 10# 11# Graphics output settings 12# 13[sdl] 14# fullscreen -- Start dosbox directly in fullscreen. 15fullscreen=true 16# fulldouble -- Use double buffering in fullscreen. 17fulldouble=true 18# fullresolution -- What resolution to use for fullscreen: original or fixed size (e.g. 1024x640, 1280x854) 19fullresolution=1024x640 20# windowresolution -- Scale the window to this size IF the output device supports hardware scaling. 21windowresolution=original 22# output -- What to use for output: surface,overlay,opengl,openglnb 23output=opengl 24# autolock -- Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen. 25autolock=true 26# sensitiviy -- Mouse sensitivity. 27sensitivity=100 28# waitonerror -- Wait before closing the console if dosbox has an error. 29waitonerror=true 30# priority -- Priority levels for dosbox: lowest,lower,normal,higher,highest,pause (when not focussed) 31# Second entry behind the comma is for when dosbox is not focused/minimized. 32priority=higher,normal 33# mapperfile -- File used to load/save the key/event mappings from. 34mapperfile=mapper.txt 35# usescancodes -- Avoid usage of symkeys, might not work on all operating systems. 36usescancodes=true 37 38# 39# Render quality settings 40# 41[render] 42# frameskip -- How many frames dosbox skips before drawing one. Use higher values on slower machines. 43frameskip=0 44# aspect -- Do aspect correction, if your output method doesn't support scaling this can slow things down! 45aspect=true 46# scaler -- Scaler used to enlarge/enhance low resolution modes. 47# Supported are: none,normal2x,normal3x,advmame2x,advmame3x,hq2x,hq3x,2xsai,super2xsai,supereagle, 48# advinterp2x,advinterp3x,tv2x,tv3x,rgb2x,rgb3x,scan2x,scan3x 49# If forced is appended (like scaler=hq2x forced), the scaler will be used even if the result might not be desired. 50scaler=normal2x 51 52# 53# System emulation settings 54# 55[dosbox] 56# language -- Select another language file. 57language= 58# memsize -- Amount of memory dosbox has in megabytes. 59memsize=48 60# machine -- The type of machine tries to emulate: hercules,cga,tandy,pcjr,vga
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61machine=vga 62# captures -- Directory where things like wave,midi,screenshot get captured. 63captures=/tmp 64 65# 66# CPU tuning settings 67# 68[cpu] 69# core -- CPU Core used in emulation: normal,simple,dynamic,auto (switches from normal to dynamic if appropriate) 70core=normal 71# cycles -- Amount of instructions dosbox tries to emulate each millisecond. 72# Setting this value too high results in sound dropouts and lags. You can also let DOSBox guess the 73# correct value by setting it to max. The default setting (auto) switches to max if appropriate. 74cycles=max 75# cycleup -- Amount of cycles to increase/decrease with keycombo. 76cycleup=1000 77# cycledown Setting it lower than 100 will be a percentage. 78cycledown=1000 79 80# 81# Global audio settings 82# 83[mixer] 84# nosound -- Enable silent mode, sound is still emulated though. 85nosound=false 86# rate -- Mixer sample rate, setting any devices higher than this will probably lower their sound quality. 87rate=22050 88# blocksize -- Mixer block size, larger blocks might help sound stuttering but sound will also be more lagged. 89blocksize=2048 90# prebuffer -- How many milliseconds of data to keep on top of the blocksize. 91prebuffer=10 92 93# 94# Midi emulation settings 95# 96[midi] 97# mpu401 -- Type of MPU-401 to emulate: none, uart or intelligent. 98mpu401=intelligent 99# device -- Device that will receive the MIDI data from MPU-401. 100# This can be: default,alsa,oss,win32,coreaudio,none 101device=coreaudio 102# config -- Special configuration options for the device. In Windows put the id of the device you want to use. 103# See README for details. 104config= 105 106# 107# Digital soundcard settings 108# 109[sblaster] 110# sbtype -- Type of sblaster to emulate: none,sb1,sb2,sbpro1,sbpro2,sb16 111sbtype=sb16 112# sbbase,irq,dma,hdma -- The IO/IRQ/DMA/High DMA address of the soundblaster. 113sbbase=220 114irq=7 115dma=1 116hdma=5 117# mixer -- Allow the soundblaster mixer to modify the dosbox mixer. 118mixer=true 119# oplmode -- Type of OPL emulation: auto,cms,opl2,dualopl2,opl3 120# On auto the mode is determined by sblaster type. All OPL modes are 'Adlib', except for CMS. 121oplmode=auto 122# oplrate -- Sample rate of OPL music emulation. 123oplrate=22050 124 125# 126# Gravis Ultrasound emulation settings 127# 128[gus] 129# gus -- Enable the Gravis Ultrasound emulation. 130gus=false 131# gusbase,irq1,irq2,dma1,dma2 -- The IO/IRQ/DMA addresses of the Gravis Ultrasound. (Same IRQ's and DMA's are OK.) 132gusbase=240 133irq1=5 134irq2=5 135dma1=3 136dma2=3 137# gusrate -- Sample rate of Ultrasound emulation. 138gusrate=22050 139# ultradir -- Path to Ultrasound directory. In this directory there should be a MIDI directory that contains 140# the patch files for GUS playback. Patch sets used with Timidity should work fine. 141ultradir= 142 143# 144# PC speaker emulation settings 145# 146[speaker] 147# pcspeaker -- Enable PC-Speaker emulation. 148pcspeaker=true 149# pcrate -- Sample rate of the PC-Speaker sound generation. 150pcrate=22050 151# tandy -- Enable Tandy Sound System emulation (off,on,auto). 152# For auto Tandysound emulation is present only if machine is set to tandy. 153tandy=auto 154# tandyrate -- Sample rate of the Tandy 3-Voice generation. 155tandyrate=22050 156# disney -- Enable Disney Sound Source emulation. Covox Voice Master and Speech Thing compatible. 157disney=true 158 159# 160# Joystick emulation settings 161# 162[joystick] 163# joysticktype -- Type of joystick to emulate: auto (default), none, 2axis (supports two joysticks), 4axis, 164# fcs (Thrustmaster), ch (CH Flightstick). 165# none disables joystick emulation. 166# auto chooses emulation depending on real joystick(s). 167joysticktype=none 168# timed -- enable timed intervals for axis. (false is old style behaviour). 169timed=true 170# autofire -- continuously fires as long as you keep the button pressed. 171autofire=false 172# swap34 -- swap the 3rd and the 4th axis. can be useful for certain joysticks. 173swap34=false 174# buttonwrap -- enable button wrapping at the number of emulated buttons. 175buttonwrap=true 176 177# 178# Serial port settings 179# 180[serial] 181# serial1-4 -- set type of device connected to com port. 182# Can be disabled, dummy, modem, nullmodem, directserial. 183# Additional parameters must be in the same line in the form of 184# parameter:value. Parameter for all types is irq. 185# for directserial: realport (required), rxdelay (optional). 186# for modem: listenport (optional). 187# for nullmodem: server, rxdelay, txdelay, telnet, usedtr, 188# transparent, port, inhsocket (all optional). 189# Example: serial1=modem listenport:5000 190serial1=dummy 191serial2=dummy 192serial3=disabled 193serial4=disabled 194 195# 196# DOS and BIOS settings 197# 198[dos] 199# xms -- Enable XMS support. 200xms=true 201# ems -- Enable EMS support. 202ems=true 203# umb -- Enable UMB support. 204umb=true 205# keyboardlayout -- Language code of the keyboard layout (or none). 206keyboardlayout=none 207 208# 209# Novell's NetWare network settings 210# 211[ipx] 212# ipx -- Enable ipx over UDP/IP emulation. 213ipx=false 214 215# 216# AUTOEXEC.BAT 217# 218[autoexec] 219@ECHO OFF 220MOUNT C /Applications/DOSBox/ 221MOUNT D /Applications/DOSBox/AFUCD/ -ioctl -t cdrom 222MOUNT E /Applications/DOSBox/STJRCD/ -ioctl -t cdrom 223MOUNT F /Volumes/MILLENNIA -t cdrom 224C: 225# # IPXNET STARTSERVER 2130 226# # IPXNET STATUS
I've tried using the -ioctl and -aspi commands when mounting the cdrom - and done it from a copy of the disc on my hard drive, but it makes no difference.