System Shock 1 V.S. Terra Nova

Pvt. Grey on 21/6/2003 at 16:00

:tsktsk:

I wonder why it is so much easier to run System Shock 1 on my XP rig than Terra Nova? On the surface they seem to be from the same DOS era but the difference in hassle between the two as far as installing and playing is really huge. I was able to follow the instuctions to get SS1 up and running without a hitch but I have been struggling with Terra Nova for over a week. I recieved a BRAND NEW shrink wrapped copy of Terra Nova and have been unable to use it as anything but a coaster.

Is there more interest in SS1? Is there anything like the fine CDSHOCK.exe out there for Terra Nova?

My problem is that I can follow all of the directions with the various downloads involved but I cant get the game installed to unleash the downloads upon it and throttle it into submission.

My symptoms include a dump back to windows with a garbled screen. Or with Vesafix etc.. and some tweaking a black screen with no further progress.

There wa a post by fitzgerald_ed that made installing/running the game seem easy enough. In his post however he simply says "install Terra Nova" in one section and that is the very thing I can not do. I have not found him since for further guidence. Has anyone done any special prep to get the game to install? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Grey

Shadowcat on 22/6/2003 at 05:12

I always used to need to boot to DOS to install TN. The game itself ran fine under Win98, but the installation wouldn't. I always assumed it was a video card issue and I've since upgraded, but I haven't tried reinstalling since then so I don't know whether the problem has gone away. I do know some other Win98 users have no problems with the installation, though. Maybe <a href="http://dosbox.zophar.net/">DOSBox</a> could be of assistance to you?

jstnomega on 3/7/2003 at 23:55

Yes, it's something to do w/TN, a harder beast to tame than SS1, or so it's been for me anyway, even in a W's 98FE environment. SB AWE 64 Value ISA card but sound remains my TN gotchya!

James Sterrett on 4/7/2003 at 17:50

Might help, might not, but I found one trick that can get me through the install is to avoid the cound card stuff - configure only the the minimum extent you have to, and don't test at all. You can change the configs later if needed, IIRC.