Help me run Arena w/o DOSBox OR VDM! : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 5:35 pm

WHY ISNT THE MOUSECTL LINK NOT WORKING???
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?app=forums&module=forums§ion=findpost&pid=2793686

Because this is a really old thread. Here, http://www.myfilestash.com/userfiles/rabish12/MOUSECTL.zip should work far better. I'll update the link at the beginning.

EDIT: There, fixed.

» Mon Mar 15, 2010 6:49 am

thanks

» Mon Mar 15, 2010 2:34 am

I'm on windows XP. I had a Dos emulator and tried to play on it but the speed was real crappy, so was the sound and I coudnt really play because fo the ensuing lag.

I downloaded your stuff and followed your guide and IT WORKS!!!
Nice speed however: No sound, I've tried what you posted and the other one below neither of them works, and in both cases, right after Ria talks to you for the first time, the screen goes black and the program freezes... any I dea what might be causing it?

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 4:49 pm

To ALL THOSE WHO HAVE THE BLACK SCREEN AFTER FIRST DREAM AND NO SOUND!!!

I used to open up the game with the MS DOS shortcut in The Arena File... DONT Use the ARENA file with the little yellow wheel on it. Well it works for me

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 9:52 pm

Ok so Now I need help, first of all I've done all you said on first page ok(cz past that point it all gets very confusing)

when I was first trying out the game, I was running it by clicking on the msDos shortcut, what did it do?

The speed was good, there was no sound, and the screen went black after caracter creation.

So I looked around and then double clicked by accident on the arena.bat file, and surprise! The game started and there was sound!(which is very good by the way) I then created caracter and the game started, no black screen, I was in the cell, I went and got the key, got out, then took the sword and equipment outside of cell and then I dont know what I did but the whole game froze and I had to reboot my whole computer. I told myself maybe I did something wrong, so I retried it but this time the game froze a soon as I found myself in the cell. Had to reboot again, and I tried it again 2 times whith no better result. Then I tried starting the game with the A.exe file and it jsut gave me no sound and black screen again...

What do I do????? :banghead:

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:23 pm

I tried everything in the thread and still got the "not enough ems memory" message.

I hope the people who made the emulator work on making it run faster.

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 4:01 pm

I tried everything in the thread and still got the "not enough ems memory" message.

I hope the people who made the emulator work on making it run faster.
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?app=forums&module=forums§ion=findpost&pid=2810323

Insert the line:
mem /c >c:\memc.log

into the Autoexec.bat that you set up for Arena.
Put it onto a single line at the end of the file.
Start Arena and post the contents of c:\memc.log back here.

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:44 pm

Finally I tried again after having done everything again(I deleted all files then redownloaded again) and ran the application and it worked, so it must have been a glitch somewhere before ,or i just got way lucky, anyway I started playing, got out of my cell, took the dagger, and then instead of going west I decided it would be fun going north, I took 20 steps and got my behind kicked by a goblin... :banghead:

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 9:28 pm

I started playing, got out of my cell, took the dagger, and then instead of going west I decided it would be fun going north, I took 20 steps and got my behind kicked by a goblin... :banghead:

The fun begins!

Goblins are lethal when you're first level. Kind of like mudcrabs in MW.

» Mon Mar 15, 2010 6:18 am

I've downloaded everything, but everytime I try to play Arena it always says, " The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft windows applications. Choose 'Close' to terminate the application." Can someone help me with that?

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 5:27 pm

Here's the log:

Conventional Memory :

Name Size in Decimal Size in Hex
------------- --------------------- -------------
MSDOS 12752 ( 12.5K) 31D0
KBD 3296 ( 3.2K) CE0
HIMEM 1248 ( 1.2K) 4E0
COMMAND 4064 ( 4.0K) FE0
FREE 633824 (619.0K) 9ABE0

Total FREE : 633824 (619.0K)

Upper Memory :

Name Size in Decimal Size in Hex
------------- --------------------- -------------
SYSTEM 200688 (196.0K) 30FF0
MOUSE 12528 ( 12.2K) 30F0
FREE 12256 ( 12.0K) 2FE0
FREE 36576 ( 35.7K) 8EE0

Total FREE : 48832 ( 47.7K)

Total bytes available to programs (Conventional+Upper) : 682656 (666.7K)
Largest executable program size : 632608 (617.8K)
Largest available upper memory block : 36576 ( 35.7K)

19922944 bytes total contiguous extended memory
0 bytes available contiguous extended memory
15663104 bytes available XMS memory
MS-DOS resident in High Memory Area

» Mon Mar 15, 2010 4:16 am

There's no EMS enabled.
If you have XP, right-clic A.exe, select properties, memory and set EMS to automatic.

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 4:23 pm

I tried everything and it still won't work! Probably just my computer though. I've done everything but that message, " The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft windows applications. Choose 'Close' to terminate the application." keeps coming up. Thanks for your help though

» Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:09 am

Did that and it still gives the same message.

Something must be stopping me from using it..

» Mon Mar 15, 2010 6:50 am

Uh, yes about my problems....my brain is too small to learn to read through THE ENTIRE forum to make sure I did everything correctly. So as it turns out, there was nothing wrong with my computer, just my head. Anyway, thanks guys for all of your help. Now my only problem is making sure I don't think too hard.....

This way of playing Arena is amazing! and works flawlessly

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:47 pm

i did everything i think, and im getting
c:\arena\a.exe
c:\dos\autoexec.bat. the system file is not suitable for running ms-dos and microsoft windows applications. choose close to terminate the application
im not to smart with computers im not sure what they were talking about when they said it has to be a bat file, so if anyone could explain in detail for me what to do from here id really appreciate it.
thanks

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 11:16 pm

i did everything i think, and im getting
c:\arena\a.exe
c:\dos\autoexec.bat. the system file is not suitable for running ms-dos and microsoft windows applications. choose close to terminate the application
im not to smart with computers im not sure what they were talking about when they said it has to be a bat file, so if anyone could explain in detail for me what to do from here id really appreciate it.
thanks

» Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:38 am

Did that and it still gives the same message.

Something must be stopping me from using it..
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?app=forums&module=forums§ion=findpost&pid=2818348

Check where the config.nt is lying around (right-click A.exe, properties, advanced...) and copy it into the Arena folder.
Add the line
EMM=RAM
to it.
Change the properties of A.exe so that it points to the new config.nt.
Try also setting EMS memory to a defined value (3072) instead of automatic.

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:52 pm

i did everything i think, and im getting
c:\arena\a.exe
c:\dos\autoexec.bat. the system file is not suitable for running ms-dos and microsoft windows applications. choose close to terminate the application
im not to smart with computers im not sure what they were talking about when they said it has to be a bat file, so if anyone could explain in detail for me what to do from here id really appreciate it.
thanks
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?app=forums&module=forums§ion=findpost&pid=2819750

Activate the search function at the top of your TES page.
Under 'Search by Keywords' enter:
+suitable +running +microsoft
You'll get several threads about your problem.

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:58 pm

Will this work for Redguard?

» Mon Mar 15, 2010 1:29 am

And now, I've got a nice little tutorial, adapted both from what others have mentioned and from a method for getting another game to work. Thanks to Vampyre for getting me the mousectl program. Now then...

Rabish12's (that's me!) Guide to Arena in XP

First things first, click http://www.geocities.com/warezraver/DOSfiles.zip to download some essential files for this. You need these to get it to work. Once they've downloaded, extract the folder straight to your C: drive, so that it becomes C:\DOS\. Then click http://www.myfilestash.com/userfiles/rabish12/MOUSECTL.zip to download a zip file which include MOUSECTL.COM, and then unzip mousectl into the C:\DOS folder.

Next, go to the folder where you store Arena, and right-click on A.EXE. In the Compatibility tab, set it to "Run this program in compatibility mode for: Windows 95". Next, go to the Memory tab, and set everything to "Auto". Now, Program tab and click "Advanced...". This hsould bring you to a menu where you can manually set the AUTOEXEC and CONFIG files for the game. If you unzipped the file above to drive c:, you should type in C:\DOS\AUTOEXEC.BAT next to where it says "Autoexec filename:", and type C:\DOS\CONFIG.SYS next to where it says "Config filename:".

Once you've finished with that portion, the game should work, but you may have to mess with the sounds to get them to go. My setting are:

SOUND: Sound Blaster Pro - IO:220 IRQ:5 DMA:1
MUSIC: General Midi or MPU-401 - IO:330 IRQ:2 DMA:1

I wouldn't worry about all the numbers and such, just know that Sound Blaster Pro tends to work best in XP, and that Midi sounds better than Sound Blaster Pro for the music.

Now on to the hard part: the mouse. The best way to do this is to go into C:\DOS\, right-click on AUTOEXEC.BAT, click Edit, and add the line

LH C:\DOS\MOUSECTL.COM 4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12

at the bottom. Now, the mouse should work in all of the menus.

This should work not only for Arena, but for most other DOS games as well. It's also rather convenient, as it doesn't need any foreign programs to let it run (all the stuff in the download are files from ordinary DOS). Enjoy

!
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?app=forums&module=forums§ion=findpost&pid=683208

This thread should be stickied, or this info used in place of the one in the read me's. This one WORKS COMPLETELY AND FLAWLESSLY FOR ANY XP COMPUTER! Except that it may run a little fast, but you can slow it down by pressing - and by using Turbo.

» Mon Mar 15, 2010 7:47 am

The one problem I have with this method is that when I move my mouse to the left edge of my screen it comes around to the right side. Is there any way to fix this?

» Mon Mar 15, 2010 2:51 am

There seems to be a constant need for this post so until it gets itself (rightfully) stickied I'm bumping it.

Got four pieces so far

...

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:40 pm

There seems to be a constant need for this post so until it gets itself (rightfully) stickied I'm bumping it.

Got four pieces so far

...
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?app=forums&module=forums§ion=findpost&pid=3536903

Thanks for the bump. I couldn't find this thread until yesterday, and last night got the game to work flawlessly. Thanks to everyone for all the tips and to the OP for the great thread. I now have both Arena and Daggerfall working great on my XP PC. Groovy!!

» Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:53 pm

I put everything in the autoexec.bat and config.sys files that was supposed to go there, I changed the properties of a.exe accordingly, and I opened the game. I get the title screen, the quote from the blademaster guy, and then the scroll doesn't open. It just stays there. Forever. Anyone know what's wrong?