Having gone back to Daggerfall for what must be the tenth time, and on (yet another!) new PC, I've finally run into something of a showstopper - namely, the invisible quest items bug.

This is the first time I've ever run it on an XP machine - this time, a 1.3Ghz P4-based Acer machine, and, for whatever reason, I can't get DOSbox to run it (I suspect the laptop just wouldn't cut it for emulation anyway, but it's the only one I have available at the moment, for a number of reasons). So, for the first time I've run into the invisible quest items bug. I've tried the IMDisk workaround, but it seems to have no effect at all (and no, I'm not using old savegames - I start the game with the virtual drives mounted, I pick up a new quest, and hey presto, there's an invisible tiger or spellsword or whatever waiting for me at the quest location.

Has anyone ever come across an instance of the workaround failing to work around? I'd really love to get stuck back into DF - working through Privateer's Hold really whet my appetite for it! I'd rather not have to cobble together a museum-piece machine just to run it, not least because I've no idea where my old DOS install disks are...

Invisible quest items is a common problem when Daggerfall is running on WinXP. The only way to solve it is to run DF on a FAT32 partition, or install Windows 95-98 on a spare drive and run DF on there. AFAIK its something to do with NTFS file permissions that causes the invisible quest objects.

Indeed, and I'm running it on a FAT32 partition (there's no NTFS partitions on this machine at all, in fact), and the IMDisk virtual drives (as suggested at http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Running_under_Windows) are both FAT32... regrettably there's no spare space for another Windows install. According to that UESP page, the IMDisk fix should work just fine, but it seems not on this machine.

Anyone have any clues?

I've never tried the IMDisk install with DF so I can't help you there sorry.

I do remember trying that IMDisk method to no avail. The only way I was ever able to get DF to run without the invisible quest items bug was to use DOSBox, unfortunately.

I've actually just tried this tonight on my other pc that dual-boots Win XP and Win 98. I installed Daggerfall through XP with the unnofficial installer to the C: Windows 98 partition, after I got DF installed I used Turbo to slow down the cpu, then found an old DF save and loaded it up. I went to the fighters guild and got a quest to kill some rats in a nearby house, got into the house to look for them and couldn't find any, since I hadn't set up any sound I couldn't hear them either LOL!
I walked through a doorway and couldn't move any further. I thought mmm... maybe a rat is blocking me here, got out my axe and swung it at the ground and saw blood splashing it was invisible This proves that even when you install DF on a FAT32 partition you are still not guaranteed to get the quest items showing up. I was wrong for recommending a FAT32 partition with XP, its not reliable enough.

Thanks for your responses, guys. As it turns out, I tried a different build of DOSBox, and it's working beautifully, visible quest items and all, without even needing to enable frameskipping! Quite why the standard-issue version didn't work, I've no idea, but there you have it.

I've had the exact same problem (though the assassins appeared ONCE, but never again). I also used Turbo to slow the CPU, and VDMSound. My Dagger.Bat file reads:

DOSDRV
imdisk -a -s 50M -p "/fs:fat32 /q /d" -m e:
imdisk -a -s 50M -p "/fs:fat32 /q /d" -m d:
fall.exe z.cfg
imdisk -d -m e:
imdisk -d -m d

But thats probably not relevant... Gruekeeper, what/where is this mystical "different build of DOSBox" that works?

Thanks :icecream:

Does anyone else know which DosBox variant Gruekeeper might be referring to?

EDIT: Or if a variation on the ImDisk script can offer a solution?

Also, http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Running_under_Windows suggests a disk from 40mb-1gb... 1gb? Has anyone tried making 2x1gb virtual disks for this purpose?

I've tried 2x300mb NTFS, FAT and FAT32, just in case.

It worked once, so thats why I'm perusing this..

The corpses of the slain invisible mage-guild assassins just appeared... why was that?

And I swear I saw them once!... :shocking: