i had tried the game before on dosbox but crashed quite a bit. im curious is there a place to get a more stable copy. i know the game had issues with crashing but when i tried it would do it every few steps.
im using a windows xp if that helps.

and im woundering are there any good pointers at getting started out in daggerfall?
would i be able to mix and match skills and do whatever like morrowind. or does it follow a more dnd style of armor and weapon limitations per class( i remember not being able to use weapons id found)

The game chooses how stable its install is for some reason. No matter how you install it, you have to reinstall it to get the game running correctly. The game's got quite a temper for some reason. It likes to almost kill me with loud noises that clearly are not supposed to be in the normal gameplay, for one.

This game does follow a more DnD style. I like it, personally. Quite fun running around being the so called lowly thief and beating up a centaur. Be sure to use the "loop hole" that makes a store you're in unable to close if you are a rotten cheater like me. Just loiter until 21 A.M. and there ya go. You can take all the stuff off the shelves and sell it to the shop owner with no guards getting you.

The game is just plain crashy. I used to maintain three savegames at all times: One when I receive a quest, one before I enter a dungeon, and one every time I rest. Crashes would be followed by reloads. It's annoying, but that's just how this game runs.

interesting, where was a good place to get the download, it turns out the one i had in external hard drive is missing

nevermind i found it... didnt know it was on main site lol

I'd recommend this version on UESP: http://theelderscrolls.wiwiland.net/?title=Daggerfall_:_DaggerfallSetup_EN

It installs the game for you like a normal Windows game, fully patched and pre-configured, with desktop icons and a start menu entry, and sets up DOS/32a, replacing the game's original DOS extender with a better one which helps with the game's stability. It also provides a more up-to-date fixsave utility than is provided by the latest patch, and also has a neat EyeOfArgonia app tweak to increase the view distance farther than the game normally allows (requires a save game first, though).

ooh that looks cool ill give that one a try

I tried Uesp version really bad respond and glitched sound but it worked.

sound is a bit laggy but aside from not being able to pick imperials it seems good so far. died several times mostly by the person after the imp. good fun though cant wait to get further and really get going.

was there a similar one for arena?

Even a fully patched Daggerfall is going to have problems. The game was never the most stable game at all. The only way to get the game to have less bugs is to install it and try it until you have it stable enough.

There was something sorta similar for Arena, but the pre-configured DosBox Arena thing was a badly configured one. I tried it. Don't bother with it if you come across it. I'm not speaking of the website, as I don't want to get in any trouble for mentioning it.

Some advice on a first playthrough of Daggerfall, don't bother with the main quest. Just mess around and enjoy the deep roleplay experience. I never play any game without messing around first and it makes things more fun. Well, unless you try that with Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. Granted, that game is basically the tabletop game for non-tabletop gamers. That's another game that, despite being for Windows, is tough to get running. Not sure why Steam never at least included a patch with that game as it will not work on any version of Windows 7 without one. Diablo 2 is even worse. I had to go work on making it work then derainbow brighting it.

Fallout 2 had the same problem. It worked fine from the Steam install, except it was the world's most colorful Fallout game without any fan patches.

I only have obviously

i was intending to have one character for goofing off and one for main quest. i have just got into VTM bloodlines and it seems to run very well but i got it somewhere and has a good number of stability mods on it. diablo 2 did you mean diablo 3? i know 3 had a lot of issues and mine went form perfect to lagtastic after a patch, but never really had problems with diablo 2 , but then again i had a pc built with windows xp to avoid all the problems of vista and 7.

i have to ask what is steam? is it a retail store that offers downloads because everybody seems to have horrible issues with games from them. i get the impression they have a backstock of old games or have just bought up the old ones and are resaling them when popular(good idea to turn a profit) though diablo2 you can just buy a cd key from blizz and they hold on to it for you, heck they even register old cd keys for you. then you download the game from them. it just sounds like steam is shipping bad discs or sending corrupted files in the downloads.

You can find ArenaSetup the same place you find DaggerfallSetup; and as someone said above; the preconfigured DOSBox config for ArenaSetup isn't very good; but it's easily fixable by just editing the .conf files.

I won't post my settings here because DOSBox configurations are very system-dependant by nature. I can give some general advice though; first try setting CPU cycles to "max". If that's too fast, use "max limit xxxxxx" instead, for example "max limit 40000" means "use the maximum CPU cycle speed my computer can handle but limit it to 40000.

Also try messing with the double buffering and fullscreen resolution settings, as well as the "output" value. ArenaSetup has it set to "surface" by default; but it runs better on my computer if I set it to "overlay".

Etc etc.

EDIT: In case you're wondering "why bother limiting the CPU cycles, I should just stick to "max" - most DOS games, if ran too fast, will glitch. Sure I can have 60 FPS on Daggerfall if I set it to max; but then I can't strafe left/right anymore, backpedaling is impossible, when I move the mouse around in the map view and then exit the map, my player's view gets drastically changed, etc...

No. I mean Diablo 2. I refuse to buy Diablo 3. Steam is an online gaming client for buying games and keeping the ones bought off it organized. It's more of a service than a store, but also a store.

I got Diablo 2 last week when I bought my new computer. It was in a Battlechest that said Diablo, but only had the second game. I had been looking for the second game for a while, and just had to buy the game considering it was a steal at only 20 bucks for the Battlechest. The fact that Diablo 3 is always online just irked me way too much. You don't have any issues with VTMB because it was meant for Windows XP. It wasn't meant for anything after that. I tried to use the CD keys I had to use to install Diablo 2 on Blizzard's site. No luck. I have an out of date Battlechest, which is fine by me. I'm just glad the paper sleeves are much more durable than the ones the GOTY version of Morrowind on PC comes in.

Steam doesn't ship any CDs. The downloads are all from the people who released the games in the first place. VTMB was released as an unstable yet great game, and Steam sells it as such. Valve is the one who runs Steam, the publishers are the ones who make the downloads available. Many of the older games on there can be bought off Good Old Games, which is a service meant for well... good old games.

Yeah, I have noticed that Dos games tend to glitch if ran too fast. Daggerfall runs very fast on the map screen for some reason on my new computer. Characters are more likely to get stuck or slow down in the strangest places due to this.

interesting dont think ill use steam though. i think you had to submit a ticket to blizzard with the old cd keys, i had to on mine and didnt stop the install process it just slowed blizz putting it in the records that i could get digital back up. which was nice my dics were pretty darn old.