Mega Man 3 Dos help

[vintagegamecrazy]

So I found a boxed complete copy of MM3 Dos yesterday for $2 at a thrift shop. I finally got my old 386 up and running now, B drive seems dead though. I tried MM3 and it boots up to the screen to the settings then I get to the Hi Tech Expressions loading screen and it just stops and does nothing. I tried to download a file of the game online and all versions do the same thing. I even tried it on my current PC and I still get nothing.

Any suggestions?

[Jorpho]

I even tried it on my current PC

Under DOSBox, or the XP command prompt, or what?

(I am quite sure the game runs under DOSBox if nothing else.)

[c0ldb33r]

How did you run it on your current PC? Does your current PC have a floppy drive?

[NayusDante]

Try different graphics settings. Start low, and work up to see what works. Disable masking and stuff.

[Jorpho]

Try different graphics settings. Start low, and work up to see what works. Disable masking and stuff.

...What on Earth are you talking about?

[NayusDante]

When you start it, it asks for graphics mode.

[vintagegamecrazy]

I tried the disc on my PC in the command prompt and get the High Tech screen no matter what settings I use. I then downloaded several versions from several sites to see if I could try anther version and they all do the same thing. None of them load past the High Tech screen.

[Jorpho]

Things are unlikely to work properly in the XP command prompt. Get DOSBox.

[CMA Death Adder]

By the time you do manage to get it running, you'll wish you hadn't. Trust me.

[vintagegamecrazy]

Why will it not run on my 386 properly either?

[Jorpho]

There could be a lot of reasons. You say the B drive is dead; perhaps some other component of the computer is failing in a more subtle way? Do other programs work correctly?

Or the disks you bought could be faulty. One way to check would be to use a program like WinMD5 to verify that the files are in fact identical to the files you can download elsewhere.

Or there could be something awry in the way your 386 is configured, software-wise. What version of DOS are you running? Are there a lot of things in your config.sys or autoexec.bat ?

[vintagegamecrazy]

My B drive is bad on the 386 but the A drive works fine, I've played other games with it now so it's not that. I don't know how to see what version of Dos it has as it's running Windows 3.1 now. I don't think the files are corrupt on the disk because like I said before I've downloaded the game from several results as well and get the same result every time but only with MM 3, I've gotten MM 1 to run just fine.

[Jorpho]

You're not trying to run it without exiting from Windows 3.1 first, are you? There are a lot of games that really don't work that way - it's not like Windows 9x.

(You can find out what version of DOS you are running by typing "VER" at the command prompt.)

[NayusDante]

I ran MM3 on my Compaq Portable 2, booting to DOS 3.3 or so from floppy. It does hang at the Hi Tech Expressions logo sometimes, but it does load.

Does your 386 have a hard drive? Try to copy all the files from the floppy. Loading MM3 from floppy, especially 5.25", is slooooooow.

[todesengel]

I had an old Street Fighter 2 DOS CD that had both the DOS MM1 and MM3. I remember when trying to run MM3 off CD it would hang at the Hi-Tech Expressions logo as well. Once I installed the game to the hard drive it ran perfectly fine though. Was running the game on a Windows 98 PC at that time.

[vintagegamecrazy]

I exited Windows 3.1 and disabled masking. It still seemed to hang at the Hi tech screen but when I pressed some buttons on the keyboard it loaded and I got to play it. Not sure if it's just a programming flaw or what.

How do I load that game to the hard drive since it doesn't give me an option for it?

[c0ldb33r]

How do I load that game to the hard drive since it doesn't give me an option for it?

Just copy all the files onto your hard drive and run it normally I would think.

[A Black Falcon]

MM3 PC... that game runs way too fast on most computers, DOSBox is good because you can turn the cycles way down until the game is actually playable. Maybe it'd be fine on an actual 386, though... but yeah, do a hard drive install (copy over files into a folder). Playing it in the top graphics mode though (VGA is it? I forget), I never had any problems.

As for the game, I got this back in the early '90s because I liked Mega Man and didn't have a NES, and yeah, it was somewhat disappointing because it's not at all like Mega Man. "I wish this was more like the console games" pretty much was my opinion of it, along with some disappointment, and frustration that it has no saving or passwords (seven levels, no saving, on the PC? Bah!). And in retrospect the PC Speaker only audio is bad too, though at the time that's all I had so I didn't mind.

As for the game though, I replayed it a few years ago and was reminded that it's not really THAT bad. It's certainly nothing at all like Mega Man, but approach it as a shareware-grade PC platformer made by a garage developer (and it was, a two man studio made the game) and it looks better. Yes, the levels are often mazes, and not linear like console Mega Man levels. The bosses are all pretty easy, too. There's no saving. But still, probably partially from nostalgia, I do kind of like it...

First, the level designs are somewhat interesting. Mega Man actually floats in this game, so you swim around in the water. The mazelike levels are interesting to explore, without being too hard or confusing. There are some good level settings, like the oil rig level, too. I don't know, looking at it on its own (ie not in comparison to the obviously vastly superior console games) it's kind of fun... but yeah, it does need slowdown, to a QUITE low number of cycles in DOSBox -- in the hundreds. Anything much higher and you immediately notice that it runs way too fast -- Mega Man jumps too fast, those oil drops are impossible to avoid, etc.