Playing the good old Supaplex in Windows XP

Martijn · Post by **Martijn** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 9:29 am

Hello,

Now I'm creating a special Supaplex page for my website, I would like more and more to play that good old game again! But unfortunately, the game doesn't work properly in Windows XP. I've tried to set everything as indicated on http://www.dosgames.com/xphints.php and it helps a bit, but not enough. The game is a bit bumpy (slow...fast...slow...fast...) and the Soundblaster fx don't work (the game just hangs when I try to select it in the menu).

The game doesn't work flawlessly in DosBOX, the well-known DOS emulator, either.

Is there anyone who knows a solution how I could play this game on my AMD Athlon XP 2800 computer, besides buying an old PC? (I just don't have enough room for that...)

Thanks in advance.

Jannik · Post by **Jannik** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 2:16 pm

Maybe with VMWare and install real DOS on the virtual PC? But I doubt that's more compatible than DOSBox ...

Tomi · Post by **Tomi** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 4:54 pm

I think it should be, because AFAIK Windows in WMWare is more compatible than WINE.

Martijn · Post by **Martijn** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:57 pm

That's a good tip, although I've already tried it with the freeware variant of VMWare, Microsoft Virtual PC (2004). And it worked, but again, not flawless. I will try this, unless there are other good tips about how to get a good DOS environment...

Francesco · Post by **Francesco** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:55 pm

Why don't you simply download the DOS files and make a bootable CD with them?

Martijn · Post by **Martijn** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 9:56 am

Francesco wrote:Why don't you simply download the DOS files and make a bootable CD with them?

Sounds interesting! But how can I do this exactly? And there must still be a way to store the files containing the game progress somewhere. A CD is normally readonly and if I put it on a CD RW: I don't think that DOS has the ability to write files on a disc, as the phenomenon of burning CDs didn't exist then!

Unless there is a way to let the program save the player.lst file on your harddisk (or on a floppy disk). Maybe by writing some batch file which loads another program at the same time? I'm not an expert on this...

Francesco · Post by **Francesco** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 1:54 pm

You can take a look to:
http://www.freedos.org/

Once you have booted in DOS mode, you can access the hard-disk and launch all the programs you want, no need to put the game in the CD or such.

Martijn · Post by **Martijn** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 6:06 pm

Well, I've downloaded the freedos iso image and burned it on a cd. Now I can boot with this cd. But I don't want to install it and format my PC (which is required).

If I choose to start freedos from the CD, it works fine, but then I can only access the A:\ drive (which has become the disc drive with the FreeDos CD in it, instead of the floppy drive) and the B:\ drive (which seems to be my floppy drive). But the C:\ can't be accessed! At least, it will jump to c:\, but then when I type 'dir', it doesn't seem to recognise the real C drive.

So what should I do to get real access to my C drive, so that I can start the game from FreeDos?

Francesco · Post by **Francesco** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 11:30 pm

Honestly, I don't know. To be sincere, I recalled that I found the (original) DOS files on the web years ago, and I reported to you the first thing I've found making a search. It seemed to do the job, apparently. I should give a try to that, I'll let you know. By the way, even a WIN98SE CD should do the job for you.

Just another thought... isn't that your C drive is formatted in NTFS? Maybe FreeDOS recognizes only FAT16/32...

Martijn · Post by **Martijn** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 12:54 pm

Francesco wrote:Honestly, I don't know. To be sincere, I recalled that I found the (original) DOS files on the web years ago, and I reported to you the first thing I've found making a search. It seemed to do the job, apparently. I should give a try to that, I'll let you know. By the way, even a WIN98SE CD should do the job for you.

Just another thought... isn't that your C drive is formatted in NTFS? Maybe FreeDOS recognizes only FAT16/32...

Yes, it is formatted in NTFS, but should that be a problem for Freedos then?

I also tried it with a WIN98 SE Cd as you suggested, but here exactly the same problem occurs: it doesn't seem to recognise my C: drive.

So the only thing I need is some boot device which can start my PC in a dos command screen which DOES recognise my PHYSICAL C: drive. So if there is some DOS on CD-ROM (image) around, which sees the cd-rom drive as a floppy disk drive (A:), then it still has to give me access to my c drive at least.

Besides you, maybe Holger could help here? As he probably knows quite a lot about all this, as he has made different versions of RnD for different Operating Systems...

Zomis · Post by **Zomis** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 1:49 pm

Martijn wrote:Yes, it is formatted in NTFS, but should that be a problem for Freedos then?

I also tried it with a WIN98 SE Cd as you suggested, but here exactly the same problem occurs: it doesn't seem to recognise my C: drive.

Yes, that is a problem. Since WinXP requires the C: drive to be partioned with NTFS filesystem, and neither Freedos or Win98 can read NTFS-style partitions.

My suggestion: Re-partion your harddisk (using a tool like Partition Magic) in some way to create a FAT/FAT32 partition and use that to install DOS or so...

Hyrava · Post by **Hyrava** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 1:59 pm

How about bootable USB stick? Install freedos and supaplex on it and boot from it.

Martijn · Post by **Martijn** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 2:50 pm

So I need a separate disk with a FAT/FAT32 partition...

An USB stick would be nice, but does that work under DOS??

Tomi · Post by **Tomi** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 3:25 pm

No chance. On FreeDOS, maybe, but original old DOS AFAIK barely supported CDs.

Francesco · Post by **Francesco** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 4:03 pm

Yes, you could buy a really cheap HD in some flea-market, something like half a GB or so, and add it to your PC. Then you could install DOS there, and start it with some bootloader. You could also use it just as a repostry, booting from CD.

Have you considered something like Wine, with a live distro of Linux?

By the way, WinXP supports NTFS, but does not force you to use it. It's up to the user to select it.