Dungeon Master Forum

Paul, is it possible to port DM II to Windows like DM and CSB?

Certainly. George did it, I believe.

You could translate the code as I did for
CSBwin. Atari or Amiga code is probably
easier to translate than PC-DOS code
because of the linear address space.
Plan to spend a thousand hours or so.
Bit's auto-translator might help a lot.

Tzan, please start a new thread when you have a new topic/question -- things get lost and too confusing when combining subjects. Thanks. I've separated out your question into a new thread this time.

Paul Stevens wrote:Certainly. George did it, I believe.

You could translate the code as I did for
CSBwin. Atari or Amiga code is probably
easier to translate than PC-DOS code
because of the linear address space.
Plan to spend a thousand hours or so.
Bit's auto-translator might help a lot.

In one of the last weeks I spotted that there is a complete disassembly of CSB 2.1 available - when I mixed in the CSB 2.0-version with DM throughout the last year.
Being done with the truecolor-stuff (and still stuck with the duplicated-object-problem), there came up some questions of Rasmus and Sophia about exact formulas, and also the wrong-byte-pick-thingie.
I decided to make a testclone of the CSB 2.1-code (having a lot of knowledge collected now), expecting that this isn't too much effort. But I realized, I'll walk into that typo-trap again.
I also realized that I collected far too much tools and versions (some dead branches etc.) - and it would be fine if I can drop that into the waste-basket at some time - soooooo...
that 'auto-translator', which was a collection of small c-files and notes from version to version is *now* on the way to become one pack! Then again - a really auto-translating program needs too much intelligence, there are special cases over and over. What I do now is kind of a batch program that sometimes processes, but sometimes just replaces, swaps, deletes, inserts etc., all manually typed stuff is embedded in routines that perform that like a macro-processor. In the end I got a program that really eats the first disassembly.s-file and makes a working c/c++-source that can be compiled and will be a clone. In fact, some parts and sublibraries may be useful for doing that for a DM II-code too - but all the manually stuff must be adjusted. And then - in that new program, there will be used a lot of knowledge that we got right now, starting with a DM II-clone we got not much. I doubt that we could make that in one straight flow! That would take another year minimum.
Just for the records: the current code processes the disassembly code into C-functioncalls that call a simple ST-emulator. So far that new thing made it to the already existing ST-emu. I'll have to blank out the protection and just adjust some hardware-stuff. That'll be done fast - this way I could release the old first clone within 2 months in the beginning. That CSB 2.1-clone will now not take more than three weeks, I think. But - there is not one readable variable name, those are pure numbers! Making that to good C-code - that's also a year, even having all those tools now. To be used generally for other stuff, they are much too weak.

With old windowses (win 95 or 98) it's possible to play by going to the MS-DOS mode. For modern computers there are two versions: one is the RTC version made by George Gilbert, another is the original dungeon hacked for DMII map by Toni Y, but both are different from the original that you can consider it them unique dungeons. If you ask me original is clearly better.

I haven't heard about the Toni Y. Is it the complete DM II game? If so where can I get it? I'm playing around now with the RTC version. I'm at the place where there are lots of rino type monsters. It just doesn't have the feel of the original.

it's more the layout and puzzles in dm. created using dmute

Tzan - not sure i understand the problem - why not just use dosbox to play the orriginal game in all it's 'glory' ??

I was about to suggest that, lol - I can confirm that DMII runs just fine in DOSbox - I played it there myself (albeit a few years ago now...haven't tried it since having Vista but I dont't see that the OS would matter since the game is running in DOSbox, therefore not directly through Windows). I had no problems getting it to run or anything .

works fine in Vista and windows 7 - just make sure you have the latest Dosbox version

Hm, if that dosbox is really working, I should try to update my OS too.
There are still things that I need DOS or an emulation for.
About Windows 7 people say for the first time that it is pretty fine, while they screamed about Vista.
I just hope that my hardware is still supported then.

When someone repeatedly kicks you in the crotch, it's nice when they stop. Not sure I'd fully recommend it yet, not done much with it! My wireless card still doens't work, not sure why...

Works really nicely, we have just adopted it (in trial phase) in our organisation and I have it on two home computers - really nice to use, responsive and not too buggy. Media player is 100x better and the start up/standy works soooo much better than Vista and XP.

I was messing around with the RTC version and then I realized why I don't like this version. The vermin don't know their boundaries. I killed enough rinos to sell their stakes and buy better weapons. I go and fight a few more then move onto tornado alley. I rest a bit then a tornado is heading for me and I turn to back up and there was a rino out of his pen so I couldn't move. This happened in DM, when wizard's eyes from level 6 kept coming up to level 5.

I played the original DMII in DOS Box and finished it, but it was a pain in that sometimes it locked everything up. I was hoping for an easy way to play. What I might do is see if this older computer has enough components to turn it into a DOS machine, maybe Windows 98, and play it straight from DOS.

Did you tried the patch?

There are some hints about setting up the dosbox. If the main post of that subforum doesn't help, here's another old link:
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.p ... 7a11fa358f

I tried for my win98se in pure dos but did get no sounds (with no dosdrivers for sound not surprising).
Took a view into the disassembly of the exes - i still know why i hate this...

The 'best' version of Dungeon Master II is the Macintosh version, IMO. It has a few screen layout options, graphics smoothing options, cd-quality sound, and better graphics (mostly just the monsters, IIRC) than any of the others. It may be difficult to play because it has/had problems on the Basilisk II emulator, but you may be able to set it up in PearPC. Which is a lot of work. DOSBox is still the easiest way to play it on Windows. The enhancements of the Mac version don't really warrant the effort.

purple1 wrote:The 'best' version of Dungeon Master II is the Macintosh version, IMO. It has... better graphics (mostly just the monsters, IIRC) than any of the others.

I never was able to get it to run under emulation on Windows, but I thought the Mac version has exactly the same graphics as the PC version?

Gambit37 wrote: I never was able to get it to run under emulation on Windows, but I thought the Mac version has exactly the same graphics as the PC version?

For having opened several versions of DM2 graphics.dat, I can tell you Mac and PC versions are the same. Mac version has the FTL team portraits in addition. The mistakes that are within the PC graphics.dat are also in the Mac graphics.dat.