Dungeon Master Forum

I think I need help getting started. I followed all steps succesfully on the page http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/330 and have WinUAE running. When I select a game configuration and press start I get a white page with a pic of a floppy in a hand that says Amiga Work Bench v1.3. Clicking mouse does not start anything.

Any suggestions?

Well, while I'm not familar with WinUAE, I guess you will find someone here who is. I did have an Amiga once upon a time though. As you can guess from the image you are seeing (that was loaded from ROM on original Amiga), you are supposed to insert a bootable floppy disk, like the original Workbench 1.3 disk (that will boot AmigaDOS including a desktop interface), or, a bootable game disk, like Dungeon Master. As you have already noticed wildly clicking around will not do anything at a point of time where neither the OS not any grafical interface has been loaded.

Is there a specific reason why you would want to play Dungeon Master in WinUAE rather than the MS-DOS-PC version (that will not only run in DosBox or on a Win98SE- or pure MS-DOS-partition, but even in the CMD), or CSBWin that ports the original Atari ST versions of Dungeon Master as well as Chaos Strikes Back to Windows- and Linux-platforms, or to the pure Windows-DirectX program RTC which is not absolutely identical to original Dungeon Master , but still very true and very comfortable to install and to use?

I first am trying UAE because I originaly played DM on an amiga and in the comparison list I saw the amiga details to be preferrable - stereo sound, click water fountains with hand. Does the MS-DOS-PC version load quickly? Are the other versions preferrable? I have the UAE version running now - floppy disc images were ill-located. Overlooked an extraction location detail. Thanks for the alternative suggestions though. Could you link me to where I could learn about the MS-DOS-PC versions?

You mentioned the MS-DOS-PC version running in a pure MS-DOS partition. Do you have any info sources for creating a pure MS-DOS partition? I want one that lands me at a dos propt when I boot into it. I like multibooting and often us a bootable CD to boot to dos for partition imaging utilities. Since I will be redesigning my partition strategy soon I am looking into how to do those few other things I will be adding to my system setup.

Well, me personally I too played it originally on Amiga, but nowadays I prefer RTC because it is very simple to install and use, is very stable, has a far-developed editor, includes all the FTL dungeons (DM, CSB, and newly DM2), allows to freely transfer characters between different dungeons and it has all features from all versions (like tapping walls generally or in CSB magic map and creature scroll).

The PC version does run quickly. You can simply run it in the CMD (though not all people get sound then), install DosBox (for most poeple it runs fully ok in DosBox V0.65, only a few people do not immediately get all sounds and the full screen format properly), or create a separate partition. I never actually used a pure MS-DOS partition, but rather had a Win98SE partition that I let reboot in MS-DOS mode. I suppose you generally know how to create a partition, right? Basically you use some tool like Partition Magic to resize the existing partitions, create a new one; format it and then install an OS there. That's the same process with MS-DOS. You get somehwhere an MS-DOS installation package, probably on CD, run, probably by booting the CD, and designate it the proper destination drive. I don't exactly whether MS-DOS is automatically recognizing all sizes of modern RAM and HD or has first to be convinced to do so. In any case, if you want to completely run MS-DOS you will have to aquire the proper MS-DOS drivers for your hardware, if such exist, lest you won't have sound; and you should implement them as well as a mouse command in the external commands and the autoexec.bat .

You can download Dungeon Master 1 and Dungeon Master 2 as well as a patch for DM2 on the "Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back Encyclopaedia" that is pointed to in the quick-links pull-down menu above. From there or from the proper sticky threads you will also be pointed to the download sites of CSBWin and RTC. In any case, have a look at the Encyclopaedia, you will find lots of useful information there.

Something like 1 GB or RAM might be a bit tricky for older stuff.. Don't know about DOS, but I didn't get even Win95 to run in a machine with 1 GB. And some old DOS games are funny in the way that they crash at startup and complain about negative amounts of memory.

Personally I haven't gotten sound to work in PC-DM any other way than using DosBox. Even when I was using Win95 speaker sound was the only thing that worked. And it's very unlikely that newer sound cards have any DOS drivers at all. My old SBLive had, but it didn't work with DM.

PS: The Encyclopaedia is currenlty worked into a new shape. The new site does not yet have all the downloads, but the old one has, you will find links on top that point to the older download mirrors too.

Maybe you have no kickrom?
If that is the case it can get difficult to get, when you do not own original amiga disks where you could extract the kickrom from.

I might be wrong since I'm not familar with WinUAE, but without the kickrom the insert-workbench-image wouldn't appear, would it?

Well, I like the sound of the RTC option. Ya, I was looking around the new site and found the links a little lacking. I did see the option to browse the old site but had already dove into WinUAE. Working fine now. Kinda funny how DM takes so long to load... I guess the slowness comes with an accurate emulation.

Is there a dungeon editor available with RTC?

As I mentioned above in htis thread, RTC does include a pretty good editor. That's why there is an RTCEditor.exe file included.

Thanks for the link zooom and thanks for clueing me in lunever. I was having trouble locating RTC. I like it. Hmmmm.... now who to adventure with...

Yep, pretty slick editor. Must be some good custom dungeons out there now. Hey, I sampled DMJava a while back. I liked the fact that the editor added a few terrain tilesets. I remember a forest setting with stars in the sky and other cave textures. At first glance I dont see anything like that with the RTC editor.

it is all (and lot more) possible in RTC; download the newest version and turn on the "DM2 demo". There should be a tons of new graphics (forest, sky etc).

I have play tested the RTC DM version. Noticing differences in the algorithms behind the scenes. Mainly, with initially leveling up Ninja skills for a reincarnated character. It is far easier to do in RTC. And also, stamina seems to last longer in the WinUAE DMv3.6. Despite these differences I noticed straight off the bat, I am thinking I will have to play RTC because it is so much quicker running with cleaner graphics.

schmirk wrote:Kinda funny how DM takes so long to load... I guess the slowness comes with an accurate emulation.

Turn up the "floppy drive emulation speed"

Tweak? About as far as I want to go with this is "on/off". And why would the default emulationg speed for the floppy be set to "archaic" anyways? Of course, it could be fun to overclock an Amiga.

schmirk wrote:Tweak? About as far as I want to go with this is "on/off".

Then emulation is not the art/science for you.

You'll want to try RTC or CSBwin.

the default speed is set to 'max compatibility' so that for a novice user the emulation has every chance to work properly. Then after everything is working fine, you can gradually tweak the settings to improve things

Ya, I am playing RTC now. All the Nostalgia and a smooth running program. Thanks for helping me get started. Now... back to those floating eyeball things that keep frying my party.