Well, I've found a great strategy for running DOS games under XP, and decided to try it on Arena. I expected it to just fail, but found it to work perfectly... with one exception. To work the mouse, I'll need a special program or file, and the one that everyone seems to use is mousectl.com. Well, I think I could rig it up to work with the game, but my problem is that I can't find the blasted thing! Does anyone know where to get it? If I could find that, I'd be able to post a detailed tutorial on how to get Arena running without DOSBox or VDMSound. Thanks in advance!

closest I have is a little dos program called ctmouse.exe I'm afraid.
but if I do find it I'll let you know.

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 !

so it wont mess my comp and xp up?

Nope. This is actually the suggested method for getting most DOS games to work under XP (except the mouseCTL stuff, which I got from you guys). And I forgot to mention, you have to have the mousectl.com file in your c:\DOS folder to be able to make this all work. You can get it http://www.filelibrary.com:8080/cgi-bin/freedownload/DOS/h/56/pcmagut4.zip (thanks to Vampyre again for the link).

was arena suppose to be extracted before all of this or not.

Before.

were you suppose to change the names of the install folder in the arena folder

You shouldn't have to change any names.

im talkin about these names:C:\DOS\AUTOEXEC.BAT

Well, beyond what was in my little guide you shouldn't have to change any folders at all, except the ones A.EXE points at when it looks for Autoexec.bat and Config.sys (and those were in the the guide). Does that answer your question?

Genius
Pure Genius
I might try to play this game again since it now runs under windows XP at full speed!

to those that are interested here are my tweaks for autoexec.bat

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 T6
REM SET SOUND=C:\SB16
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E
LH C:\DOS\MOUSECTL.COM 4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12

Pretty much the same as Kwisatz Haderach settings...

For the Arena configuration I used the same settings as Kwisatz Haderach for sound and music.

It's the first time I had ever heard the music and I must say I'm impressed!

this thread should be stickied as it is by far the easiest way to play Arena smoothly!

Actually, I've put it all in one folder, and compiled it into one ZIP file. I'm going to ask the dev's to give me permission to put it up on the net, because it's much easier to set up (you can just unzip the folder to the C drive and go use it).

EDIT: I've just got one last request. Technically, this method should work for Daggerfall, but I can't be sure. I'd like someone to try it, and check if it would. I'd do it myself, but I can't as I don't have the game.

I'm actually surprised that it took so long for it to happen...

I havn't read the getting games to work in XP thread but was this mentioned at all in the thread?

it's so simplistically beautiful!
It puts getting daggerfall to work to shame!

Well done =P

Well, I mentioned it a while back on the old forums but couldn't get the mousectl to work, so I just gave up.

What does mean that SET MIDI= SYNTH:1 MAP:E ?

Hmm, I've tried it to Daggerfall and it is not working.
It writes Daggerfall is loading... and then CauseWay Error 03: non-standard protected mode program already activated.

Even if you did get it to work for Daggerfall, it wouldnt solve the invisible quest items bug.

Figured it might not. Daggerfall is... weird that way.

Well, I've gotten permission from Pete to host the file on a website. I'll be putting it up on a small page on Tripod until I can get it on something better, like www.uesp.net.

EDIT: There. I've put the link in my sig. It should bring you to a site where you can download Arena and just use it, without going through any of the messy stuff, though you may have to fiddle with the mousectl on some computers to make it work. It should work on most, though.

It seems the website is down. I'll be adding this great info and files to the uesp site shortly. If the files are different than the links in the post up this thread you can just e-mail them to me.

:angry: I hate Tripod. Oh well, the explanation's still there.

Well, I couldn't get the file hosted anywhere else, so here's how to get it all into one folder:

Go to the C:\DOS\ folder and move AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS to the ARENA folder. The rest of the stuff in the DOS folder is unnecessary, so you can just delete it.

Next, go to A.EXE and under the "Program" tab, click "Advanced...". Replace the phrase "C:\DOS\AUTOEXEC.BAT" with "C:\ARENA\AUTOEXEC.BAT", and replace "C:\DOS\CONFIG.SYS" with "C:\ARENA\CONFIG.SYS". That should fix things up quite nicely.

Also, if the link to the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files goes down, or you're just afraid to download them for some reason, you can make them yourself. Just go into notepad and type/paste the following:


then save it as AUTOEXEC.BAT. For CONFIG.SYS, you can use this:


and you save it as CONFIG.SYS.

If you're going to use this or a file made using this, remember that I'm a glory hog and want credit!

Okay, I'm done.

I followed the steps that you discussed, and I am having two problems...

When I attempt to load a previous character, and the application freezes.

When I attempt to create a new character after going through the character creation steps, I get a black screen.

Thanks for your help...

I solved the black screen problem by changing the sound drivers so the ones specified by running install.exe matched those specified earlier in the thread and the DMA, IRQ and all that jazz matched up with those specified in the autoexec.bat.
I also commented out the set c:\snd16 line as it was unneeded and pointed to a non existent folder

I did that and I still get the same result...