ant! wrote:

I use dosbox under Retropie

Then the first step would be to make sure you have the same problem with the same files in standard DOSBox.

To start, I used also instead of -c "c:" -c "cd SIERRA/LIGHTDOS" -c "SIER.EXE" the following: -c "cd SIERRA" -c "LIGHT.BAT", which is doing the same.

Then maybe you should try it the other way, in case it isn't "doing the same" ?

Jorpho wrote:

Then the first step would be to make sure you have the same problem with the same files in standard DOSBox.

Yes, probably I should do that, will try it out on my Ubuntu-Laptop in the next days.

Jorpho wrote:

To start, I used also instead of -c "c:" -c "cd SIERRA/LIGHTDOS" -c "SIER.EXE" the following: -c "cd SIERRA" -c "LIGHT.BAT", which is doing the same.

Then maybe you should try it the other way, in case it isn't "doing the same" ?

Tried both, it does really the same. And I had a look into LIGHT.BAT, it actually calls LIGHTDOS/SIER.EXE... So I doubt the problem is here.

Found a dosbox installer directly from Sierra (http://www.sierrahelp.com/Games/LighthouseHelp.html), will have a look into this as well. As this is for Windows and my main system is Linux, this might be the 3rd option after checking it under Ubuntu as mentioned above. Maybe having a look what their script does might already lead to a solution, let's see...

ant! wrote:

Tried both, it does really the same. And I had a look into LIGHT.BAT, it actually calls LIGHTDOS/SIER.EXE... So I doubt the problem is here.

Calling LIGHTDOS\SIER.EXE means that the current directory remains C:\SIERRA instead of C:\SIERRA\LIGHTDOS. That can make a huge difference.

But, if you tried it that way already, then maybe it changes the current directory on its own, or something.

ant! wrote:

Found a dosbox installer directly from Sierra

That is not at all official, though it is recommended.

The content of C:\SIERRA\LIGHT.BAT is the following, I think this is how it is meant to be started:

1@echo off 
2cd \sierra\lightdos 
3call CheckCD   E 
4C:\sierra\lightdos\sier C:\sierra\lightdos\resource.cfg 
5:end 
6cd .. 

So it switches the folder and calls sier.exe and the cfg-file, which probably is necessary.

Anyways, tried to install dosbox on my Kubuntu-System (installed through repositories), but somehow it always crash when I tried to start the game. I changed in the dosbox cfg only the keyboard language, mount c: at startup, and set the output window sizes (fullresolution, windowresolution), since otherwise the window is quite tiny.

Then I do the following:
Mounting the CD-isos: "imgmount.com e ~/path_to_LH1.iso ~/path_to_LH2.iso -t cdrom", which works fine.
Now starting C:\SIERRA\LIGHT.BAT -> dosbox window closes without any message. Same for calling sier.exe.

Not sure what goes wrong here since I have no error message...
Guess I will have to try still to do it under Windows with this installer.

ant! wrote:

Now starting C:\SIERRA\LIGHT.BAT -> dosbox window closes without any message. Same for calling sier.exe.

What if you launch DOSBox from a console window?

I'm not sure why it would be crashing, unless you need to change the "output=" line.

Jorpho wrote:

What if you launch DOSBox from a console window?

Good idea. Gives the following:

1~$ dosbox
2DOSBox version 0.74
3Copyright 2002-2010 DOSBox Team, published under GNU GPL.
4---
5CONFIG:Loading primary settings from config file /home/anton/.dosbox/dosbox-0.74.conf
6MIXER:Got different values from SDL: freq 44100, blocksize 512
7ALSA:Can't subscribe to MIDI port (65:0) nor (17:0)
8MIDI:Opened device:none
9DOS keyboard layout loaded with main language code CF for layout cf
10DOSBox switched to max cycles, because of the setting: cycles=auto. If the game runs too fast try a fixed cycles amount in DOSBox's options.
11Speicherzugriffsfehler (Speicherabzug geschrieben)

The last line says (in German): "memory access error (dump written)" (or something like this)

I suppose you could try to run a backtrace if you really wanted to.

I doubt this is a problem specific to Lighthouse and DOSBox; it occurs to me that it could be some strange SDL sound problem. Does Lighthouse have some kind of setup utility that includes a sound card test?

ant! wrote:

Found a dosbox installer directly from Sierra (http://www.sierrahelp.com/Games/LighthouseHelp.html), will have a look into this as well. As this is for Windows and my main system is Linux, this might be the 3rd option after checking it under Ubuntu as mentioned above. Maybe having a look what their script does might already lead to a solution, let's see...

Linux users have successfully used my installers with WINE, though you will want to replace the Windows build of DOSBox with one for your distro. You would also have to adjust the conf for Linux mountings. My Lighthouse installer uses mkisofs (Windows build) to create ISOs of the two CDs. Not sure how this would work with WINE, though if it fails the installer would continue without viable ISOs that could be replaced with good ISOs. It will also apply the official LITEPT2A patch, which includes all fixes from previous patches.

One last note, there is one version (1.1?) of the game that the 2nd CD has some files that are hard to read.

Jorpho wrote:

Does Lighthouse have some kind of setup utility that includes a sound card test?

No, just the normal Sierra installer that detects hardware and will warn you if you try to select hardware not detected.

Alright, since something wasn't working under Linux, I booted into Windows 10 (haven't used it since months, approx. 3h of updates, including long very slow reboots...). Installed dosbox and Lighthouse, not using the installer but directly. I get the game running, but I can't load my savegames (transfered both the LIGHTSG.xxx-files and LIGHTSG.CAT). I tried savegames downloaded from http://www.nicouzouf.com/en/?id=lighthousethedarkbeing as well, but they work neither. I get the savegames properly displayed in game, but after choosing them the game crashes. I can create a new savegame and load it though...

So, since I cannot load the saved files, and haven't tried to just play until the part where it crashes in Retropie, I can't say if the same problem occurs.
Any tip how to load the games?

And: What exactly is different in the Retropie build compared to the ones on the webpage?

The SCI save games are very version specific. Usually it will display an error message of wrong version, but sometimes it will just crash. Even a patch can render save games unusable. The save games downloaded were from the French version.

Yes, these were French, but I saw somewhere these were working as well in English. Anyways, my own savegames, from the same CD-isos, are also not working, only difference is the dosbox variant I am running them.
I guess if this is not working I'll have to start it from the beginning...

Did you apply the patch on one machine, but not the other?

No, no patch applied nowhere. I guess you talk about these: http://www.sierrahelp.com/Patches-Updates/Pat … useUpdates.html?
Which of them would be necessary, 2.0a? So I copy these files just into the game folder? The readme says to use LITE2FIX.EXE after, but I can't find this file, where is it, can't find it in the zip-file nor in the installed game folder? Was not looking on the CDs yet, is it there?

Don't use LITE2FIX. The only patch needed is LITEPT2A. It contains all previous fixes. Most of the Sierra patches were just 16-bit self extracting files, so I packed the contents into ZIPs for easy use on modern systems. It should be unpacked into where your patchDir specifies in your RESOURCE.CFG.

Just a quick update, had not so much time in the last days: Added the patch quickly to the Retropie installation, with no change (still crashing, and can't load the downloaded savegames). This was anyways to expect and I would have been surprised if there was a change, as the patch should not influence these.

Still have to do the same on the Windows installation, and if I can't load the savegames I have to progress through the game to check if the same crash is happening there. Might need still some days for this.