Constructor (Acclaim Game) on Windows XP

*bump*

*2nd bump*

somebody gotta know!

Do you have more than one cd drive? Including any virtual cd''s like daemon-tools. Many games search only the first drive.

Also some games really bad written games requires that the cd should be in d:. Try using the diskmanager to change the letter, but be careful, because that can break some other programs.

Try using VMware (expensive solution) or http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/ (it''s free, but never tried it)

Windows NT based OSes (NT/2000/XP) will not play nice with DOS games.

DOS environments/fakers/boxes etc will go some of the way, but can't bypass much of what happens on those modern OSes (for security reasons, for stability reasons etc).

Windows98 and Windows95 were much closer to DOS and so if you were too lazy to go to "restart in DOS mode", there was still some chance of running the old game.


Your options?

1) Obtain a machine from the DOS days. If the game had both DOS and Windows95 versions then the target hardware would have been something like a P200 at the very most and more likely a P90. If this game really matters to you, get an old PC. From a quick browse on eBay there was a P90 desktop with a $4.95 starting bid and a P200 with a $10 starting bid - and neither had any bids but only 4 days to go. It would save you a lot of effort

2) Get VirtualPC (previously from Connectix, now from Microsoft) and run DOS in a virtual environment on top of Windows.


Unfortunately I can't offer any more than that (not an official company line although I'm pretty sure it isn't offically supported any more).

---

Simon O'Connor
Game Programmer &
Microsoft DirectX MVP

[edited by - S1CA on May 13, 2004 8:21:10 PM]

Well this page says that the patch turns the game into a natve win95 game.

Tell DOSBox (with the "mount" command) to mount your CD drive.

quote:

---

Original post by fredizzimo
Well this page says that the patch turns the game into a natve win95 game.

---

Indeed, a "native Windows95 game", but not in a DOS box under Windows XP or a native WindowsXP game. If the OP''s OS was Windows95, everything would be fine.

WindowsXP is an NT based OS; 95, 98 and ME are essentially DOS based OSes - with a little work, DOS interrupts and hardware accesses will work just fine under those OSes - but not newer ones. XP, 2000 and NT should be considered very separate from 9x/ME- there is a lot of difference.

You should give VDMSound a try. I''ve had much better success with it than I have with DOSBox and it integrates with Windows XP so running a DOS app is as easy as right clicking on it and selecting Run VDMSound.

It got Mech Warrior 2 Mercenaries working when everything else failed.

quote:

---

Original post by Ravuya
Tell DOSBox (with the "mount" command) to mount your CD drive.

---

For some strange reason this doesn''t seem to work with a few games. I couldn''t get Mech2, Mercs, or Earth Siege to work that way. VDMSound took care of it.

Just make sure to make a custom profile for your game and in the advanced settings be sure to enable Low-Level CD-ROM support. Did the trick for me.

quote:

---

Original post by fredizzimo
Do you have more than one cd drive? Including any virtual cd''s like daemon-tools. Many games search only the first drive.

Also some games really bad written games requires that the cd should be in d:. Try using the diskmanager to change the letter, but be careful, because that can break some other programs.

---

I got only one CD drive, and it is at D: (XP for some reason decided to put my CD drive before all my partitions after last install)

quote:

---

Original post by fredizzimo
Well this page says that the patch turns the game into a natve win95 game.

---

Look closely in my OP...

quote:

---

Original post by Ravuya
Tell DOSBox (with the "mount" command) to mount your CD drive.

---

I did..

quote:

---

Original post by Raduprv
Try using VMware (expensive solution) or http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/ (it''s free, but never tried it)

---

Thanks, I will look into it..

quote:

---

Original post by reaptide
You should give VDMSound a try. I''ve had much better success with it than I have with DOSBox and it integrates with Windows XP so running a DOS app is as easy as right clicking on it and selecting Run VDMSound.

It got Mech Warrior 2 Mercenaries working when everything else failed.

---

See above

I realize this might be a bit out of line, but I found an article about this through Google that suggested that if you just found a no cd crack and ran the old dos version it would work just fine..

Can anyone give me a hint to where I might find such? (I''m sorry if this is crossing the line, but I do own the game and just realy want to play it.. )

quote:

---

Original post by Coward
I realize this might be a bit out of line, but I found an article about this through Google that suggested that if you just found a no cd crack and ran the old dos version it would work just fine..

Can anyone give me a hint to where I might find such? (I''m sorry if this is crossing the line, but I do own the game and just realy want to play it.. )

---

You''re right, that is a bit out of line.

I''m afraid I can''t allow anyone to help you out with that, as per the forum rules for warez (just because you own the game doesn''t mean that everyone else reading the thread does). If you''re going to do it, you find it yourself.