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Thread: Help me get several pre pentium era Dos games to run on a Windows 98 Pentium II.

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    Pac-Man (Level 10) vintagegamecrazy's Avatar
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    Default Help me get several pre pentium era Dos games to run on a Windows 98 Pentium II.

    I have finally got my Windows 98 Pentium II running again and am trying to go through my collection of games. I have been able to get some working in Windows 98 but others are becoming a nightmare. Here are my problems.

    I have several games that apparently only recognize the original 1.97GB FAT format and won't install on a larger HD. Would it be better to try to format a larger HD properly with a small partition and install them that way or I also have a Zip drive that I can install and install the games to the ZIP disk to run them. The Zip method seems easier to me for now since my Windows XP PC just died. Can Windows 7 format a HD properly for that sort of thing?

    I also have a King's Quest V CD rom and it installed in Windows 98 and DOS just fine but when I try to run it it says that the game doesn't support the sound Card or the Graphics card and it hangs at the Sierra screen. Is there a way to configure the game's settings to accept these newer hardware setups? Do I need to get a different version of the game? An older PC?

    I also have a copy of Earthworm Jim that the music won't work for in Windows 98. The sound effects work fine but no music. Can that be fixed?

    I also have Out Of This World on CD and it installs on Windows 98 and will run in a small screen but if I try to go to full screen it crashes the computer and Control Alt Delete won't even reset it then. Can this be adjusted to work on my machine too?

    I have tried to install a few of these games directly through the DOS prompt too but I have two hard drives in the computer so my CD rom drive is listed as E: Windows 98 recognizes it without a problem but when I try to access the CD rom drive through DOS it says invalid drive but recoginzes both hard drives just fine. Is there a way to configure DOS to recognize the CD Rom drive properly like it is?

    Sorry for all of the Q's but I'm really trying to get these older games working once and for all.
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    ServBot (Level 11) Edmond Dantes's Avatar
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    I can answer a few of your questions as I have experience with this sort of thing.

    Your problem with King's Quest V's sound is probably just that a lot of Sierra's sound drivers are sensitive to your computer's speed. You'll need to throttle the CPU's internal cache. The best way to do this is to download Bret Johnson's Slowdown, unzip it and be sure to run the command C:\Wherever-You-Installed-Slowdown\cpucache.exe D whenever you're playing KQV (or most Sierra games for that matter). Bret Johnson's homepage can be found here.

    As for your computer not recognizing the CD-ROM drive, it sounds to me like DOS simply isn't configured to load the Drivers. You have to put a driver both in your Autoexec.bat and a different one in your config.sys. I recommend the SHSUCD drivers for autoexec and vide-cdd.sys for config.sys

    I'm writing a guide for my blog all about how to solve these kinds of issues, and I'll post a link to it on this forum when its ready.
    Last edited by Edmond Dantes; 01-25-2012 at 09:03 AM.

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    I'm really bad with Dos nowadays I don't remember worth a darn how to configure those drivers manually. I will try that with KQV though.

    Dos did recognize my CD rom drive before I added a second hard drive when it was listed as D:\ Now that it's listed as E:\ It doesn't recognize it though Windows does just fine still. Is there a way to reconfigure this?
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    ServBot (Level 11) Edmond Dantes's Avatar
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    Configuring a CD-ROM driver is easy. First, download the files I linked to in my last post (SHSUCD and vide-cdd.sys), place both in a C:\CDROM directory (personal preference, but this makes things less complicated)

    Then, edit your autoexec.bat using a word processor and add this line anywhere:

    LH=C:\CDROM\shsucdx.com /D:MSCD001

    Then in your config.sys, add this:

    Devicehigh=C:\CDROM\Vide-cdd.sys /D:MSCD001

    Be sure in both cases that there isn't already a driver loading up CD-ROMs.. though I doubt there will be.

    There, your CD-ROM drive should be recognized, and it should be recognized as the D drive since that letter is free.

    Although, its weird that it would recognize it before adding that second hard drive but not afterwards.

    EDIT:

    Quote Originally Posted by vintagegamecrazy View Post
    I have several games that apparently only recognize the original 1.97GB FAT format and won't install on a larger HD
    What games are having this problem? My old PC has a 20gig hard drive and absolutely no game in my library has ever had trouble with it. Surely none of the games you named should be giving you trouble either...
    Last edited by Edmond Dantes; 01-25-2012 at 10:46 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Edmond Dantes View Post
    Configuring a CD-ROM driver is easy. First, download the files I linked to in my last post (SHSUCD and vide-cdd.sys), place both in a C:\CDROM directory (personal preference, but this makes things less complicated)

    Then, edit your autoexec.bat using a word processor and add this line anywhere:

    LH=C:\CDROM\shsucdx.com /D:MSCD001

    Then in your config.sys, add this:

    Devicehigh=C:\CDROM\Vide-cdd.sys /D:MSCD001

    Be sure in both cases that there isn't already a driver loading up CD-ROMs.. though I doubt there will be.

    There, your CD-ROM drive should be recognized, and it should be recognized as the D drive since that letter is free.

    Although, its weird that it would recognize it before adding that second hard drive but not afterwards.

    EDIT:



    What games are having this problem? My old PC has a 20gig hard drive and absolutely no game in my library has ever had trouble with it. Surely none of the games you named should be giving you trouble either...
    Many installers have that problem, since it assumes a partition can never contain >2GB of data it rolls larger numbers over (ie it thinks 3GB or 5GB is 1GB). Usually you can trick it into working by filling the drive with garbage until the rollover spits out a free space number that it likes

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    Red (Level 21) Jorpho's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by vintagegamecrazy View Post
    Would it be better to try to format a larger HD properly with a small partition and install them that way or I also have a Zip drive that I can install and install the games to the ZIP disk to run them. The Zip method seems easier to me for now since my Windows XP PC just died.
    Does your Pentium II have USB? Because it is possible to use USB thumb drives in DOS with the right drivers. (ZIP drives require DOS drivers to be loaded too, of course.)
    "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)

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    I finally got around to loading up the CD rom drivers in dos and went by your listed steps and it just won't work for nothing. Can you guys help me out more as I really want to get this to work. Do I need a setup.bat file installed in Dos? I don't think have one if I need it.

    Thanks
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    ServBot (Level 11) Edmond Dantes's Avatar
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    You should not need a setup.bat file in DOs. If the CD-ROM drivers aren't loading then the only thing I can think of is that they're misconfigured somehow. The most common mistake people make is not moving the drivers to the location that autoexec and config actually point to. And remember, it needs to be a small, one-word, no-spaces directory. So C:\Stuff I downloaded\vide-cdd.sys won't work. But C:\CDROM\vide-cdd.sys will.

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    Perhaps you should just post the config.sys and autoexec.bat you are currently using.

    The Windows 98 boot floppy (which you can make through the Add/Remove Programs control panel) also has a configuration that supports CD-ROM drives; you can try to use that as a starting point, but there's a lot of other cruft in the autoexec.bat and config.sys there that you won't need.
    "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)

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    Great Puma (Level 12) YoshiM's Avatar
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    Second on posting your config.sys and autoexec.bat files. Once we see what's going on, probably be easy to fix.

    Man, this thread takes me back...

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    Pac-Man (Level 10) vintagegamecrazy's Avatar
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    [img=http://us.mg5.mail.yahoo.com/ya/download?mid=2_0_0_1_86537_AIxYimIAARXmULL1awRcunv CPYs&pid=2&fid=Inbox&inline=1]

    I tried it again, I copied the drivers to a C:cdrom directory and added them in and it seemed like it took them but then something really strange happened and I don't know how to undo it. I get the pictured screen and the computer endlessly beeps at me and I can't do anything then. It basically freezes up and that's that. Is there any way to undo this or do I have to reinstall DOS?

    I don't know why I am having so much trouble with this.
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    Quote Originally Posted by YoshiM View Post
    Man, this thread takes me back...
    Yes, but not in a good way. We have DOSbox now, there's no reason to struggle with DOS CD-ROM drivers anymore.

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    Red (Level 21) Jorpho's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jorpho View Post
    Perhaps you should just post the config.sys and autoexec.bat you are currently using.
    Quote Originally Posted by YoshiM View Post
    Second on posting your config.sys and autoexec.bat files. Once we see what's going on, probably be easy to fix.
    ...
    "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)

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    Insert Coin (Level 0)
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    Quote Originally Posted by Edmond Dantes View Post
    LH=C:\CDROM\shsucdx.com /D:MSCD001
    Minor correction on this line for autoexec.bat. There shouldn't be an equal sign there. It should read:

    LH C:\CDROM\shsucdx.com /D:MSCD001

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