Megadisk wrote:

I've been trying to play Zeliard in my Sega/IBM Teradrive pc. The Game loads fine from floppy , but the thing is that for some r […]
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I've been trying to play Zeliard in my Sega/IBM Teradrive pc. The Game loads fine from floppy , but the thing is that for some reason the gamepad I'm using some times its recognized, but other times don't, what could be the problem?. I've tried other gamepads, and the issue is the same.

I'm using a Sound Blaster Pro 2 CT1600 gameport with it, DOS 4.00. Of course the gamepads and gameport work ok with other games so no problem there.

I load the floppy, then I go to install which I'm prompted for the video and audio settings, then asks if I'm using a compatible IBM joystick (press yes), and according to the game manual during gameplay, to active the joystick is Ctrl+J ,but the gamepad works at times, and others don't. what's up with that?.

Any help is much appreciated.

I think it may have to do with DOS 4.00

check out http://www.sierrahelp.com/Games/ZeliardHelp.html

the game's original system requirements calls for DOS 5

QUOTE FROM WEBPAGE Linked above:

"Zeliard's original requirements:

MS-DOS 5.0 or greater
286 or better
512 KB RAM
990 KB Hard drive space
Tandy Graphics, EGA, VGA, CGA (4 color),MCGA (PS/2) or Hercules monochrome
Roland MT-32, AdLib, Tandy Sound or SoundBlaster"

^ Thanks for the reply, perhaps it is indeed related to the DOS version. But I've narrow down the problem, the gamepad will work ok in a DOS cold boot once I enter the game. But if I exit it and then comeback to it, then it won't work. I literally have to shutdown/turn off the pc in order to work each time. The Teradrive seems to be mysterious in that way 😖

Apologies for the super necro, but not many places on the net talk about this problem and I'm going through Zeliard these days and I've encountered finicky gamepad detection as well. I've discovered a good routine to make things work.

Hardware:
IBM Valuepoint DX2/66
Creative SB16 CT-2940 with a gameport which I'm using
Splitter gameport cable to joystick OUT and MIDI OUT
Roland MT-32 managed with SoftMPU
Gravis Gamepad Pro
MS-DOS 6.22

If my Roland MT-32 units is already powered one before I power the computer, the music will work fine in Zeliard, but the gamepad is absolutely not recognized. I can go into a joystick checking utility (joycheck) before running Zeliard and/or after, and everything seems fine then.

I've pinned it down to the finicky nature of Zeliard, which seems to want the DOS environment to "somehow acknowledge" the gamepad as being fully recognized as the player 1 joystick before the DOS boot sequence is finished. Then and only then do I turn on my Roland MT-32. Seems to work every time.