Probs with Theme Hospital [Vista]

[Ian]

Hi...
I downloaded Theme Hospital from bestoldgames.com and run it through dosbox in Windows Vista Business. It's played fine up to now, except that the letter offering the choice to open a new hospital is in strange colours and is difficult to read, but it's now crashing at the same point. When the update screen appears showing your achievements, hall of fame/shame and stats etc, I try to close out of it and continue the game but all I get is a black screen until I click the left mouse button. This exits the current game back to the main menu. I've tried every tip shown on Google searches and nothing seems to work. Any suggestions please?

[dosraider]

Theme hospital always was kinda buggy.

Why don't you ask at bestolgames support forum?
I have no idea how they ripped / set up their game, did they applied the last update? Etc .....

Also:
Dosbox version?
How you mount virtual C?
How you install/launch game?
Setup choices?
Also²: there is a Theme Hospital W9x version, that one runs fine in VPC2007.
Also³: I see the size of the download is some 7MB,whilst the full game is a CD game of 120MB ... means i'ts a poor rip you downloaded. If you want to play Theme Hospital you should look for the full game, not a poorly ripped one.....
You can get the full game @ GOG
http://www.gog.com/gamecard/theme_hospital

[Ian]

Thanks very much for the advice and the link. You're perfectly correct, I have downloaded the 7MB version. It's a game my wife loves and I was in a hurry so downloaded the first one I came across!! I'll get on and download the version from the site you've recommended.
One final thing... my wife's got quite a way through a game so do you know if there's any way of keeping the saved game? Perhaps I could copy the files from the SAVE folder?
Thanks again.

[Ian]

Latest update. Just downloaded windows version of TH and copied save files over to try to rescue the previous game. It gets to the same point as before but plays a short video sequence before crashing. It may be a corrupt save file or, as it was from a bad rip, doesn't include the coding to continue the game any further.
I guess there's only one thing for it...start again with the proper program!!
Thanks again for the advice dosraider.

[Wally]

I would also suggest trying Corsix-TH. They've pretty much nailed the Theme Hospital Engine (except rats and a few other things). Its still in beta and there's a long way to go but the game is quite playable otherwise.


http://code.google.com/p/corsix-th/ if you want to give it a go