The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Anyone know if it's possible to get SC2 (the original PC game) running properly under XP?

Also, I never really played 1 or 3 so I'd be interested in trying to find them, if only I thought they'd run.

So if anyone knows how to get 'em running, I'd love to know how.

Thanks,

Covak

/me pats his trusty old p166 dos 6.22 box

Kept it especially for Star Control II. Really!

But with UQM I can prolly finally get rid of it :D

Any ideas for getting SC3 to work on Win2k? I can't get the sound to work... seeing as it's asking for old sound cards like SoundBlaster 16 or something.

Try dosbox:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox

I've been playing my old SC1 & 2 with dosbox version 0.57 lately.  The only noticible problem is when MS Office's Findfast starts searching for Office files while I'm playing... and that's just because I forgot to turn the stupid thing off.

I usually make a batchfile (sc2.bat) for SC2 with the following line:
starcon2 /g:bios /s:soundblaster

Then run dosbox with the command:
dosbox C:\starcon2\sc2.bat -fullscreen

I could probably use more command line options to make it emulate a better machine (the one it emulates is kind of slow), but I don't bother with readme files more than I need to.

Woah, dosbox appears to rock.  SC2 ran just like it used to on the old 286.

Thanks for the info!

Covak

I've been running it on my old 486 up until this re-release.  That and 'Ascendancy'.

Could someone please give more detailed information about how to configure dosbox to run sc2?  I have downloaded the latest version (.57) but pathetically don't really know how to operate it.

Yeah, but when installing SC3... what do I put for my sound options?

Ian, what operating system are you running?  If it's windows (of any sort), you should be able to make a text file with the line
starcon2 /g:bios /s:soundblaster
Then rename the textfile to sc2.bat (it's icon should change; if it doesn't then get a real OS use a dos prompt to rename the file.  ;)
Put the batchfile in your SC2 directory.

Then, you can make a shortcut to dosbox.exe.  Edit the preferences on the shortcut so that the command looks something like this:
C:\dosbox_location\dosbox.exe C:\starcon2_location\sc2.bat -fullscreen

Then double-click the shortcut.  Cheers

A top to bottom description...

What the others don't mention is the possibility of using configure files.  What I do is set up the configure files and then run dosbox based on that.  With the configure files, I can control how much memory the apps get, how many cycles (so I can set the speed of emulation), and so on...

You can pre-generate a config file by going into the DosBox program (CONFIG.COM virtual drive Z).  Here's an example...



Most of the options are pretty self-explanatory...I keep all my dos stuff in a dos stuff directory (including all the games I hope to run once they get all the bugs out and have it working for protected mode stuff).  The only problem I have is that sound echoes under Windows ME, but this works perfectly under XP...if I want to set up a single icon I can click to run the game, I can set up the command to be:



Just like I'm running a Windows DirectX type game...starts it up in full-screen and goes  ;D

Meanwhile, if anybody knows how to get my sound to stop echoing in WinME, it'd be a great thing....any ideas?

Actually, I think the switch for sound blaster for SC2 is /s:sblaster

Its probably not recognizing that /s:soundblaster and defaulting to Sound Blaster with its autodetection.

Here is a list of the command line switches for SC1 and SC2

http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/faq/#56

Is there any way to find out your IRQ and DMA under XP?  I'm having trouble getting the sound to work under the DosBox method you identify.

The sound card settings mentioned aren't really so much for the benefit of the OS, but for the benefit of the games you run.  Historically the old Sound Blaster cards had addresses like that you had to set up and define to the games so they could find the sound card and use it.  That's what is being defined there in the config...you need those numbers if you ever have to define the sound card to a game you wish to run.

I don't think Starcon2 has that requirement - but anyway, what things are happening that you can't get DOSBox to work under XP (remember try .57, I had problems with .56)?  And what kind of system do you have?  You have to tweak that clock cycles line depending on what kind of machine you have.  

If it helps, if you can still find the old "Landmark Speed Test" (ask and give me an e-mail if you cant find it and want to put it on your site), it should give you an idea of what kind of machine you're emulating under DOSBox.  With these settings, I'm pretty much emulating a 400Mhz 386...the other thing I notice with DOSBox as well in running this test is that the Mhz varies pretty wildly...I wonder if that'll be fixed someday or if it'll be "the nature of the beast" so to speak.

Hope we can help...

Thanks...actually that's probably what it is doing...I get the same results with the /s:sblaster switch...the game sounds echo...maybe I'll do well to look around the Dosbox site (http://dosbox.zophar.net) and see what's going on...

Got to thinking about it and figured out my echo problem.  Basically in XP, each application is in its own box and XP parcels out the resources to it...but in ME this is not the case, so apps see more of the CPU.  Perhaps 15000 cycles was enough for XP (or irrelevant), but too much for ME, throwing off the timing code in SC2...

I changed that to 10000 upon testing and it worked well...btw, I thought this would merit a mention, since I forget about it myself...you can tweak the emulation speed on the fly by pressing CTRL-F11 to lower and CTRL-F12 to increase...
at 10000 cycles, I now have the equivalent of a 66Mhz AT according to Landmark...

Maybe that's what's needed to make this thing work out well...a calibration routine so it find the right cycles to come off as an optimal Mhz system for old games?  I guess for right now you could run landmark and press the keys I mentioned until it comes up with a good Mhz rating that's reasonable...of course, the developers could always try and find a way to limit the tweaking from being necessary...

At least I know I have a setup that can run SC2 on WinME now...

Everything works but the sound, but the sound, depending on how I try to get it to work (DosBox, soundblaster emulation software for old DOS games, etc.) never works.  Clearly it's playing a sound when it thinks it should be playing a sound, but those sounds are often much longer than they should be and have a sort of wumphing quality to them.

Here's how I used DOSBox 0.57 to run SC2 absolutely flawlessly under XP:

-Start up dosbox and at the Z: prompt type "CONFIG -WRITECONF DOSBOX.CONF" (without the quotes). Close DOSBox.
You should now how a file called "DOSBOX.CONF" in the dosbox directory, which can be "opened with" notepad or any text editor. Save a copy called "SC2.CONF".
-Create a subfolder in dosbox dir, called "CONF", and move "SC2.CONF" into there.
-IMPORTANT: In SC2.CONF, Change the option "keepsmall=false" to "keepsmall=true". This is what screws up the sound and makes it echo.
-Change cycles=1800 to cycles=4000
-In SC2.CONF, the bottom of the file should look like:

---cut (do not copy this line)---

[autoexec]
# Add here the lines you want to execute on startup.
mount c "(full directory path of SC2)"
c:
starcon2 -g:bios -s:sblaster

---end cut---
 
-If the directory that SC2 is in has long filenames or spaces, DO enclose it in quotes. Also note the directory path does not contain the executable file name.

-Create a file called "SC2.BAT" in the "CONF" directory you made, and edit it to contain:

--cut--

..\dosbox -conf SC2.conf

--end cut--

-Now you should be able to double-click "SC2.BAT" to run SC2 just like it used to.
-You can use "alt + enter" to go fullscreen.
-Try doing the same for other games that weren't working right before, it helps them too.
Anyway, good luck!

Thanks all for the advice.  I've got the game working, but as others have indicated in regard to Windows ME, the sound is echoing and not very pleasant.  Will work on fixing that when I have time.  I actually have the sound mods on independent files - maybe I can just run them in the background as I play the game.  ;)