Seems to be saying "Error loading media device driver". You can try installing the CD audio driver, if you haven't already, but I don't know for a fact that the game needs it. To install the driver: Control Panel, Drivers, Add..., [MCI] CD Audio.

Critical Path: Help needed.

Thank you very much to those who helped me.
Unfortunately although I have followed to the letter the instructions in the forum I cannot make it work. The "famous" MCI message keeps on appearing.
I have an old PC with windows 3.11 and the game as well, there everything goes OK. However I wanted to make it run in my new PC, unfortunately withouth success.
Thank you very much again to ripsaw8080 and Jorpho.

Did you install the cd audio driver as ripsaw suggested?

Thans your interest, Dominus.
I did install the CD driver, however the infamous MCI message continues to appear.

hmm, too bad 🙁

Older versions of Quicktime are often problematic in DOSBox. The usual solution is to replace the old version of Quicktime with version 2.1.2 which is known to work well in DOSBox. However, you have to wrestle with certain games, and such is the case with Critical Path.

Here are the steps I went through to get the game running:

Install Windows 3.11, install SB16 sound driver, install S3 video driver. I suggest using a video driver with 640x480 resolution because the game's UI is at that res; and the game supports 8-bit or 24-bit color, so choose 256 or 64K colors (I chose the latter).

Install Critical Path. The video and audio test will fail with errors, but ignore that.

Install Quicktime 2.1.2 and let it delete old version files, don't skip deleting any files.

So far it's all been pretty standard stuff; now for the bit of wrestling the game needs. The QT installer cleaned out all the old version files in \CRITPATH\QTW, but the game insists on MCIQTW.DRV being there, so copy that file into there from \WINDOWS\SYSTEM. Only that one file needs to be copied.

After that, the game seems to work fine, at least for the early portions of it that I played through.

Something I forgot to mention in my previous comment: you may need to use an SVN build of DOSBox for this game. This is because the disc I'm working with has Macintosh resource fork data for the movie files, and SVN has a fix so those associated files are ignored, as they should be. The likely effect of the issue in 0.74 is that the movies won't play.

ripsaw:

Thanks your tips.
I did exactly what you told me. The bloody MCI message persists.
But your last post gives me a little ray of hope: What is a SVN version of Dosbox? Where can I download it?
Thanks your help again!

http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/SVN_Builds
I suggest trying a vanilla SVN build, as the custom builds based on SVN can introduce other issues.

Thank you.
Vanilla r3768 SVN is impossible to download.
This game is taking too much time considering that I can play it in an old PC anyway.
Thanks your help again.

schaetzle73 wrote:

Vanilla r3768 SVN is impossible to download.

Why r3768? That's... old.

Just try the latest one (r3827):
http://www.emucr.com/2013/03/dosbox-svn-r3827.html?m=1

Vilerancour: Thanks a lot!
With the SVN proposed by you the game works!
Now two doubts:

1) How can I reach the conf file in the SVN?

2) What is the difference between the Dosbox 074 and the SVN that makes the game work? If the explanation is too difficult I suggest you do not answer the question.
Question number 1 however is very importan to avoid mounting the c: directory and the d: directory everytime I llunch the SVN . Directories c and d I need for the game to be mounted.

Thank you again!

1) Check the Status window when you start DOSBox. It will show "CONFIG:Loading primary settings from config file ..." - following that is the path to the .conf.

2) As ripsaw8080 said -

ripsaw8080 wrote:

the disc I'm working with has Macintosh resource fork data for the movie files, and SVN has a fix so those associated files are ignored, as they should be.

VileRancour:

Thank you very much. Everything goes perfect now.
I do not have the slightest idea of what a "Macintosh resource fork data for movie files" is. But thank you anyway. I suppose that the technical explanation would take too long and I do not want to abuse of your time.
It has been a pleasure being aided by all of you. The final objective has been reached.
Thank you!

*Censored*
Setup is breaking with the message "Error - could not copy file: THREED.VBX -> C:\WINDOWS\THREED.VBX".

Gamecollector:

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

My copy of this game have died from the age. I can't even install it - the result is this message. Funny thing is - there is no bad blocks on cd. 😀
No matter - I have already replaced my copy...