Originally posted by HunterZ I tried running Skynet on my PIII-550 with WinXP and VDMSound, and it has some issues:

I'm thinking this is more of a problem with the game itself. Even with the basic SoundBlaster emulation in XP, it didn't run very smoothly, only in 98SE was it smooth. I think I'd classify it as "Dislikes NT". Oddly enough, I seemed to have different problems based on audio configuration. For example, I experienced massive lag if I was using no audio at all (with only slight lag if I chose a basic SoundBlaster).

- I have to "enable basic VESA support" (make it start full-screen) for it to load, but then the music is stuttery

Make sure you're not choosing the SB16 for music as the OPL3 emulation is broken. I was unable to get MIDI working at all. maybe that's a demo problem...

- Trying to run the game in the 640x480 "hi-res" mode makes my poor 15" monitor go nuts and then turn off in a panic.

There is something very strange about the way it engages 640x480 mode. Under XP, it immediately places my monitor in "sleep" mode, and under 98SE it refused to "wake up" a couple of times (forced reboot to escape).

do remember getting the 640x480 mode to work on a friend's old computer once, so I think maybe it works better on Pentium I's and/or PCI video cards than it does on PII/PIII and/or AGP cards. *shrug*

We probably need some input from some non-NVidia people on this. I tried it on a Celeron II-566 with a Lightspeed 128 card (Tseng Labs ET6000 chip) and it worked fine in 640x480 (Win98).

Don't have the game. 🙁 Remember drooling over it when I picked up Daggerfall when it first came out and saw the video...of course at that time I actually had set up the Mech2 .SMK Intro's as a kinda of screensaver usking the player on my 95 Desktop. Yes, I am pathetic. 😎

Originally posted by DosFreak Don't have the game.

The demo is pretty easy to find and download (11 Megs).

Remember drooling over it when I picked up Daggerfall when it first came out and saw the video...

The engine's limitations were a bit much considering Quake was out at the time. DOS-only, a maximum of 4 players in multi-player mode, indoors and outdoors are treated as completely separate areas (you can't shoot outside from the inside), etc...

Think of it as the SVGA version of "Future Shock" with MultiPlayer. One good thing, as I understand it, Skynet can be used to upgrade "Future Shock". Allowing you to play that game's missions in SVGA mode...

heh. When Quake 1 came out I still had a 486DX4/100. Mech2/Duke3d on my Cirrus Logic 2mb video card looked a hella lot better than Quake 1. Still do as a matter of fact. 😉

Originally posted by DosFreak When Quake 1 came out I still had a 486DX4/100.

Same here.

.../Duke3d on my Cirrus Logic 2mb video card looked a hella lot better than Quake 1. Still do as a matter of fact.

Phbtt. Look, in most cases 2D artwork beats most 3D models. But 2D artworks lacks the flexibility I want. While Quake wasn't as "pretty", you're maneuverability was much, much better.

The best option is to have a source port/remake like DoomsDay (JDOOM, JHeretic, JHexen), where all the mechanics of the game stay the same, but you gain the far better control scheme of the "true" 3D shooters. As time goes by, we'll eventually see 3D models capture the detail that 2D sprites always had.

For example, the new D'Sparil model for JHeretic is very close to the sprite it was based on...
http://www.doomsdayhq.com/screenshots.php?num=81

Originally posted by Nicht Sehr Gut I tried it on a Celeron II-566 with a Lightspeed 128 card (Tseng Labs ET6000 chip) and it worked fine in 640x480 (Win98).

BTW, I just tried it on on the same hardware running XP.

Video ran in 640x480 on XP just fine, as smooth as in 98SE. Also, VDMSound worked fine on this setup (it has an ISA AWE32) with the MPU401 option for MIDI working quite well. Only downside (other than the "fixPopF" bug) was that I got occasional, seemingly random, lockups when using VDMSound. Using native XP emulation (choosing the basic SoundBlaster in the setup program) and MPU401 for MIDI, music and sound effects both worked. The downside of the native XP emulation is obviously a poorer sound quality.

It appears that a big chunk of the problems are coming from the video card side of things...

P.S. I noticed on the image of the SkyNET box (from the U.K. at Movygames.com) that it has a label stating "SVGA Non Matrox Compatible".

Will see if I can download this tommorow. May give it a shot.

Well guys,

is there a solution on this one? Got Future Shock & SkyNET (setup detected Future Shock) and he tries to change to 640x480 but it looks weird (screen is black except of the upper 1/5 area of the monitor which seems "pressed" to the edge.) I'm lookin forward to play it in 640x480 but how? Is there a way to contact the VDMSound makers to tell them about that?

And I experience several random crashes (Back to DOS) too, from where I have to reactivate with DOSDRV to play the game with Sound emu.

Greetings,
Cab

VDMSound is no longer developed. The game is highly unstable in DOSBox as well the last time I tried (a couple months ago).

I should also mention that SkyNet (not sure about Future Shock) does some bad things with 640x480 mode switching in pure DOS, as it blew out a monitor of mine once and looked scrambled on another monitor. This would be a good game for wd and/or vasyl to look at in DOSBox to see what it's doing.

Blew out your monitor? 😳
How to contact one of these two fellas? It would be very nice to play in hi-res because low-res gives you a headache. It's not very eye-friendly. And I think that Future Shock and SkyNET would run very slow on DosBOX like I experienced in the buggy game (=senseless random crashes) "Quarantine 2 Road Warrior".

Greetings,
Cab