24bpp mode

[1 John 3:17]

Hello to all! It's been a while since I've been on this site! I have run into a problem on a computer I have that is running Windows 98. I installed an old game (Joe and Mac Caveman Ninjas, to be specific) onto the computer, but could not get it to run. (This game runs in MS DOS mode) The problem, as I found out, was related to EMS. I searched the web for an EMS emulator and found DOS Box. It works very well on my laptop running XP Home Edition. However, I cannot get it to run very well on this other computer. It is installed and running, but very very slowly! We got a message on the program saying that the computer was running in 24bpp mode and may be very slow. I don't know how to change that. Could you give me any help or advice on this matter? Thank you ahead of time!

[GaryRouth]

Have you tried creating a Startup disk [you can make one from Start/Settings/Control Panel/Add-Remove Programs/StartupDisk ... and choose Create Disk (you'll need a blank diskette in your floppy drive)]? If you boot the computer from that floppy diskette, you can try running the game in Real-Mode DOS. I imagine the game runs from the hard drive if it's that old, so you shouldn't have to worry about getting access to the CD drive.

I'm not that familiar with DOS emulators, but if yours is still using the color depth set from Windows, that can be changed under your Display settings [Start/Settings/Control Panel/Display/Settings - or right-click a blank area of your desktop & select "Properties"].

See if one of these gets the game going a little better.
. . . Gary

[1 John 3:17]

Thanks Gary! My brother and I tried changing the color settings and that helped a lot, but it is still "choppy". It isn't running very smoothly. When you mentioned creating and running a boot disk, were you referring to MS DOS or the game? Just as a note, the game is on 2 floppy disks and is installed onto the hard drive (C:\). It doesn't use the CD drive at all.

(Fyi... I found DOS Box online and it is only about 2 1/2 or 3 Mb. It is either shareware or freeware, but I'm pretty sure that it's the latter. I found that it works very well on XP. Of course, it could just be the fact that my computer with XP is only about 8 months old and is way faster with a much larger hard drive and a whole lot more RAM. I really don't know why it runs so well on my newer computer. Maybe it is a combination of many factors).

Anyway, thanks again!!

[GaryRouth]

Hi Again

. . . hope you're enjoying the holidays ( I have been! )

The bootdisk I mentioned starts the computer in DOS 7, when it's made with a Win98/Win98se computer. [You can use that same path I mentioned earlier to create such a disk = Start/Settings/Control Panel/Add-Remove Programs/StartupDisk ... and choose Create Disk ] . . .

If your computer is setup to check for bootable diskettes in your floppy drive first (before looking at the hard drive or CD drive, for example), just put the floppy diskette in the drive & restart your computer: this will let the computer boot into DOS. (If your computer seems to ignore the floppy, try to enter your "BIOS Setup Screens" by pressing the key mentioned briefly in a message at bootup time "Press F1 (or F2, DEL, F10, etc.) to Enter Setup" = and look for an item in the menus that lets you select the "Boot Order". Let it look at A: first in the list (since A: is your floppy drive).

Then start your game by going to it's directory, and typing in it's "executable" file. To get to it's directory, from the command prompt, type

cd \gamedirectory

where gamedirectory is the name of the game's directory (called "folders" in Windows). Then from that prompt, type the command that starts the game. If it's called "ThrillingGame", for example, the file is likely something like thrillinggame.exe. Just enter that at the command prompt, and the game should start.

You problably know all about starting the game from a command prompt already (since that's what you've been doing in the DOS Box emulators) --- but I like to be thorough, and I talk too much besides.

Best of luck
. . . Gary