VOGONS


First post, by ConjurerDragon

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Years ago I played the floppy disk version of Fantasy Empires that was released in Octobre 1993 for hours and hours.

A few days ago I managed to find the 1994 CD-ROM version of the game and have some minor problems.

According to the documentation the game is supposed to run from the CD-ROM and only store savegames in a selectable folder and a small file in the C: root folder to find where it stored the savegames on the hard disk.

That works fine on my Windows ME system even without using DOSBOX.

However whenever I start the game using the "start.bat" file it always runs the soundsetup which it should do only ONCE.

Start.bat is:
@echo off
insti4cd.exe
save
if not exist sound.cfg sound.exe
fantasy
save /q

As far as I understand that it should only run the soundsetup if no file sound.cfg exists. But that file does exist in the savegame folder that I specified as H:\SSI\FANTASY\

Any idea why it ignores the existing sound.cfg or insists on running sound.exe on every start?

I tried starting the game by not using start.bat and running fantasy.exe directly - but then the game immediately crashes.

Reply 1 of 11, by Jorpho

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Well...

ConjurerDragon wrote:

only store savegames in a selectable folder and a small file in the C: root folder
...
that file does exist in the savegame folder that I specified as H:\SSI\FANTASY\

Isn't that your problem right there?

Otherwise, how exactly are you running fantasy.exe? Are you double-clicking it in Windows Explorer? What if you run it from the command prompt (after running "insti4cd.exe" and "save") ?

Reply 2 of 11, by ConjurerDragon

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Jorpho wrote:

Well...

ConjurerDragon wrote:

only store savegames in a selectable folder and a small file in the C: root folder
...
that file does exist in the savegame folder that I specified as H:\SSI\FANTASY\

Isn't that your problem right there?

No. The IFACDFAN.CFG file in C:\
should point the game to that folder as it contains this:
"HSSI\FANTASY\ M:\
which is the location of the savegame and sound.cfg file and the location of the cd-rom in m:

That should work as loading a savegame works too when the game is started.

Otherwise, how exactly are you running fantasy.exe? Are you double-clicking it in Windows Explorer? What if you run it from the command prompt (after running "insti4cd.exe" and "save") ?

I tried clicking it from the windows explorer when showing the contents of the CD-ROM.

Reply 3 of 11, by robertmo

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try dosbox

Reply 4 of 11, by ConjurerDragon

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robertmo wrote:

try dosbox

To achieve what? The game itself runs fine. If I use Start.bat and go through the soundsetup at every start then there is no other error except that I have to do the soundsetup at every start. The game even can save and load it´s savegames again that are saved in the same location as the sound.cfg file.

What would Dosbox change here?

Reply 5 of 11, by h-a-l-9000

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if not exist H:\SSI\FANTASY\sound.cfg sound.exe

1+1=10

Reply 6 of 11, by ConjurerDragon

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h-a-l-9000 wrote:

if not exist H:\SSI\FANTASY\sound.cfg sound.exe

Two questions to that:
1) Shouldn´t the path be already known because it´s in the file in C:\ that points to the savegamefolder? I know that it does not work for the soundfile but isn´t that how it´s supposed to work?

2) How do I change the batch file when currently I start the Start.bat from the CD-ROM?

Reply 7 of 11, by Jorpho

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Jorpho wrote:

What if you run it from the command prompt (after running "insti4cd.exe" and "save") ?

Did you try this yet? I reckon one of those is supposed to change the current directory somehow.

Reply 8 of 11, by ConjurerDragon

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Jorpho wrote:
Jorpho wrote:

What if you run it from the command prompt (after running "insti4cd.exe" and "save") ?

Did you try this yet? I reckon one of those is supposed to change the current directory somehow.

In Windows ME there is no DOS command prompt like in earlier Windows versions
I tried however to execute the files from the Windows explorer in the same order manually as they are started in the Start.Bat.

So first clicking insti4cd.exe then save.com and then fantasy.exe - that did not work. Clicking the first opens and immediately closes a small windows, save.com opens a dos-window that stays open and then clicking fantasy.exe leads to a crash before the game even displays the intro movie.

But I don´t understand the difference between starting Start.bat and starting the files manually that are started in start.bat automatically?

Reply 9 of 11, by Jorpho

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ConjurerDragon wrote:

In Windows ME there is no DOS command prompt like in earlier Windows versions

Windows ME only removed the ability to boot into real-mode MS-DOS. Every version of Windows has some kind of command prompt. If all else fails, just go to Start->Run and type "command".

I tried however to execute the files from the Windows explorer in the same order manually as they are started in the Start.Bat.

That's definitely not going to help.

But I don´t understand the difference between starting Start.bat and starting the files manually that are started in start.bat automatically?

It might provide some clues as to what is going on.

Reply 10 of 11, by ConjurerDragon

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Jorpho wrote:
ConjurerDragon wrote:

In Windows ME there is no DOS command prompt like in earlier Windows versions

Windows ME only removed the ability to boot into real-mode MS-DOS. Every version of Windows has some kind of command prompt. If all else fails, just go to Start->Run and type "command".

o.k. Doing that gave me a DOS-window in Windows ME. when I then changed to the CD-ROM and started the 3 programs that the batch file should start I could do so without any problems. When I started the last "Fantasy.exe" the gam started *without asking to select a soundcard* and worked perfectly. Sound worked, it found it´s savegames and gave no errors playing or later ending the game. 😀

But I don´t understand the difference between starting Start.bat and starting the files manually that are started in start.bat automatically?

It might provide some clues as to what is going on.

Currently I can either simply start the game using the start.bat from the windows explorer - the game works but it always starts the soundsetup.

Or I use start-run-command and start the 3 files in the start bat manually - the the game runs fine and remembers the soundcard and doess not ask for it.

Now is there a way to start it simply AND not have it ask for the soundsetup?

Reply 11 of 11, by Jorpho

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Did you notice if running any of those commands caused the current directory to change? Did you run "save /q" after running Fantasy?

One possibility that comes to mind is that the .bat file is running the commands too quickly, but even if there was a good way to add a delay between the execution of each command, you can't edit the start.bat file on the CD.