Originally posted by Systemic_Anomaly I recently dug up my ancient collector's edition of Star trek Judgement rites...

*ugh*...it returns to haunt us again...
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... and was trying to run it on my Windows XP system.

This isn't enough info. Please follow the posting guidelines and give us your memory, processor, soundcard, video card, etc... It's needed for troubleshooting...

It didnt run under WinXP, something about no EMS memory under the DOS prompt. Using the default settings, the VDMS loader pops […]
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It didnt run under WinXP, something about no EMS memory under the DOS prompt.

Using the default settings, the VDMS loader pops up, goes to a black DOS screen, flashes some loading text, then I get a black screen.

ANd i checked the settings, its set to 4mb of EMS memory.

It's quite possible that your PC has no capacity for EMS. It all depends on your motherboard and the various bits of hardware you have plugged into it.

Create a file named GO.BAT and edit it to contain the single command MEM /C, the run it with VDMSound (right-click and choose Run with VDMS), it should report something like the following:
Conventional Memory :

Name Size in Decimal Size in Hex
------------- --------------------- -------------
MSDOS 13184 ( 12.9K) 3380
KBD 3296 ( 3.2K) CE0
EMM 176 ( 0.2K) B0
HIMEM 1248 ( 1.2K) 4E0
COMMAND 3152 ( 3.1K) C50
FREE 112 ( 0.1K) 70
FREE 633984 (619.1K) 9AC80

Total FREE : 634096 (619.2K)

Upper Memory :

Name Size in Decimal Size in Hex
------------- --------------------- -------------
SYSTEM 180208 (176.0K) 2BFF0
MOUSE 12528 ( 12.2K) 30F0
DOSX 34720 ( 33.9K) 87A0
FREE 256 ( 0.3K) 100
FREE 34336 ( 33.5K) 8620

Total FREE : 34592 ( 33.8K)

Total bytes available to programs (Conventional+Upper) : 668688 (653.0K)
Largest executable program size : 633712 (618.9K)
Largest available upper memory block : 34336 ( 33.5K)

4194304 bytes total EMS memory
4194304 bytes free EMS memory

20971520 bytes total contiguous extended memory
0 bytes available contiguous extended memory
16628736 bytes available XMS memory
MS-DOS resident in High Memory Area

Cut and paste your results here.

In any case i have low-level CD support checked and low-level VESA support also checked.

Just so you know, the VESA option only makes the command prompt full-screen before the game starts, usually not needed.

My comp:

AMD Athlon 2200xp (barton)
512mb PC-2700 RAM
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
Creative labs Audigy 2

Attached is a jpeg of the results.

Well, there it is, clear as day, 4MB of free EMS memory. So, what the hell.

yo, I read the goose guys thread, his problem seems less severe than mine since he can actually get the game to RUN.

Perhaps it needs more like 8MB of EMS memory? (It can't hurt to allocate more.)

[quote="Systemic_Anomaly [/i]Attached is a jpeg of the results. [/quote] For future reference, you can reduce the command-prompt to a window, then left-click-drag a white box around the text, hit your "Enter" key, then paste the results where needed. Faster, easier, etc....

Originally posted by Snover"]
Perhaps it needs more like 8MB of EMS memory? (It can't hurt to allocate more.)

Nope. Documentation states 1024K of EMS is what's needed. I finally found my "Federation Compilation" (ST: 25th, ST: JR, and the demo of "Starfleet Academy"). Other than using Autodetect for the soundcard (causes nasty crash), it runs flawlessly as far as I can tell with 4MB of EMS.

Are you making sure that you leave your game CD in the same drive as you installed it from? Not doing so will cause what you described. Other than that, I can suggest trying to set it up to run without audio, just to see if you can get video working.

Update: I was able to run ST:JR on DosBox with caveats: No digital audio (all AdLib regardless of setup apparently) at all, and the Interplay logo at the start had to be bypassed or it would kill DosBox instantly. I wouldn't consider it playable just yet...

Amazing!

I erased my shortcut, set the Sound window to "none" (in the Collector's edition setup program, there is no option for none for the Music window), and made a brand-new VDMS shortcut.

I even left the sound in VDMS set to SB 16 (4.05).

It ran! It ran splendidly, no problems, nothing wrong at all, except for the opening cinematic, in which the sound stutters pretty badly.

It even played music with MIDI, at 11,025hz, just fine, though I set Music to none.

[Edit: Only the opening cinematic seems to be affected, maybe the CD's gone bad (I've kept it very well though, and there is no dust or scratches visible on the surface of the disk). The other cinematics are ok, though sound's a bit scratchy.]

I dunno wtf I really did, I went back into the setup program again and changed music to SB pro, same deal, everything works.

What made it work all of a sudden? Where did SARS come from? Why did we attack Iraq? Where are the biochemical weapons Saddam has?

These things no one knows... but I'm glad my Collector's Edition game is working.

Thanks everybody! You're all my heroes!

Originally posted by Systemic_Anomaly I erased my shortcut, set the Sound window to "none" (in the Collector's edition setup program, there is no option for none for the Music window),

Hrmm. Completely different setup program.

This is being run with VDMSound, not XP's native emulation?

yep