*** READ THIS FIRST *** DM2 in Windows: Use DOSBOX

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Daniel (Sweden)
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*** READ THIS FIRST *** DM2 in Windows: Use DOSBOX

Post by Daniel (Sweden) »

Hello Folks!

Today the new version of Dosbox was released, and this version supports DM2 (atleast I got it to work). The music works perfect, but the sound is not yet working, maybe its my version of DM2 that is a buggy. Please let me know how all of you get along with Dosbox 0.61 and DM2, Im confident that its possible to get the game to work perfectly.

Good luck!

/Daniel (Sweden)
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Post by Daniel (Sweden) »

Hello Folk!

I got the complete sound to work. I forgott to check the soundconfig that Dosbox uses. DM2 seems to work perfectly with all sound!

/D.
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Post by Gambit37 »

Hmm.. what settings do you use?

I've setup DM2 to use SoundBlaster for sound and music. I get the FTL logo with sound, but the intro doesn't play and then dosbox bombs out.

If I temporarily delete the ftl logo and the intro, the game starts OK with bgm and I can start a new game with bgm, but I don't get any sound effects.

On a positive side, I got the original PC DM to work with sound and Captive for PC too! Cool!
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Post by Daniel (Sweden) »

Hello Gambit!

It was good news that you got Captive to work to, I must try it also.

I only did three changes in the Dosbox configuration, to get it to work. It might be that these settings are more propper in my computer, but hopefully they will help you (whatever you do dont give up, I have gotten the game to work perfectly with bot music, soundeffects and intros)
The settings I changed was to the following:

Render:
Scaler = none

CPU
Core=normal
Cycles = 7200

It seems like DM2 is harder than most games to run so there where no idea for me to thirst for any bonus effects.
The next step was to fix the setup file in DM2. First I tried to Autodetect but that resultet in the same problems as you described: no sound effect. I looked in the Dosbox config file and found out that Dosbox uses

Soundblaster
Base=220
Irq = 7
Dma = 1

These settings werent detected by the autodetect so I had to change them Manually. And I used the normal "Soundblaster" at both midi and soundeffects. This made the game work for me. If I remember correctly my problem was that the Autodetect tried to use Irq=5 instead of Irq=7 (which resultet in lack of sound). Hopefully this will be of assistance!

The best of luck!

/Daniel (Sweden)
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Post by Jardice »

Hmm I'll need to try that someday Since my computer couldn't play neither music nor sound. :lol:
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Post by Daniel (Sweden) »

Hello Gambit!

I have just found out that the patch downloadable at this site might brake the soundeffect (happened to Benkid77). He solved the problem by installing the original version without the patch. Im not quite sure if he meant the natural DM2 patch or the new sound patch available on the site, but it seems like a good start to avoid the patches (that might be why my version works). Hopefully this will be valuable news.

Good Luck!

/Daniel (Sweden)
Dreamwalker

hmm

Post by Dreamwalker »

Well, i dont know what to do...when I`m using dosbox and your configuration, game starts and i see "interpaly"logo than animation of some text (f...) and than dosbox closes itself...what i shopuld do??? Please help!! mail me: lapo84@wp.pl
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Post by Daniel (Sweden) »

Hello Dreamwalker!

At first I had the same problem as you describe, but it disappeared when I changed to the configurations described above. DM2 is very sensitive and demanding so you might need to cancel all specialeffects in Dosbox061, and try your way to the goal (it seems like different computers needs different Configurations). I can think of two suggestions:

1. Remove the FTL and INTRO files (these are not needed and do only
show the intro and FTL logo - it wont harm the game to remove the)
I have tried this and it fixed the crash problems for me when I used
a boot disk

2. The other way is to try different configurations by canceling special
effects (but what ever you do, dont forgett to use the right IRQ in the
setup - autodetect uses wrong so you must set the soundcard
manually.

Hopefully one of these will work! Let me know about your progresses. The best of luck

/Daniel (Sweden)

PS: What is your computer power (Mhz, Memory etc.)???
mrjingles@japan.com

dm2 on pc using dosbox

Post by mrjingles@japan.com »

if you have time can you supply me with a step by step quide to getting dungeon master 2 to work using dosbox 6.1. cheers. i have been reading dungeon-master.com for a while and i think your information on this matter would be appreciated.
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Post by Gambit37 »

Hmmm... DM2 worked in DosBox 0.61 straight away for me, with no modifications or anything. The only thing missing is sound effects.

Have you done something strange to the .conf file?
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Re: DM2 - My DOSBOX forum posts

Post by benkid77 »

Hi. The below text is a merginig of a couple of posts I submitted to the DOSBOX forums, hope some of it may be of some help
Cheers,
benkid77

Thanks Daniel for posting the info about Dungeon Master 2. (I'd reply to that topic, but it seems to be locked)

I'm really happy that Dungeon Master 2 is supported so soon.

I followed your advice and changed the IRQ in setup.exe to match that of the DOSBox Default of 7.

Still, I couldn't get the sound effects working at all for a while, but then I realised I had applied the official patch to my copy of Dungeon master 2 some time ago.

As somebody on the Dungeon Master forums mentioned, this can actually break the sound effects.

I re-installed the game from the CD, (did not install the patch), setup the sound again, and finally, the sound effects now work fine.

The game is now running perfect for me, all sound and music present, at 10000 cycles fullscreen.

So, just to let everybody know, it seems that you may need the unpatched version of DM2 to hear sound effects under DOSBox 0.61,

Thanks again from another happy DOSBox user,
benkid77

Hi Melroc,

Here are my details.

I'm using a default dosbox.conf file apart from the following:-

I have increased the number of cycles, I think the default setting is too slow for Dungeon Master 2. The general concensus seems to be between 5000 and 10000 cycles. I guess you should experiment to find what speed you are comfortable with. The only other change I made of course was the line at the end to mount the C:\ drive.

As for the version of DM2 I have that works correctly, the file SKULL.EXE is 522,637 bytes, IBMIOP.EXE is 12,626 bytes.

(The version that I could not get the sound working was SKULL.EXE 522,641 bytes, IBMIOP.EXE 12,627 bytes)

As for the date stamps on my hard drive, the original dates have been lost, and just reflect the time that the game was installed.

The date stamp of SKULL.EXE on my CD is 13/07/1995 14:54

In SETUP.EXE that comes with DM2, I have the following settings,

Digital Device=Sound Blaster Pro, Port=220, DMA=1, IRQ=7
MIDI Device=Sound Blaster Pro, MIDI Port=388

(i.e. these settings match dosbox.conf)

My system is Athlon XP 2800+, WinXP. I can only get 10000 cycles in fullscreen. I think now I probably don't need it quite that fast anyway,

Good luck and Happy Playing,
benkid77
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Post by Relig »

I found a Readme.txt with the copy of DM2 that I got
Dungeon Master II Read Me File

Known System Conflicts:

Setup
You must select a Sound Card for "Digital" and "Midi" in Setup. If no
Sound Card is selected the game will not function properly. DM2 supports FM
music only, it does not support General Midi.
I had problems when I first ran the game but I only have the Digital sound card setup by using the Auto Config feature of the sound setup. Once I manually set the same sound card for the Midi - even though the test didn't work - the game worked fine after that with the sound.

Cheers!
Relig 8)
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Post by Hoodedeath »

DOSBox emulates Soundblaster for sound. if you are having trouble, make sure your config uses one of the Soundblaster settings.

also, i had to increase the number of cycles in DOSBox to keep the game from crashing at the start.
midnight

dm2 on amiga & pc

Post by midnight »

hello from tokyo.
i am confused concerning playing dungeon master 2. i just cannot get this wonderful game to work. i hope it is a good game since i have never played it. i have been playing dungeon master and chaos strikes back using my windows xp laptop pc using winuea0.8.24, so i know this emulator works, the problems is i cannot find the "dm2_sk_install1" file, so i cannot play this game from the hard drive. i have managed to install all six adf file in the hard drive section on the emulator and i do get a work benk screen but thats all. please help. concerning playing the pc version on the game i am having problems. no 1 i do not have a floppy drive so i cannot create a boot disk. the same problem as mrjingles@japan.com. i have looked at the dosbox web site but i do not know what file to download and how to use it. i have download something that calls itself dosbox6.1 but it does not have any instructions or any way i can install it. please, please help.
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Post by Guest »

How fast a machine is recommended?
Daniel (Sweden)
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Post by Daniel (Sweden) »

DM2 is a very demanding game. Myself has AMD 1,8 Ghz (2500+) and 1 gig ram, and on my computer it works ok (but not 100%...more like 95% when there is much minions in action). I think that 2,2 Ghz is enough to get a 100% performance. My computer handles it all very well in the beginning, but when you I got to the end of the game I had left a lot of minions behind which seemed to slow it down a little (but not som much that it ruins the feeling).

/Daniel (Sweden)
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Post by Daniel (Sweden) »

Hello Mr Jingles and Midnight!

Im sorry to say that my resent postings on the matter is also the limit of my ideas. I got the game to work almost instantly without any real problems. Hopefully some of the other user know more about the Dosbox functions that I do (myself is no computer genious).
It is obvious though that DM2 need much power: my first try resulted in a Dosbox system crash, which show that the preedited speed of CPU=3200 is not enough. When I did the changes above the game begun working.
It might be so that you need a faster computer, as I wrote above my AMD 1,8 Ghz (2500+) and 1 Gig Ram is ok, but to get the real performance of a 386 I think more power is needed. There is no possibility to overclock dosbox since it is the hardware that determines the limits.
But if I get any Ideas I will post them right away. DM2 is one of my favorite games of alltime. It took me three years to get it to work again so I know the frustration. But dont lose faith: DM2 works fine with Dosbox 0.61, both graphics, sound and music. According to the dosboxhomepage the game is not fully supported yet (in other words: there are some shortcomings in the emulation but the game works almost perfect). Maybe this might explain some problems?? But hopefully you will get the games to work with some configuration adjustments!

The best of luck!

/Daniel (Sweden)
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dosbox setting

Post by neo-cube »

hello everybody.
i have just downloaded dosbox6.1, but i am having difficulty with the setting so i can get dm2 to work. does anybody know what the basic settings are?
iOWa

Post by iOWa »

my dm2 on dosbox6.1 work almost perfect, with sound and bgm.. it is only little slow.. but i will fix that later.. gtg to bed now :P

daniel: sett att du har skrivit förr men har inte orkat registrera mig.. ;) kul med svenskar som spelar dm2 :P
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Post by Daniel (Sweden) »

Hejsan IOWA!

Trevligt att se dig med IOWA! Jo DM2 är ett fantastiskt spel, det hade varit hemskt att missa det. Hoppas du får det att funka. Hur kommer det sig att du kan svenska?? Är du svensk eller har du pluggat i sverige??

/MVH Daniel (Sweden)
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Post by Guest »

Hejsan IOWA!

Trevligt att se dig med IOWA! Jo DM2 är ett fantastiskt spel, det hade varit hemskt att missa det. Hoppas du får det att funka. Hur kommer det sig att du kan svenska?? Är du svensk eller har du pluggat i sverige??
haha =) nej nej jag är svensk ;) har hängt runt på The Dungeon Master Encyclopaedia väldigt länge men skrev inget för att mina frågor blev besvarade ;) jo dm2 är skitbra spel! har aldrig klarat det men jag tycker att spelet har en underbar känsla! skönt att man kan spela det nu på xp men synd att det går segt... jag tycker dom borde släppa källkoden till spelet så att en winklient kommer ;) ha det bra //iOWa[/quote]
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Post by Daniel (Sweden) »

Det var trevligt att stöta på en svensk här på sidan. Jo det är ett väldigt bra spel! Jag måste faktiskt erkänna att jag har löst det, det var det hittills lättaste spelet (tror nog att CSB var svårast). DM2 löste jag faktiskt redan på andra försöket (startade om endast en gång).
Har du testat att öka CPU inställningarna på datorn??? Jag kör just nu med 9200 och det funkar perfekt, men man måste stänga av den förbättrade grafiken i Dosbox (det kräver enormt mycket). Själv kör jag Win2000 vilket inte kräver lika mycket av själva datorn som WinXP gör. Spelet flyter på väldigt bra på min dator (möjligen saktar det ned lite när det blir många gubbar i rörelse, men annars är det väldigt bra körkvalitet).

Hoppas du lyckas få upp farten på spelet och lösa det :wink:

/MVH Daniel!

PS: Hur snabb är din dator förresten??? Dosbox kräver nämligen ganska många Ghz av datorn (fånigt nog).
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Post by Guest »

Daniel (Sweden) wrote:Det var trevligt att stöta på en svensk här på sidan. Jo det är ett väldigt bra spel! Jag måste faktiskt erkänna att jag har löst det, det var det hittills lättaste spelet (tror nog att CSB var svårast). DM2 löste jag faktiskt redan på andra försöket (startade om endast en gång).
Har du testat att öka CPU inställningarna på datorn??? Jag kör just nu med 9200 och det funkar perfekt, men man måste stänga av den förbättrade grafiken i Dosbox (det kräver enormt mycket). Själv kör jag Win2000 vilket inte kräver lika mycket av själva datorn som WinXP gör. Spelet flyter på väldigt bra på min dator (möjligen saktar det ned lite när det blir många gubbar i rörelse, men annars är det väldigt bra körkvalitet).

Hoppas du lyckas få upp farten på spelet och lösa det :wink:

/MVH Daniel!

PS: Hur snabb är din dator förresten??? Dosbox kräver nämligen ganska många Ghz av datorn (fånigt nog).
haha det fixar sig nog =) det är en 1.3 duron :P äsch spelar inte någon större roll, det är iaf spelbart ;) måste installera linux nåndag o testa köra dosbox där ;)
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Post by Guest »

Vi hoppas att det löser sig! Du får berätta hur Dosbox fungerar med Linux, själv är jag en Windows människa (hemskt att erkänna med tanke på att Windows ofta är så instabilt).
När det gäller Dosbox kommer dom förhoppningsvis med en version som är programerad att utnyttja datorkapaciteten bättre (därmed inte sagt att Dosbox är dåligt på något vis).

MVH / Daniel (Sweden)
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DM2 and Dosbox

Post by The_Cleaner »

Hell there!

I am new here and this is my first post!
I tried everything to start DM2 in the DosBox!
Changing the configuration, delete the logo and the intro etc...
But it wouldn't work. The only answer i get is

Illegal GRP4 Call 2

Can someone help me out please?

Thx a lot and greetings from Germany!
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Post by sk »

Gambit37 wrote:On a positive side, I got the original PC DM to work with sound and Captive for PC too! Cool!
This is offtopic, but: where did you find/get that PC Captive? I really, really would like to get back on that one, and i don't have amiga.
sk@IRCnet/Quakenet #nethack #DungeonMaster etc
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Post by Gambit37 »

I can't remember wher I got it, but I've RARed it and put it on my free webspace:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/matt_hill/CaptivePC.rar

Try and find the Amiga WinUAE version though -- it's much better because it supports more sound channels.
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Post by sk »

Gambit37 wrote:http://homepage.ntlworld.com/matt_hill/CaptivePC.rar
Try and find the Amiga WinUAE version though -- it's much better because it supports more sound channels.
Thanks... I have the original amiga game, but i guess it is easier to find it from internet than from the basement where it is somewhere :)
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Post by gobleteer »

I have a labtec ss-100... noone's ever even heard of it!

Just a random thought there.
Sar Master - 1%
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!N>++ o? K- W-(+++) O? M?>+ V? PS++ PEY? PGP?
T+++() 5-->? X- R+++ tvb++++ DI@ D? G++ e->* h! !r !y(-)
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Post by gobleteer »

My Dosbox session totally shut down - even the window dissapeared, right after the logo. I'm running Win 98, so techinically I could do it in DOS, but I want to run in in Windows for sound-related reasons.(Even with sound off it doesn't start, though)
Sar Master - 1%
G! d- s:- a15>? c++++(+) UL-@ P>++ L+ E? W+++$
!N>++ o? K- W-(+++) O? M?>+ V? PS++ PEY? PGP?
T+++() 5-->? X- R+++ tvb++++ DI@ D? G++ e->* h! !r !y(-)
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