trollface on 24/3/2006 at 19:11
Well, that was just me being stupid, due to it being 1 in the morning, but I'm still having problems. Whenever I try opening anything with the VDMSound, it tells me that it can't find the core programme "dosdrv.exe", although that's definitely there. It asks whether the "VDMSPath environment variable points to the right directory, but I have no idea how to check or alter that.
I should probably also say that when I try to run the programme it says "system could not open COM 1 port requested by the programme, and quits it.
trollface on 25/3/2006 at 00:12
Never mind, I sorted it. I had to install a different version of VDMSound, as the one on the site linked in the OP didn't work for me. I got it directly from the source, and it works fine.
Eleri at'Xalien on 31/3/2006 at 04:04
Okay, I didn't see this answered in the thread, and I read all 13 pages of it :bored:
My problem is that, I can get System Shock to run fine, full sound with minor speed issues, full mouse speed, and 640x480 resolution. After running for approximately 30 seconds to about 10 minutes. The mouse cursor disappears, and the game freezes completely. CTRL+ALT+DELETE has no effect, along with ALT+TAB. My only option is a hard reset.
I followed the first post walkthrough with two exceptions: I moved my CD onto the HD, and updated cyb.cfg; I turned off 'Enable basic VESA support' and 'Enable low-level CD-ROM support (MSCDEX)' under the VDMSound shortcut. These only have improved my game speed, as far as I can tell :thumb: .
My system:
It's a Gateway 450ROG laptop.
OS: Windows XP SP 2
CPU: Intel Pentium M
Graphics card: Built-in (64 MB)
Video card: Built-in
My cdshock.bat:
@echo off
C:\SSHOCK\nolfb.com
C:\SSHOCK\MOUSE2KV.EXE 640 480 8 8 C:\SSHOCK\dos4gw.exe C:\SSHOCK\cdshock.exe
My cyb.cfg:
midi_list 3
lowres_cutscenes 0
midi_io -1
midi_irq -1
inp6d -1
digi_list 3
joystick 128
midi_card 3
midi_dma -1
midi_drq -1
cd_data_dir_path C:\SSHOCK\CD\CDROM\DATA
digi_io -1
digi_irq -1
digi_card 3
digi_dma -1
language 0
digi_drq -1
jagge on 28/4/2006 at 06:24
Hi,
It's great to see that this old classic is still playable with modern computers. I'd also like to enjoy this classic to it's fullest potential and thus I have a question which I hope somebody out there can answer.
My problem with the game is that I don't manage to get it run with sounds even when I try to use VDMsound (2.1). Without sounds the game runs just fine even with higher resolutions but the sounds in the game contribute too much of the game experience for it be enjoyable.
Now with more details. When I use the installer, it can detect my sound card just fine if I choose general midi for music and sound blaster for digital card. Then I can also hear the test music sample and shodans test speech sample so all is fine to this point. After I save the settings and try to run the game with VDMsound or without, all I get is black screen and nothing happens. If I on the other hand disable sounds from install menu, I can run the game fine just by clicking on the modified cdshock.exe although there is the com1 and com2 quirks which I just _ignore_ after which the game runs smoothly even with higher resolutions. I've tried to run the game with VDMsound and without VDMsound but if I have sound enabled, all I get is the black screen and nothing happens. So if somebody has struggled with this problem before and solved it somehow, please be kind enough to help me.
Let me also clarify the installation part. When I select sound card from SS installation menu I don't even need to run the installer with VDMsound since I can get the sounds working in the installer with or without VDMsound.
With dosbox 6.5 I can run the game with sounds but the dos emulation is so heavy that the actual gaming experience is like swimming in tar, no matter how much I tune the dosbox parameters.
comp specs:
MoBo: Asus A8N-sli deluxe
CPU: 3200+ AMD
Mem: 1Gb
VidC: GeForce 6600GT
Using MoBo integrated soundcard.
bob_doe_nz on 28/4/2006 at 12:05
I managed to find a variation of Dos called Dos 7.1 (which is no longer available)
I managed to install that onto a Duron 700 based system and run SS1 from that natively with absolutely no problems at all with it.
Apart from no music which I could not remedy.
Comp specs were...
* Duron 700
* 96mb SDRam
* 14GB HDD
* Cirrus Logic CL-GD5446 PCI display card
* Sound Blaster Awe 64 ISA (drivers for this werent needed as the built in sound drivers detected and installed for this card)
Taedium Vitae on 16/5/2006 at 05:40
Yeah, I think I give up on trying to get this to run in XP SP2... I've followed the guide twice now, from scratch, without getting it to work. I don't get any error messages, just a blank black screen. That's with trying all the dos4gws I could get my hand on, Mok's cdshock.exe by itself, and with all manner of compatibility settings.
When going the dos4gw.exe route, I get this in VDMS.log (I enabled verbose logging):
@I - 13:52:33.056 - VDMServicesProvider
Created DOS process (0x10dc, 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\KB16.COM')
@I - 13:52:33.065 - VDMServicesProvider
Created DOS process (0x126a, 'C:\SSHOCK\NOLFB.COM')
@I - 13:52:33.078 - VDMServicesProvider
Created DOS process (0x128e, 'C:\SSHOCK\MOUSE2KV.EXE')
@I - 13:52:33.079 - VDMServicesProvider
Created DOS process (0x229f, 'C:\SSHOCK\DOS4GW.EXE')
Same thing, but replace DOS4GW.EXE with CDSHOCK.EXE when bypassing DOS4GW. NOLFB.COM does nothing either here or there. So it's at least running the processes.
So, this leads me to my question. Has anyone tried running SS1 in a DOS7.1 VMWare installation? Too slow? No sound?
The Brain on 16/5/2006 at 07:13
Can you post your full system specs, please?
Taedium Vitae on 16/5/2006 at 07:50
Sure thing, boss.
P4C 2.4 GHz @ 3 GHz (1 GHz FSB)
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe
4x256 MB Corsair 3200LL RAM
GF4 Ti4200 64 MB (yeah yeah, upgrading anytime now)
A couple of S-ATA drives
M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496
WinXP SP2 Pro Corp (Eng)
Dual monitors + UltraMon (disabling the secondary monitor doesn't help)
Tried both VDMSound 2.0.4 + fixes and 2.1.0
Not running any alternate shells or anything like that.
INSTALL works fine; both wave and MIDI emulation works fine in VDMSound with default settings.
When I try to run the game, I only get that black screen, and my monitor's OSD says the refresh rate is 70 Hz. Not using RefreshLock or Coolbits override right now. I can't say if the res it's changing to is out of range, because none of my monitors give off any such messages when that happens. I severely doubt that's what's happening. I don't get any sound either, so...
Edit: I can start the game in DOSBox, and I have sound + midi, but performance is atrocious (unplayable).
Edit 2: And oh, I'm doing all this on C: with short dir names (e.g. my CD dir is C:\SHOCKCD and my installation dir is C:\SSHOCK)
Taedium Vitae on 20/5/2006 at 06:22
VGAFix + disabling VESA support in VDMSound solved it!
heinz_3 on 27/5/2006 at 15:02
For everyone (like me) who never got the mouse speed settings working.
I found a fix for that. Inside the bat file, instead putting mouse2k in a seperate line, do that:
Quote:
@echo off
***\nolfb.com
***\MOUSE2KV.EXE 1024 768 3 3 cdshock.exe
