Hello all. I am a huge fan of TES series. I first played morrowind for the xbox some years ago, and absolutely loved it, then bought Oblivion for the 360 when it came out, and loved that one as well.

But I have never had the privilege of playing Daggerfall. So I recently got my hands on a copy, and I now need help installing and running the game.

Before you yell at me, Ive already read the stickies, and attempted to follow the instructions, but couldn't get very far.

Here are my system specs (fairly old system)
Windows XP Professional SP3
Pentium 4 1.5 GHZ
640 mb ram
Radeon 9000 series 64mb video card

I am using DOSBOX and D-FEND (a dosbox frontend)

So I try running the install.exe from the CD through dosbox frontend, and installing to C:\Dagger, but It says there is not enough free space on my hard drive for the large installation (which is BS, I have over 20gb of free space!). So I chose the minimum installation option, it copies all of the files and finishes, but when I try to start the game through dosbox, it says that It cannot locate the daggerfall CD even though it is in the CD drive.

What am I doing wrong? And how can I use the large installation option? Is there a way I can run the game through dosbox without having to use the CD?

If anyone could help me, I would be eternally grateful. I am dying to play this game.

I am a noob at this sort of thing, so please try to keep it noob friendly.

Thank you

When you mount the hard drive, you must use the freesize command.

mount c c:\games -freesize 2000

And you need to edit your z.cfg so that the PATH and PATHCD both lead to your daggerfall's arena2 directory. Then when you want to play the game you run 'fall.exe z.cfg'

All that information is in the stickies I Believe.

Thank you for the help.

I actually got the game to run with dosbox. The problem is that it now runs poorly. It has a poor frame rate and seems to lag big time. Maybe my PC does not have enough resources.

Are there any alternatives to dosbox that use less resources?

What processor do you have for your computer? Also, you can increase the cycles with CTRL+F12. There is no real alternative on XP, etc except emulating 98 which is not at all easier.

Yes, you can run it directly on windows XP, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you have XP installed on a Fat32 partition or you will run into invisible quest items. You could also partition your drive or add another drive and install Windows 98.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Running_under_Windows

Well I have 2 hard drives in my PC right now. One is a newer NTFS drive and one is an older FAT32 drive. If I install daggerfall on my FAT32 drive will that clear up the bugs?

One problem I seem to have when running under xp are the controls. I can run and jump and strafe, but I cant seem to walk forward and strafe at the same time. When I hold the walk forward button, and then press a strafe button, it stops walking forward and makes a 90 degree angle strafe. Is this a bug or is this just how the game was designed? Is there any way to fix it?

I still haven't got out of the first dungeon yet. I seem to be getting my ass kicked very bad. I hope installing the game on my fat32 drive will clear the quest bugs.

1. Yes & No. Sadly DF always has some bugs even with the latest patch installed, like falling through dungeon floors into the void, but at least you won't get the invisible quest items as long as its running on Fat32. The drive where you install DF will have to be C: if the drive uses any other letter I don't think Daggerfall will install, but I could be wrong.

2. You need to configure the keys in the menu for straffe to work, originally the straffe keys are configured to make you turn left and right.

3. Everyone gets their Ass kicked very bad the first time they play DF, its part of the learning experience

BTW:

You will need to install DF with one of the XP installers in the link I posted earlier, then Install VDMS sound. You'll also need a processor slowdown app like Turbo or MO'SLO or climbing swimming etc will not work properly.

Thanks for the reply. I did successfully install Daggerfall on my FAT32 drive with the unofficial DF XP installer. I got VDMsound to work, the audio sounds fine now.

I finally got out of the first dungeon and made it outside. I decided to explore a bit and I happened to fall in a body of water. I fell in and could not move at all. Damn! By this point I'm already addicted to the game, and now I find out I can' play it properly. Frustrating.

Will using one of these slowdown devices fix the movement issues? Because that seems like the only think stopping me from playing the game right now.

UESP suggests using "Speedset" to slow down daggerfall. It says to edit you "DAGGER.BAT" file to include the speedset app, but I don't even have a DAGGER.BAT file! Where do I get this file, and why don't I have it?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Running_under_Windows#Using_Speedset_to_fix_game_related_issues

Thanks for all of your help folks. I'm almost there.

If there is absolutely no way to get acceptable functionality from Daggerfall in WinXP, then I am going to go to the thrift store and buy an old pc to play it on.

Yes they will, as long as your processor is slowed down enough, you will have to experiment with different cpu speeds untill you get it right.



I've no idea. Once when I was experimenting with slowdown apps I tried MO'SLO and Turbo, and to be honest none of them would run Daggerfall smoothly like Dosbox and an older computor can, all the framerates were jerking up and down.




This is the best idea, older computors run it great as long as the processor is slow enough and it has some kind of soundblaster card installed, I have one myself that I use to run DF.

Or get a faster processor for your PC. A pentium 4 3.2ghz would be enough to run Daggerfall in dosbox, they can be picked up cheap on Ebay.

Thanks for all of the help. You guys are great. I downloaded an app called "CPUgrab," set it to about 50%, and I can actually swim and climb now! So It looks like it all worked out. It only took 3 days of frustration too! :brokencomputer:

So as long as me installing the game on my FAT32 drive fixes the invisible quest, I am good to go! I hope the game is worth it!

One more thing: Windows XP is installed on my primary hard drive (drive C, NTFS), and I installed daggerfall on my secondary hard drive (drive F, FAT32) that has no OS installed on it, I only use it for picture storage and things. So would it matter that XP is installed and running off of my primary NTFS drive even if the game is installed on my separate FAT32 drive? Am I still going to find these invisible quest bugs?

Hi, I would like to ask you for your help. I have tried to run Daggerfall under WIN XP, without dosbox (because when I try to run under dosbox, it shows me some errors - maps canoot innitialize, etc). So I have tried to run it through the command "fall.exe z.cfg from Windows). Everything was OK - missing quest items/objects problem has been solved thanx to hard drive separation. I have the same problem with the water diving and climbing. I have tried to use CPUgrab, TURBO apllications. But this have only fixed the the speed-up of enemies (so now they react normally, after the slowdown). But I cannot dive under the water - instead of the water there is only the black "[censored]" of pixels:-) Could you please help me with that (for example to help me to run this under the dosbox....I have heard that under dosbox it runs normally). I have the EU version of Daggerfall, PC config: 1,6 Sepron, 512 MB RAM, WIN XP SP2, ATI Radeon 64 MB video card. Thank you for your answer,

Michael

Anywaz is it necessary to start play the game form the beginning or the change after the slow-down with CPUgraber will be applied immediately?