168 replies to this topic

[SupSuper]

press Alt+Enter to switch between full-screen and windowed mode in DOSBox.

edit : by j'ordos (can't be bothered to make a new post )

I downloaded the game from the first link you posted. Do I have to install it or is it already installed? If so, how do I do it? It asks for the floppy drive location everytime I run it.

Thanks

it already is installed, in the setup you only have to configure the sound card.

Edited by j'ordos, 16 September 2004 - 09:02 AM.

[SupSuper]

is it possible to slow it down without Dosbox????

can i fit dosbox on a floppy??

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

not with the dos version. there are some patches for CE version that slow it down, iirc.

yes dosbox fits in a floppy. it's about 700kb.

[SupSuper]

Could someone explain it to me in plain english, pretty please?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

ummm... explain what, exactly?
i believe the instructions on getting x-com to work with dosbox are simple enough.

[Airic]

Why does everyone need dosbox to run X-Com in windows? I have a micronPC Laptop with WinME and the DOS version works fine for me. Plays full screen, all sound effects and music. Only complaints I have is the timer is faster than I recall on my old 386 or 486 but I can live with that and sometimes my touchpad acts up.

Question though: Will DosBox let me play on my Win2000 machines?

Of course then again I also seem to be one of the few people that like WinME and never seem to have any problems with it.

[j'ordos]

Yeah, the link in my first post still works fine here, maybe there are more with the same problem?

[baszermaszer]

[quote name='Guest' date='Jan 15 2005, 06:32 PM']
Ok, I just DLed UFO Defense (have the original CDs for UFO and TftD still tho, as well as the CE). I installed DOSBox 0.63 and ran UFO Defense. Worked great. A bit choppy, but nothing MAJOR. I'm fiddling with those settings...upped my cycles to 4500 and it's nearly maxed out my CPU, but it looks good.

However, when I try to make the game full screen, it ends up pushing it to the left and the whole screen is offset by about 1 inch. Basically I can't see the left hand inch of the fullscreen setting.
---------------------
Best to Download D-Fend. The Ultimate DosBox Graphical User Interface. Really helps seeing and managing ALL DosBox functions.

In D-Fend when you create an XCOM profile, just click on the profile and press CTRL+ENTER

You will see, that on the GENERAL tab DosBox has several renderers. Try all. DDRAW and Normal and Overlay or Surface might work excellently. Mayhaps the OpenGL renderer even, but on my Radeon 9500 card: Dbox OpenGL cannot be fullscreened, because of strong static. Resolution should be 640x480 or even 320x200 and use the hardware scaler set to 1.0 [try the values], and try out the AMAZING Interpolate filters!! God, they look good! Hold the mouse cursor over the setting-fields and explanation will appear. Before ALT+ENTER the fullscreen can be nicely adjusted with the checkboxes above the renderer-selector. AnyWay try D-Fend from Mabus. He really deserves MAJOR credit imho, since he created a Five Star Tool:
http://members.home.nl/mabus/dfend.htm

Edited by baszermaszer, 16 January 2005 - 08:47 AM.

[Micah]

That's usually the error you'll get when you're trying to run the Collector's Edition of the game in dos. Are you sure you have the dos version of the game?

[dan2]

New question for y'all:

(but first, thanks for doing this! I've been waiting to play this game for years too, and it's trippy to be so close....)

I'm running dosbox on a mac running OS X. I've managed to mount the x-com disk. But when I try to run ufo.exe, this program must be run under win32.

Forgive me ignorance: what does that mean? Does that mean I can't play this on a mac? Can I get some sort of emulator to fill the gap?

Thanks!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I can assure you it's working on Mac with Dosbox. You just probably have a windows version of the game or maybe you have an archive that was compressed with Winzip as selfextractor (which would be a Win32 executable). So, please, be more specific, do you have the archive or the unpacked game?

[j'ordos]

Wulfie : I don't see an exe or batch file called 'ufo' in that version, try using 'FULL', or 'GO' instead.

Guest : once you're in the xcom directory, type SETUP, and configure the soundcard (soundblaster pro, 220, 7, 1) for more details check the third post in this thread by Robo Dojo.
Once you've done that, type FULL, and it should start. Regarding speed issues, check the first two posts.

[kafros]

Actually, I've found an ISO version of the game, probably the Dos one.
Instead of having to mount a cd-rom drive, I've used Alcohol! Now, I have a virtual G: drive which has the X-Com iso. I've installed the game in C:\MPS\UFO, so I just type these:

mount C C:
mount g G:
C:
cd mps
cd ufo
ufo.exe

I have a P4 2GHz, 1GB DDR-SDRAM, ATI Radeon All-in-wonder 9700 Pro, and the game runs smoooooooooooothly

My settings in Dosbox:

[sdl]
# fullscreen -- Start dosbox directly in fullscreen.
# fulldouble -- Use double buffering in fullscreen.
# fullfixed -- Don't resize the screen when in fullscreen.
# fullresolution -- What resolution to use for fullscreen, use together with fullfixed.
# output -- What to use for output: surface,overlay,opengl,openglnb,ddraw.
# hwscale -- Extra scaling of window if the output device supports hardware scaling.
# autolock -- Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen.
# sensitiviy -- Mouse sensitivity.
# waitonerror -- Wait before closing the console if dosbox has an error.
# priority -- Priority levels for dosbox: lower,normal,higher,highest.
#          Second entry behind the comma is for when dosbox is not focused/minimized.
# mapperfile -- File used to load/save the key/event mappings from.

fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullfixed=false
fullresolution=1024x768
output=surface
hwscale=1.00
autolock=true
sensitivity=80
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper.txt

[dosbox]
# language -- Select another language file.
# memsize -- Amount of memory dosbox has in megabytes.
# machine -- The type of machine tries to emulate:hercules,cga,tandy,vga.
# captures -- Directory where things like wave,midi,screenshot get captured.

language=
machine=vga
captures=capture
memsize=128

[render]
# frameskip -- How many frames dosbox skips before drawing one.
# aspect -- Do aspect correction.
# scaler -- Scaler used to enlarge/enhance low resolution modes.
#        Supported are none,normal2x,advmame2x,advmame3x,advinterp2x,interp2x,tv2x.

frameskip=0
aspect=false
scaler=normal2x

[cpu]
# core -- CPU Core used in emulation: simple,normal,full,dynamic.
# cycles -- Amount of instructions dosbox tries to emulate each millisecond.
#        Setting this higher than your machine can handle is bad!
# cycleup -- Amount of cycles to increase/decrease with keycombo.
# cycledown    Setting it lower than 100 will be a percentage.

core=dynamic
cycles=31000
cycleup=500
cycledown=20

[mixer]
# nosound -- Enable silent mode, sound is still emulated though.
# rate -- Mixer sample rate, setting any devices higher than this will
#      probably lower their sound quality.
# blocksize -- Mixer block size, larger blocks might help sound stuttering
#              but sound will also be more lagged.
# prebuffer -- How many milliseconds of data to keep on top of the blocksize.

nosound=false
rate=22050
blocksize=2048
prebuffer=200

[midi]
# mpu401      -- Enable MPU-401 Emulation.
# intelligent -- Operate in Intelligent mode.
# device      -- Device that will receive the MIDI data from MPU-401.
#                This can be default,alsa,oss,win32,coreaudio,none.
# config      -- Special configuration options for the device.

mpu401=true
intelligent=true
device=default
config=

[sblaster]
# type -- Type of sblaster to emulate:none,sb1,sb2,sbpro1,sbpro2,sb16.
# base,irq,dma,hdma -- The IO/IRQ/DMA/High DMA address of the soundblaster.
# mixer -- Allow the soundblaster mixer to modify the dosbox mixer.
# oplmode -- Type of OPL emulation: auto,cms,opl2,dualopl2,opl3.
#            On auto the mode is determined by sblaster type.
# oplrate -- Sample rate of OPL music emulation.

type=sb16
base=220
irq=7
dma=1
hdma=5
mixer=true
oplmode=auto
oplrate=22050

[gus]
# gus -- Enable the Gravis Ultrasound emulation.
# base,irq1,irq2,dma1,dma2 -- The IO/IRQ/DMA addresses of the
#            Gravis Ultrasound. (Same IRQ's and DMA's are OK.)
# rate -- Sample rate of Ultrasound emulation.
# ultradir -- Path to Ultrasound directory.  In this directory
#          there should be a MIDI directory that contains
#          the patch files for GUS playback.  Patch sets used
#          with Timidity should work fine.

gus=true
rate=22050
base=240
irq1=5
irq2=5
dma1=3
dma2=3
ultradir=C:\ULTRASND

[speaker]
# pcspeaker -- Enable PC-Speaker emulation.
# pcrate -- Sample rate of the PC-Speaker sound generation.
# tandyrate -- Sample rate of the Tandy 3-Voice generation.
#              Tandysound emulation is present if machine is set to tandy.
# disney -- Enable Disney Sound Source emulation.

pcspeaker=true
pcrate=22050
tandyrate=22050
disney=true

[bios]
# Nothing to setup yet!


[dos]
# xms -- Enable XMS support.
# ems -- Enable EMS support.

xms=true
ems=true

[modem]
# modem -- Enable virtual modem emulation.
# comport -- COM Port modem is connected to.
# listenport -- TCP Port the modem listens on for incoming connections.

modem=false
comport=2
listenport=23

[directserial]
# directserial -- Enable serial passthrough support.
# comport -- COM Port inside DOSBox.
# realport -- COM Port on the Host.
# defaultbps -- Default BPS.
# parity -- Parity of the packets. This can be N, E or O.
# bytesize -- Size of each packet. This can be 5 or 8.
# stopbit -- The number of stopbits. This can be 1 or 2.

directserial=false
comport=1
realport=COM1
defaultbps=1200
parity=N
bytesize=8
stopbit=1

[ipx]
# ipx -- Enable ipx over UDP/IP emulation.

ipx=false

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.

[azazeel]

This is probably me just bein thick but i downloaded the dos version and when i tried to install it asked me which floppy drive i was installin from, obviosly it's not on floppy so what do i do?
As u can probably guess i'm pretty new to this so excuse my stupidity!!

[kafros]

That's no stupidity pal . Actually, I even have installation problems with floppies :S. Well, probably you just have to copy the files in a folder, I think the installation isn't vital. BUT, better get a sure answer from someone else

[kafros]

Overwritten screen with pixels, hmm... . That reminds me of 2 things:
1) Overheating (due to overclocking most of the time)
2) Bad graphics drivers

That happens only when playing X-Com? What graphics card and drivers do you have? Some more information would be just perfect

[FluidFire]

cool, dosbox .63 works under XP home on all 3 (ufo, tftd, apoc).

on apoc had to use sbpro emulation, sb16 wouldn't work tho.

[kafros]

Well, you both say "Doctor, it hurts around my belly!", and wait for the doctor's diagnosis like that! Thanks for asking for help, but could you help us a bit? like giving your system's specifications, basic information about your dosbox settings, other issues that happen, etc. That would greatly help

[kafros]

None is retarted . If you really do want to describe yourself in a negative manner (without a reason >_>), then just call yourself a beginner computer user, which definitely isn't bad at all (we all were newbies once, and still are on many issues ).

Now, the solution:

In the dosbox folder, there is a txt file called "dosbox.conf". As you can guess, it contains the confugirations and options of the program. In the very first page, you can see something like this:

[sdl]
# fullscreen -- Start dosbox directly in fullscreen.
# fulldouble -- Use double buffering in fullscreen.
# fullfixed -- Don't resize the screen when in fullscreen.
# fullresolution -- What resolution to use for fullscreen, use together with fullfixed.
# output -- What to use for output: surface,overlay,opengl,openglnb,ddraw.
# hwscale -- Extra scaling of window if the output device supports hardware scaling.
# autolock -- Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen.
# sensitiviy -- Mouse sensitivity.
# waitonerror -- Wait before closing the console if dosbox has an error.
# priority -- Priority levels for dosbox: lower,normal,higher,highest.
# Second entry behind the comma is for when dosbox is not focused/minimized.
# mapperfile -- File used to load/save the key/event mappings from.

fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullfixed=false
fullresolution=1024x768
output=surface
hwscale=1.00
autolock=true
sensitivity=80
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper.txt

Just replace "fullscreen=false" with "fullscreen=true". Simple as that

[kafros]

?????
It's just a txt file, it can't redirect you . Maybe there is also an html file, haven't seen that...

There is a readme file, which guides you through the process . If you need help, try mine (attached), or ask again for instructions

[Sensen]

Ok, I'm gonna need a little help tweeking, to get my Xcom working right.

I've downloaded Xcom from the site on the first page. Downloaded Dosbox .63 and then Dfend. This has allowed me to play, and not play badly.
However, it's a bit choppy slow. And I can't get fullscreen.
I"ve used Ctrl+F12 to speed up, and it works. Can I speed it up so much that I hurt my computer?? And how do I do the Frame Skip thing? I read it on here earlier, and now I can't find it again.
Secondly, Does Dfend let me increase the size, considering I've done the Fullscreen change in my Dosbox Config file and I"m still playing in a little window..

Oh yeah, and the sound effects for this version SUCK. Any helpful comments on making THAT better would rock.

You are all GODS to me, thanks.

[kafros]

1) dos4gw.exe. Hmmmmm, many years ago, I also had that problem at my 80386 Forton computer . If I Remember Correctly, it is an exe which many different games had, I haven't bothered to find out why . Do you have problems with that? Then, the answer is only one: corrupted file . Solution: Get another copy of the game, as mentioned above.

2) You are welcome JoeyJoJoJuniorShabadoo. Anytime

3.a)Sensen: DO, NOT, FRAME SKIP! Actually, the game runs much faster, but it is CHOPPY anyway. You lose frames! You won't see an animated cursor, people will do strange movements, etc. And, you just can't harm your computer, whatever you do with dosbox! . The only way to have a chance to do harm is to overclock you graphics card, which is done with an overclocking utility . You will only mess-up dosbox. That's totally no big issue, as you will just replace the settings file with a BACKUP, or with the settings I mention many posts above .

3. Well, that's all you need to tweak to whatever you see fit:

fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullfixed=false
fullresolution=1024x768

Just tweak the settings and see what happens, you won't accidentally format your HD

4) There is another thread for the sound patch. Do a search pal

Edited by kafros, 26 May 2005 - 08:24 AM.

[Sensen]

That was my post up there. Sorry, forgot to log in first.

[kafros]

Well, just tweak the settings a bit more, or change the sound buffer!
I have the same problem (and more or less everyone does), but I only get a liiiiiittle chopping at the end of each sound.

[Sensen]

Change the sound buffers..... that sounds plausible. Wanna tell me how to do that though? I'm not incredibly computer savy, but I learn fast and I"m usually good at following instructions, as long as they are basic enough.