MiSTer FPGA Forum

Am having trouble finding info on this one most stuff I find relates to descent one. I already got it in dos32a it appears to crash during the demo.

I read a list which states that it runs on Windows 95 dos. Any truth to that? I'd like to get it running on Flynns 300 pack.

It requires FPU if I remember correctly, so the hardware requirements for it is much higher than Descent 1, and even if we got FPU the CPU is too slow for this game.

Captain FPGA wrote: ↑Sat Oct 02, 2021 8:59 am Am having trouble finding info on this one most stuff I find relates to descent one. I already got it in dos32a it appears to crash during the demo.

I read a list which states that it runs on Windows 95 dos. Any truth to that? I'd like to get it running on Flynns 300 pack.

I just tried it and it worked flawless from Flynn's pack. What doesn't work for you? I booted with the QEMM option and then launched the game with the Soundblaster setting.

From what I recall I had it also running in Win95 at one point. It was quite a while ago, when the core didn't had native CD support and I tried to mount the CD-Image with Daeomon tools in order to get the CD-Music running. As far as I remember this also worked.

Chris23235 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 07, 2021 12:10 pm

Captain FPGA wrote: ↑Sat Oct 02, 2021 8:59 am Am having trouble finding info on this one most stuff I find relates to descent one. I already got it in dos32a it appears to crash during the demo.

I read a list which states that it runs on Windows 95 dos. Any truth to that? I'd like to get it running on Flynns 300 pack.

I just tried it and it worked flawless from Flynn's pack. What doesn't work for you? I booted with the QEMM option and then launched the game with the Soundblaster setting.

From what I recall I had it also running in Win95 at one point. It was quite a while ago, when the core didn't had native CD support and I tried to mount the CD-Image with Daeomon tools in order to get the CD-Music running. As far as I remember this also worked.

Think I did try it with Qemm and I always use Sound Blaster. I'll try it again this afternoon.

I also gave it a try from Flynn's pack and it works well. I ran the demo for at least 5 mins. I used the EMM386 config and a Soundblaster config.

zorrobandito wrote: ↑Thu Oct 07, 2021 8:44 pm I also gave it a try from Flynn's pack and it works well. I ran the demo for at least 5 mins. I used the EMM386 config and a Soundblaster config.

Just tried it using EMM386 and Sound Blaster it crashed. What are your other settings?

EDIT: Just switched the resolution (for movies) to low res. The intro played a little bit better, but eventually crashed again.

How to adjust game resolution? I need to tweak anything else? Moreover To correct an earlier post that I made, I thought I used Qemm, I never ACTUALLY got around to trying it until now. I just get a blue screen. I'm assuming the more experienced dos users know what that's about?

Captain FPGA wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 12:05 am

zorrobandito wrote: ↑Thu Oct 07, 2021 8:44 pm I also gave it a try from Flynn's pack and it works well. I ran the demo for at least 5 mins. I used the EMM386 config and a Soundblaster config.

Just tried it using EMM386 and Sound Blaster it crashed. What are your other settings?

EDIT: Just switched the resolution (for movies) to low res. The intro played a little bit better, but eventually crashed again.

How to adjust game resolution? I need to tweak anything else? Moreover To correct an earlier post that I made, I thought I used Qemm, I never ACTUALLY got around to trying it until now. I just get a blue screen. I'm assuming the more experienced dos users know what that's about?

I just tried it with EMM386 and it also worked for me. In Flynn's pack you shouldn't have to configure anything to get QEMM running, when do you get the blue screen? Do you get to the 300 frontend?

What settings you use in your core? Make sure to not run the 3DFX version of Decent II.

EDIT: I gave it another try and it crashes in fact during the intro video. Did you mean that crash? I never noticed it because I skipped the intro and tried if the game itself works.

Chris23235 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:07 am

Captain FPGA wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 12:05 am

zorrobandito wrote: ↑Thu Oct 07, 2021 8:44 pm I also gave it a try from Flynn's pack and it works well. I ran the demo for at least 5 mins. I used the EMM386 config and a Soundblaster config.

Just tried it using EMM386 and Sound Blaster it crashed. What are your other settings?

EDIT: Just switched the resolution (for movies) to low res. The intro played a little bit better, but eventually crashed again.

How to adjust game resolution? I need to tweak anything else? Moreover To correct an earlier post that I made, I thought I used Qemm, I never ACTUALLY got around to trying it until now. I just get a blue screen. I'm assuming the more experienced dos users know what that's about?

I just tried it with EMM386 and it also worked for me. In Flynn's pack you shouldn't have to configure anything to get QEMM running, when do you get the blue screen? Do you get to the 300 frontend?

What settings you use in your core? Make sure to not run the 3DFX version of Decent II.

EDIT: I gave it another try and it crashes in fact during the intro video. Did you mean that crash? I never noticed it because I skipped the intro and tried if the game itself works.

Yes that crash exactly, it occurs around the FMV. The Qemm config simply gives me a blue screen every time I boot it up completely locks up. I'm forced to windows+f12 back into the Mister menu for reboot.

The full intro can work trust me. I'm looking at Flynns video and he says something about the sound. For some reason when I try to enter my setup on the descent 2 menu it errors back to the tdl (it's been doing that ever since I changed the resolution to low-res in the setup menu), I will try to access it from command prompt

Tried running setup from the command prompt, it gave me an error message and said Descent II CD must be present to run setup. Which is odd considering the game launches every time I launch it from the tdl menu using start.bat

Did the game get unmounted somehow when using only the setup option? More importantly how to configure the thing to regain access to the setup menu? I think I need to set Sound Blaster to SBPro in lieu of SB16

Interesting. I will have to try Descent 2 again then. I love the Descent games, but pretty sure I saw somewhere list Descent 2 as having an FPU requirement, but if it runs on AO486, that cannot be the case.

Caldor wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:21 am Interesting. I will have to try Descent 2 again then. I love the Descent games, but pretty sure I saw somewhere list Descent 2 as having an FPU requirement, but if it runs on AO486, that cannot be the case.

As far as I know Descent 2 benefits from an FPU but it runs fine in the AO486 core (which doesn't mean it ran fine on a 486SX back in the day, the multiple caches speed up AO486 in many regards above a stock 486SX).

So I found a way to set the game to Sound Blaster Pro, yet the demo won't stop crashing. If that crashes I'm starting to wonder what else might crash while in-game.

Also, I got the setup script to comeback however it only launches after I launch Descent 2 then exit, and start setup script... is this normal??? I feel like setup scripts are supposed to work by themselves.

Ill run the ao486 top 300 update script, perhaps that might fix the setup inconsistencies. As for the crashes I'm open to suggestions

Edit: Although I press Save when prompted before coming out of the setup. It doesn't appear to be saving my sound settings. Might explain the continued crashes, how to force it to save?

Captain FPGA wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 2:57 pm So I found a way to set the game to Sound Blaster Pro, yet the demo won't stop crashing. If that crashes I'm starting to wonder what else might crash while in-game.

From what I saw the game runs fine. It is just the intro video. I would suggest to watch it on Youtube. It is not this spectacular.

Chris23235 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 4:47 pm

Captain FPGA wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 2:57 pm So I found a way to set the game to Sound Blaster Pro, yet the demo won't stop crashing. If that crashes I'm starting to wonder what else might crash while in-game.

From what I saw the game runs fine. It is just the intro video. I would suggest to watch it on Youtube. It is not this spectacular.

So you're saying the game works it's just the intro that's confirmed not working. Is this a problem with the core?

Sure I'll play and try to forget about the intro. By any chance when you exit out of setup does your settings save? I think Flynn's did in his video. I couldn't get mine to save.

You mean the setup from the frontend? It doesn't launch for me at all, but as I see it all options are covered by the startup items, even if not all work. I didn't get it to work with the MIDI canvas settings but from what I tried this is hit and miss in Flynn's pack with all games. Some work with MIDI from the startup menu some don't.

Chris23235 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:05 pm You mean the setup from the frontend? It doesn't launch for me at all, but as I see it all options are covered by the startup items, even if not all work. I didn't get it to work with the MIDI canvas settings but from what I tried this is hit and miss in Flynn's pack with all games. Some work with MIDI from the startup menu some don't.

Yes I see.

The only thing is I'm not sure that the intro issue can't be fixed. I would know for sure if my setup would save. About the setup not working on yours, did you try starting the game first, exiting from the game menu then trying to run setup again? Usually works for me.

Here's a question for the broader community, have any of you got your setup in this game to save? More over if I were to edit the setup.bat to sound blaster pro would anyone know a way to go about that?

My problem is it only appears to save after I come out of the setup, and go back into the setup the options stick. As soon as I boot the game up though and exit to restart setup the options rollback to default.

Also, not sure if this matters but I think I messed up something within the game? Specifically the DOS32A aspect of it. (see image below) Would rebinding the stub extender fix this? The game appears to run even with this error so in the long run it may not matter. Just asking incase it's does effect something laterwards.

So I played the game for about an hour, it froze. Anyone else having this problem? Thought it was only the intro at first

Captain FPGA wrote: ↑Sun Oct 10, 2021 4:18 pm So I played the game for about an hour, it froze. Anyone else having this problem? Thought it was only the intro at first

Sounds like it could be the same issue as with Duke Nukem 3D. Are you using DOS32A to replace DOS4GW?

Caldor wrote: ↑Mon Oct 11, 2021 1:41 pm

Captain FPGA wrote: ↑Sun Oct 10, 2021 4:18 pm So I played the game for about an hour, it froze. Anyone else having this problem? Thought it was only the intro at first

Sounds like it could be the same issue as with Duke Nukem 3D. Are you using DOS32A to replace DOS4GW?

Yes.

For some reason the setup script isn't though, my settings boot with DOS4G. Descent 2 the core game will boot with DOS32A, not sure if that matters though. Let me know if I should switch the stub extender in setup.bat too.

Also, can you try your Descent 2 setup script, change a setting, and let me know if it saves? I know for a fact the default sound settings are incorrect.

Update & fix!

Finally managed to fix the intro. I managed to overwrite sb16 with descent.cfg via Descent 2 sub folder, courtesy of the command prompt! No more infuriating crashes! I have yet to do a stress test like I did with Duke Nukem. Not sure that's the type of game I'd prefer to play for an hour. At least on the surface level it appears to be fully working.