Running Discworld on Vista

[Revan]

I got a bit nostalgic a while ago, and bought all the disc world games off ebay...

To my shock and horror though, it wouldn't run on Vista...

I have been on a few faq's and they have all directed my to downloading a Dos emulator.

I didn't want to do this, as I don't like downloading programmes onto my pc unless Im 100% sure it's safe. (Uni work)

I reluctantly downloaded DosBox (or something like that) and spent about 2 frustrating hours trying to figure it out.

This was over a year ago, and I have only just thought to come here and ask for help ( STUPID lol )...

I was wondering if Ags could emulate it somehow.. (Since all the Ags games I download work fine).

If not do you know of an easy way to get it working?

Thanks in advance....

[LUniqueDan]

Nope

AGS has no emulator function.

I know that the good ol' Dos interface can be reluctant at first sight but read carefully the help of DosBox in order to :

1) mount a c: drive in a folder you created on your actual c:\ 
(use a short Capitalized name, it's faster)

2) mount a disk drive as your actual disk drive

3) start the game install as usual and select soundblaster as your sound deviceS

It should works without huge problem.

[ManicMatt]

Ha! Discworld struggles to run on XP, and you want to run it on Vista! I can't even get Discworld 2 to work with DOS box! 

I'll tell you what VISTA stands for:

Very
Incompatible (with)
Software
Thats
Aged

Heh, I just made that up on the spot.

You'll struggle to get anything to run on Vista that's over 2 years old. If I ever have to buy a new PC I shall tear Vista from it's very heart and replace it with XP.

[Revan]

Lol.. wellI'm trying... haaha

I think i have done everything right... made a file called DW in my C: drive, copied all the files off the disc to it. Then mounted the C drive in DoxBox as mount c C:\DW\
this gives me a dir of the correct files.

I then mount the d as: mount d D:\

then i try to start the batchfile:

D:\disc
(Also tried C:\DW\disc)


*****FIX**** WoOOO***

I wasnt mounting the CDROM you have to type mount d D:\ -t cdrom

it worked after that.. just have to work out how to get the sound working now...

it auto runs for a second, says Driver to install (I leave it as C) I think this is for the sound driver.

then it creates a new dir in the DW folder called DISCWLD.CD but says that it cannot locate the Discworld cd.

The cd is in the D:

Im not sure what else to do...

[Gilbert]

I think you'll have better help from the DOSBOX website. Search their forums. I think it's very likely that someone has already posted about this game.

I don't have Discworld, but if it says it checks for the CD it's possible that either there's a copy protection, or, more likely, this game utilises CD audio. In that case you cannot just copy the files to a folder and mount it. You need to mount the original disc as a CD, or, RIP an image of it and mount the image as a CD. You may check the related documents on how to mount something as a CD.

[OneDollar]

It might also help to download one of the front-ends for DOS Box, such as D-Fend Reloaded. Basically they use GUIs to do all the setup instead of you having to type all the settings in manually.

It *is* possible to run both Discworld 1 and Discworld 2 in DOS Box - I've done it before (though on XP rather than Vista if it makes a difference).

[Revan]

Yeah I managed to get it all working.. sound and all... Thanks for all the help. 

[Doogle300]

Yeah I managed to get it all working.. sound and all... Thanks for all the help.  

HOW!!!!??!?! ive wanted to play this game again for sooooo long andI'm really close, how did you get the sound to work in the end, its just not the same with out Eric Idles voice.
please if you still happen to read this thread, i would really apprieciate you help
thanks

[Jared]

As far as I know it's impossible to get voice working on XP/Vista, unless you download a specially modified 'abandonware' version of the game somebody made - and I've had nightmares trying to get THAT working.. I'm also not sure if that version's available, anymore, as the site I found it effectively closed down.

Similar story with the great DW2, except that it's impossible to get any voice with that one.

I actually now own a Windows 98 computer strictly for running games like these - brought about when I found that to play The Feeble Files on ScummVM I would need to manually convert nearly a hundred files into a different file format using several weird apps I'd never heard of...

[Gilbert]

But at least you may try with DOS emulators like DOSBox? See my post above.

[Chicky]

I got discworld to work on vista, but it crashed a lot and the talkie-ness didn't work.

So i just whacked in the Playstation version and got out the old grey box (and grey PS1 mouse!)

*edit*

The problem still happens with dosbox IIRC, the abandonware version that was online worked but the speech still didn't (even after copying the .vox files across from the CD).

A Windows 98 PC is a very good move.

[Madraccoon]

Umm, one thing that works always is to use virtual machine / thin-client approach:

"Discover the true power and flexibility of your desktop or laptop computer with VMware Workstation. Reduce hardware costs by 50% or more by running multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single physical PC. Automate and streamline tasks to save time and improve productivity."

Similar tools like this: http://www.vmware.com/products/workstation/
(im using that one)

Then you can have windows 98, windows 7, linux, pure dos4 etc. installed at the same time... im playing Master Of magic with my dos installation, 

(though it is again a new software with complexity, but i know that it works)

[Khris]

One word: ScummVM.

[arj0n]

One word: ScummVM.

ScummVM is what you need indeed for running Discworld 1 & 2.

[Jared]

Saywhat? Does ScummVM actually have built in support for the Discworlds now? Last I saw it was just one crash-prone build could run the first one...

Need to take a look at this..


EDIT: Hot dawg! 98% compatibility, a higher rating than for any other game.. maybe I can finally get my copy of the first one running smoothly?

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Bear in mind that both discworld 1 and 2 have their share of in-game bugs that scummvm can't possibly fix, like the never appearing map icons in part two and that business with the camels.

[Laukku]

For all the people who failed to run discworld in DOSBox (should work for all cd-rom games):  

After starting DOSBox, first mount a folder as a virtual drive (such as "mount c C:\GAMES", this will make the directory C:\GAMES a virtual C hard drive in DOSBox)
then mount the CD-ROM drive, preferably as D. For example, if the Discworld CD is located in your H drive, type "mount D H:\ -t cdrom".
Then go to the mounted D drive by typing "D:".
There should be an installer on the cdrom, called something like INSTALLER.EXE, so type its name. The installer should then copy the necessary files to your hard drive, and make the game ready for playing.

There should not be any problems, unless Windows requires administrator rights for some reason.

EDIT: LUniqueDan has said basically the same thing.