For some reason I decided to dust of my copy of Battlespire and play it for old times sake, because I'm a masochist.

So I grabbed dos box and ran it through my vista based hp, because I'm a masochist.

Anyway the game actually runs fairly smooth, well smooth for Battlespire anyway. Except when I go into conversation mode. The game will freeze up for several minutes while it tries to get to the conversation screen. My guess it cause its going to the cd drive to do this, so now I'm looking at a way I could dump the game onto my drive in hopes that it will fix the problem. Now I read on Uesp that theres a way to play this game without using the CD....http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Battlespire:Technical_Info I can get the movies to work, although I actually have to write the cdpath to go to C:\Batspire\ and not C:\videos\ as the instructions claim, but I can't the music to work, though that just slows things down anyway, but even worse the game crashes when I enter dialog with someone, my guess is that the game cannot find the speech files it needs. I'm guessing thats were the waves.bsa file comes in. So I'm wondering why the game can't read it, is it in the wrong directory or something?

I'd appreciate any help you folks can give me on this.

I followed the instructions from Freddo (the second sticky from the top). I used MagicISO and made a ISO file that is mounted through DosBox.

My AMD 2600+ can just barely play the game, but it is MUCH better than running through the CD-Rom.

JimC

I installed the game no problem in XP, but then had to play it in DOSBox. Only problem I have is digital compression artefacts in the in-game movies (little squares that are 'left behind' at the edge of the screen as the 'mists' move to the edge of the screen from the centre.)

EDIT: Solved my problem by downloading the RAD and Smacker 1.9 files/programs, as the movies are Smacker (SMK) files.

My game crashes when I get near the goblins at the start, which I presume is when a conversation might start, so I am in the same boat as the OP!

Are you both using the newest version of DOSbox? I remember when I tried it with an older version it froze on conversations for me. I'm using the newest now and I've had no crashes, just followed the sticky directions.

I'm using the latest version, but I suppose I could try it the sticky way.

I am using 0.73 too. It seems there is a change in resolution for the conversation screen and that could be the problem.

Ok I tried that and its simply not working, Vista apparently won't let me make a shortcut that goes to battlespire.conf, it just keeps going to default dosbox.conf, when I tried to change the default dosbox.cnf, and when I ran it I got an error message that told that either the file isn't an iso or it contains errors.

Well I have the original game and have the same crashing when I approach the scamps. Totally annoying!

I have given up on trying to play this game. DOSBox doesn't like it, XP doesn't like it, everything everyone says to getting it working doesn't work, the game alternates between crashing when it tries to go to the speech screen, or it goes to the speech screen with no speech! I have never heard music and there seem no sound effects expect creature sounds and weapon sounds.

Never did I think I would ever have a DOS game that I couldn't get working, even in DOSBox! Way to go Bethesda! I would recommend you never release this game 'as is' or the grief you will give gamers will bring you down!

Never used Vista, so I'm not sure why you can't use the battlespire.conf if you made one. But it does seem odd to me, I can't remember any other Vista user complaining about that.

If the file contain errors, try to make a new bin/cue file. If it still complains, please type exactly what commans you typed and where you placed the bin/cue files and so on. Everything that can help us help you.

Also, the UESP install instructions and the sticky install instructions are very incompatible with eachother. If you do try the sticky route, make sure you start over from scratch and install Battlespire using DOSBox and so on.

Why don't you use a frontend then? Only been a week since you said that frontends fix everything. Don't be a typical PC grognards, as you call it.

This is probably a dumb question, but why won't Battlespire work on Vista in Windows 95 compatibility mode? I just bought a used copy, and the manual says the game runs on Win 95. I've noticed that nobody mentions doing it this way so I'm assuming it doesn't work, but I was just curious why not.

Battlespire is a DOS game. And while Windows 95 can run DOS software rather well, the Windows 95 compability mode is only designed for the programs that were written for Windows 95, but even then it fails to work now and then.

Freddo, I always try frontends first! I see no point mentioning frontends any more, as it drives the conversation away from the subject at hand. Why you would think I had not also tried front ends, just because I didn;t mention them is a little beyond me. Surely your other derogatory comments about me would have switched a light-bulb on in your head that there was no way I would not have tried the front end first!

I finally got to the point of getting the speech and even the redbook music playing (totally makes the game a slideshow though), but the problem is if you get to that point you can only play the game once. You install it in DOSbox 0.73, you set up the sound card, etc, you are then thrown back to C:\BATSPIRE prompt, you type SPIRE and the game starts and plays. Now exit, restart DOSBox 0.73 mount c:\batspire and the CD-ROM and this time you get "Code: 0 not found in C:\" !!!. Re-install the game, and voila the game works again! So install, play once, error, re-install, play once, error, reinstall, etc etc!

Never had so many problems with DOSBox and a DOS game. This game really takes the biscuit. And as I say, if Bethesda is planning on releasing this game free at some point in the future as is, like previous games, this one will give people heart attacks and gamer will wonder why Bethesda released it at all! It's one thing having 1000's of Daggerfall players wondering how to play the game because Bethesda didn't release the manual with it, it's a whole other thing to have. 1000's players not even being able to get it working!

Never had that problem with Battlespire myself. Code 0 usually means (in Daggerfall anyway) that the paths are somehow wrong in the config file, which usually means one didn't install it correctly.

Well then, explain how if I have installed it, and can play the game, how I have not mounted it properly. Then, on exiting DOSBox and then re-starting the game with exactly the same mounts, I get the error? Seems to me Battlespire or DOSBox is changing something when I exit, so when I restart i get the error.

I mean, there's nothing convoluted about Battlespire, you mount the c:\batspire and you mount the CD-Rom. Nothing fancy,nothing us DOSBox gamers don;t have to do every day of the week! The game has always been in C:\batspire and I haven't changed anything with my CD-Rom drive, so where's th variable that means it only works the one time straight from installing?!

You aren't saying how exactly you're mounting the Battlespire directory. If you're literally doing "mount c c:\batspire" then that's why it's not working. It would install fine since the game disc just sees it as the root C drive, but if you tried to run it like that the game would probably refuse to run since the paths aren't what's set up in its configuration files ("Why am I being run from the root of the C drive?").

Other than it being slow in older versions of DOSBox, I've never had a problem getting Battlespire to run. Enjoying it is another matter...

The configuration files say C:\Batspire and CDpath is what it should be D:\ But from what you said, I left the config as C;\Batspire, but I just mounted C C:\ not C:\Batspire (even though when you 'mount c c:\' DOSBox says how wrong that is!) and it worked!

So A) Thank you, for putting the 'Mount C C:\' in my mind, and B) Not quite sure how the config file can be C:\Batspire and mount can be C C:\ and the game works! Never before have I ran a DOSBox game successfully where the mount was different from the game config path settings!!!!

Obviously with Bethesda DOS games, you have to think outside the (DOS) Box - because I am sure in any forum if I told people the config path settings were c:\batspire and I was mounting c c:\ everyone would tell me what an idiot I was!

Not really.

If the game look for "c:\batspire" as said in the spire.cfg file, and you mount c:\batspire as C, then DOSBox (and Battlespire) will try to go into C:\batspire\batspire, which obviously doesn't exist, hence the code 0 error. As I said earlier, "Code 0 usually means (in Daggerfall anyway) that the paths are somehow wrong in the config file, which usually means one didn't install it correctly"

There wasn't any thinking out of the box here, you simply just mounted it wrong.

Never run a DOS game from the root. While not all games have issues with it, many do.

"Never run a DOS game from the root. While not all games have issues with it, many do."


Well, that's why I have never had to use 'mount c c:\' before top get a game running, because of those warnings as soon as you use it! Maybe it should say 'not advisable' instead of 'never'!!

So Battlespire is my first and only 'mount c c:\' DOSBox game, so I still say with Bethesda, think outside the box!

Mounting C as C tend to be a bad idea too. Some DOS programs wants to do changes in the Windows 3.x directory, or even worse, is a virus. And when they go into Windows and change stuff, they totally ruin it, because it's not Windows 3.x in there, it's Windows XP.

A better idea would be to have a folder named DOSGAMES or something and mount that at C. And then have Battlespire located in C:\DOSGAMES\BATSPIRE

And yet Bethesda advises installing to C:\BATSPIRE and anyone with DOS experience knows that installing to a C:\(folder) is usually the best way to go!

Well, it is.

But there is a difference between real drives and mounted drives. Mounted C shouldn't be the real C, and the game should be in the mounted C:\BATSPIRE but not in the real C:\BATSPIRE.

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