Go into the BIOS and disable L1 and L2 cache 😀

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Go into the BIOS and disable L1 and L2 cache 😀

The simplest workaround 😀 But yes, disabling L1 does help, thanx.

still the running command is messed up, the main character is supposes to run if you double-tap a direction button, even with a p1+L1_disabled the time window for that double tap is pretty tight... I wish there was a patch for that, moslo doesn't help much either

Yeah, it's the inability to run in faster machine that is screwing up the experience for me. I have the CD versions of AITD 1, 2 and 3. Bought long time ago, and I recently took them out to play on my 486DX2-66. Right now, only started the first game. Thought of going through the sequence, but this particular double-tap speed bug has stopped me playing, even with turbo button off and internal cache disabled. Maybe I should just play it using Dosbox, at the expense of playing it on a real machine, at least until someone makes a patch.

I beat AITD under DOSBox last month. The double tap run thing doesn't work properly there either, I presume you have to configure it manually. It's not such a huge issue as you only really have to use it only about 3-4 times in the game.

I remember playing the GOG.com version 2 years ago. All three games and getting the character to run was tricky indeed...

IIRC my brother and me played the game on a 386DX-40. I think the double tap was tricky there as well.
Just did some searching:
Mobygames says the game requires only a 286, 386SX for the CD version.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/564567-alone-i … k-1992/51894908 says the double tap works well in dosbox with 6500 cycles but the game is then choppy in some places. (Might be equivalent to a 386DX-20?)

Sounds to me that the game wasn't tested very much on faster computers even at the release date. A patch would certainly be good idea.

I had a 386DX-33 when the game was passed around at school. But I never really played it back then.

I got the GOG.com version, might have play with it and see what can be done.

Just tested in Dosbox and the double-tapping-to-run works as it should. Core = auto, cycles = 8000 in my Core i5 2500K system. (cycles = auto plays too slow).

Aren't there keyboard settings in the BIOS? You know that setting that changes how often a key is repeated when you press it?

Maybe it also needs keyb loaded or something like that?

PS: Year works fine. 6000 cycles on an i7 3770.

I have some great news for everyone with the AITD running problem 😀

Here is ripsaw8080's Halloween gift to those that want to run the game in their speedy retro rig: AITDRUN

Some info:

• Just extract it in your AITD directory and launch it with a number from 1 to 99 as a parameter (for example "aitdrun 40" )
• It acts as a loader and will automatically start the game and patch the memory location(s) affecting the game's double-tap run control function.
• It will work with EVERY known version of the game: CD and FLOPPY versions, new or old, EU or US. It's truly made to be universal. It even works fine with other loaders for the game, as long as their filename is alone.com/tatou.com/indark.exe
• The parameter 1~99 is actually a delay value for the game's countdown timer values that relate to double taping a direction so that the hero starts running.
  The game's internal stock value is 4.
  I have found that on my p1/200mmx build a value of 40 works great for the CD-ROM version and a value of 50 is great for the floppy version. With L1 disabled (which should really be done to have more proper animation speeds and avoid SB issues) these values become 15 and 20 respectively. It's not an exact science, you need to experiment and see what value works ok for you. 😊

All credit/thanks go to ripsaw8080 for this amazing loader that effectively makes the game more enjoyable on machines faster than a ~386sx , no need anymore to tap a key a gazillion times in hopes that the hero will start running away from some monster 😀 I was just lucky enough to help with testing on real hardware 😊

Download and enjoy! 😊

Wow, this is great 😀.
If I ever want to play the game again, I'll certainly try this 😁

Nice!

Someone should inform the GOG forums, if they haven't been already.

Didn't Free in the Dark (the engine remake) reach a point where the game was completable? The project is evidently quite dead now, unfortunately.

Jorpho wrote:

Someone should inform the GOG forums, if they haven't been already.

Didn't Free in the Dark (the engine remake) reach a point where the game was completable? The project is evidently quite dead now, unfortunately.

I thought about GOG forum but before I posted there I tried with their AITD trilogy since I have bought it... running works fine, they use a good number of cpu cycles and there is no problem ...

as a sidenote, the GOG trilogy is based on a later version, their AITD1 cdrom has speech on the intro. My original release cdrom does not...

a sidenote, GOG has the AITD trilogy on offer for 2$ ... you can create perfectly fine CD images from the GOG package to use on a real DOS pc if you want 😉

Yup!

Note however that it will play Audio CD tracks instead of FM. Some people don't like that 😀

Also the installer uses a graphics mode that, on many graphics card, results in messed up text on the screen on real PCs. There are TSR tools to solve this 😀

I like GOG.com for that reason. Legal access to CD images. Some images are harder to burn, but so far I haven't run into a game that I couldn't get going on my time-machine.

Eventually I will burn every CD game on a CD and have every single GOG.com DOS based game on my time-machine. No idea when I will get to it. My computer room is a mess at the moment, waiting for static bags to arrive so it can all be neatly organised.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Eventually I will burn every CD game on a CD and have every single GOG.com DOS based game on my time-machine. No idea when I will get to it.

And once you do, you'll probably only ever play three of them..?

😀

It's about the journey...