Sometimes DOS4GW errors can be solved by using dos32a as a replacement. Perhaps that is worth a shot.

Hellistor wrote:

When the CD is in the first drive, it doesn't seem to find it. If I put it in the second drive it works but I don't get CD-Audio because the cable is connected to the first one.
Swapping the drives doesn't help, it only registers the second one.

Are you initializing both drives in your autoexec.bat and config.sys?

I'm gonna try using dos32a, might take me a few minutes to do so.

I haven't changed the autoexec.bat and config.sys The driver installer did.

Autoexec.bat contains:

LH C:\CDROM\MSCDEX /D:MSDC000

Config.sys contains:

LASTDRIVE=Z
DEVICEHIGH=C:\CDROM\GSCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD000 /v

I'm guessing this is initializing them together. Is this how it should be?
How would I have to change it to initialize them seperately?

BTW. Thanks for helping me in the other thread I made. Same PC, still working on it...

Is that the same configuration you use for System Shock? And are you sure System Shock requires the CD?

If those are the only CD-related lines you have in your configuration, then I would not expect both drives to work.

Hm well, system shock should. I could be wrong though.

How can I make both drives work? Also, using dos32a fixed the one issue, the game works now. Thanks!

Yay.

Hellistor wrote:

How can I make both drives work?

It's been a long time, so I Googled around for some examples. I think you just have to use two instances of the "/D" switch in the relevant lines in both the config.sys and autoexec.bat.
http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=416543

You may want to consider looking up SHSUCDX as an alternative to MSCDEX, as well as some of the various alternative CD-ROM drivers, but then again, it's probably best not to mess with whatever works.

I've heard that Descent 2 can be speed sensitive with cpus >Pentium II. That doesn't explain how you had this working fine a few days ago. But it might be worth trying to temporarily disable cache, or at least to underclock your CPU to see if that fixes the problem.

Another thought, maybe the install is corrupt? Try wiping out D2 and reinstall?

Well it runs, I substituted DOS/4GW with DOS32A and the game runs fine now. I think you might be referring to the ingame physics being too fast? This is not the case when running the game at 640x480. Although it is running much too fast at lower resolution.

The problem that remains is that it doesn't seem to recognize my first CD drive. If the CD is in the first drive the game will spit out an error saying the CD is required to run it.
Oddly enough it starts with the CD in the second drive.

So I'm thinking there's a CD driver issue somewhere or maybe Descent 2 just doesn't like my system. I could theoretically just remove one drive, it's not like I really need it but I don't have the 5 1/4 inch slot covers anymore so it would look terrible. Besides, two drives are badass, hehe.

Hellistor wrote:

The problem that remains is that it doesn't seem to recognize my first CD drive. If the CD is in the first drive the game will spit out an error saying the CD is required to run it.
Oddly enough it starts with the CD in the second drive.

So I'm thinking there's a CD driver issue somewhere or maybe Descent 2 just doesn't like my system. I could theoretically just remove one drive, it's not like I really need it but I don't have the 5 1/4 inch slot covers anymore so it would look terrible. Besides, two drives are badass, hehe.

To be clear: are you sure the CD in the drive is accessible at all from the DOS prompt, even when the game cannot recognize that the disc is there?

It is common with Win9x games for a game to only check for a disc in one CD drive and not the other, as multiple CD drives were extremely rare when these games were released. Thus, you probably don't need to remove the CD drive entirely. You might be able to get away with swapping the drive letters using the /L switch with MSCDEX, or by only initializing one of the drives with MSCDEX but not the other, e.g. by using /D:MSCD000 and /D:MSCD001 in the config.sys but only /D:MSCD001 in the autoexec.bat. Make sense?

Yes the drive is completely accessible, I can even install the game from both drives. I just can't run it.

I just thought of only using one drive but couldn't quite figure out how. Thanks, I'll try it now!

I tried without success to have the driver only load the first CD drive. It's either both or none. I believe this is the case because it's a later driver that can load both drives.

The trick with only initilizing one of the drives with MSCDxxx in Autoexec.bat only works when you have seperate drivers running each drive. However I can't get the driver to only load one of the drives and having two drivers instead. If I was using older drivers I could probably pull this off. However the drives I'm using are relatively new so they probably don't have specific drivers and rely on the Oakcdrom.sys/Gscdrom.sys generic style.

As nice as it would have been to be able to completely play it in DOS, I will use the CD music in Windows and the AWE32 music in DOS.
I really seems that this is only a problem with Descent 2 so far. I hope it stays that way.

In my opinion this is one of the best forums I have seen. Knowledgable, friendly people and there's always something interesting to find.

Thanks you guys for the help! Without you it wouldn't even run under DOS mode.

Well, like I said, I can only count on Google when it comes to this multi-drive problem...

So, rearranging the letters with the /L switch in MSCDEX didn't do anything? I would expect it to.

Descent II doesn't use redbook CD audio, does it? Because in that case, if all else fails and you have plenty of hard drive space, you can just forgo your CD drives entirely and use SHSUCDHD to emulate the drive using an ISO image stored on your hard drive.

I tried using two optical drives in DOS once, I ran into similar issues 😀

There is one workaround, but it's not very convenient.

You connect the "main" optical drive as slave device to the primary IDE channel HDD being the master).

The other optical drive goes onto the secondary IDE. In the BIOS you can disable the secondary IDE channel altogether, leaving you with a single optical drive visible to DOS.

The other option: Use just a single optical drive 😀

The /L switch doesn't work, since it uses only one driver to load both drives. It assigns them starting with the letter set with /L: but only goes down the alphabet from there.

Descent 2 does use Redbook CD audio. Both the Redbook and synthezised soundtracks are amazing, which is why I'm using both.

Phil! Hey, good work on that ATI Rage 128 Pro vid, very interesting. 😀

I was thinking of doing that but the cable would go up to the 5 1/4 drive bays and back down to the 3 /12, so I'd need an extra long cable and cable management would be difficult. Also I kinda hate it when I have to go into the Bios unless strictly necessary.

Hehe, you commented on the PC in question when I posted it in System Specs. It's the "dual everything" machine, so removing a disc drive would kinda destroy the concept. I also don't have the bay cover anymore so it would not look nice.

I found an honestly pretty ghetto solution to the problem. But it works.

Instead of trying different drivers I made a copy of my Descent 2 CD and now have one in each drive. I have three HDD partitions so the disc drives start at F. The games uses Drive G to start and then uses Drive F to play the CD audio. 🤣

So the problem is solved! Thanks again!

Hellistor wrote:

The /L switch doesn't work, since it uses only one driver to load both drives. It assigns them starting with the letter set with /L: but only goes down the alphabet from there.

Just to make sure we're on the same page: have you tried

DEVICEHIGH=C:\CDROM\GSCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD000 /D:MSCD001

in your config.sys and then in autoexec.bat

LH C:\CDROM\MSCDEX /D:MSDC001
or
LH C:\CDROM\MSCDEX /D:MSDC001 /L:E

A bit more poking around suggests that XCDROM.SYS, a generic driver from FreeDOS, can also be used to specify exactly which drive should be identified first (e.g. primary-master), so that's probably worth a try, if you like.
http://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/base/xcdrom.htm

Clever solution 😀

That is exactly what I tried. I tried it with Gsdcrom and Oakcdrom and I also tried SHSUCDX in all possible combinations.

I might try XCDROM.SYS, but for now it's working and I'd hate to fuck up along the way and have to redo everything.

Hellistor wrote:

Hello, […]
Show full quote

Hello,

I've installed an AWE32 in my System recently and have got it working well.
Since I had to reinstall the OS for a different reason I have trouble with the game Descent 2. Be assured, I own an original retail CD copy of the game that I confirmed working on other systems.

The game finds the AWE32 without problems and runs perfectly fine under Win 98SE. The music is a bit too slow but I hear that's a problem when running OPL3 cards under Windows.
For this reason I want to use it in pure DOS mode. I got the drivers set up and other games are working fine. Doom 1 and 2, Duke3D and System Shock are the one's I tested.

I use the Goldstar IDE CDRom Driver, AWE32 Dos Driver, standard Mouse.com driver.

Now, you should know the game requires the CD to be present for it to even let you into the setup program.
When the CD is in the first drive, it doesn't seem to find it. If I put it in the second drive it works but I don't get CD-Audio because the cable is connected to the first one.
Swapping the drives doesn't help, it only registers the second one.
This is the only game with this problem as System Shock requries the CD as well and can find it in either drive.

Once I'm in the setup program everything is normal, I can test the sound card and change the settings, save, and exit.
But when I try running the game itself I get a Dos/4GW general protection fault error.

Here's the full system specs:

Motherboard: Supermicro P6DGU, Dual CPU, Intel 440GX Chipset
CPU: Two Intel Pentium III "Coppermine" 1GHz Slot 1, 100MHz FSB
RAM: Two 256MB sticks of PC133 SDRAM running at 100MHz
Primary Graphics: MSI Geforce2 Ti Pro-VT 64MB
Seconday Graphics: Two STB Blackmagic 3D 12MB (3dfx V2) in SLI
Primary Soundcard: Creative Soundblaster Live! SB0100
Secondary Soundcard: Creative Soundblaster AWE32 Value CT3910
Networking: 3Com 10/100 PCI NIC
USB: VIA USB 2.0 Card
HDD: 120GB Samsung Spinpoint 7200rpm IDE HDD
Primary Disc Drive: Lite-on CD Drive
Secondary Disc Drive: TX Jupiter CD-RW Drive
Primary Floppy Drive: 3,5' 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Secondary Floppy Drive: 3,5' 1.44MB Floppy Drive

I remember I had the game working some time in the last two days in DOS mode. There was still the drive problem but other than that it worked.
I think I installed windows with only the video card and put the other cards in afterwards. It might have somethign to do with me not doing that with the current install.
But I'd rather get a second opinion before i rip the cards out of the pc again and reinstall Windows. I fear that the product key is forever implanted in my brain by now.

If you guys have any ideas as to how to fix it, I'd appreciate the help.

did you try running descent2 the windows executable instead of dos executable?

twiz11 wrote:

did you try running descent2 the windows executable instead of dos executable?

Have you tried reading the post?

Hellistor wrote:

The game finds the AWE32 without problems and runs perfectly fine under Win 98SE. The music is a bit too slow but I hear that's a problem when running OPL3 cards under Windows.
For this reason I want to use it in pure DOS mode.

did you try running without sound in dos jst to see if thats the code which triggers? i mean have all drivers, but game should not use them