DOS Games Discussion

Hi,

i've got a Problem:

i own Tie Fighter Original DOS Version with Defender of the Empire Addon and loved that Game for Years...

i mentioned that there is a Windows Version with enhanced graphics using the X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter engine, so i thought i'll try it and bought it via ebay...

when i got it, i mentioned that it will only work with a joystick *urgs*

i hate Joysticks and i only own a 2 Button joystick which is older than my oldest running system, think i got it with my first 286 PC in 1990...

the only running win98 system i've got is an 400MHz k6-2 laptop which has no game port at all...

i tried to emulate a virtual joystick with PPJoy, so that the mouse movments where emulated as virtual joystick movements but i can't get along with this, simply i can't shoot anything down with this

disapointed with this i tried to get the missions of the Enemies of the empire mission disk - included in Tie Fighter Collectors CD - workin with the original copy and after some work i got it running...

now my problem: i cant get the cutscenes or the medals for completing a battle running...

instead of every cutscene, the scene of battle 6 is displayed an in the medals view there is just "battle %d" instead of the name and no picture of the medal is aviable...

does anybody know how to get the cutscenes included and the medals working, i guess that this medals are stored in awards2.lfd but i can't figure out how to get Tie Fighter using this file...

if somebody owns a copy of this mission disk for the dos version - not sure if it even exists for DOS - it would be nice if he or she could mail a copy to me, there are no legal problems because i own the original DOS version as well as the windows version...

Anathos

i had a similar problem with a copy of x-wing i downloaded (i own the original disks, but they're so old that they don't work anymore. thank you magnetic storage) where the missions didn't configure properly and crashed the game. i downloaded a mission editor (for you probably TIE Workshop, which I think works for both), and then opened and manually saved each in the mission directory. that being said, i dont think it will also copy the cutscenes, though it did in x-wing. you might try finding the cutscene directory and moving the new ones into the the original tie fighter directory (unless they changed the graphics on those, and they might have, they should be the same as in the DOS version). this gives rise to a whole host of compatiblity issues, but it's my understanding that the new windows versions are just the DOS versions under a fancy name with some sprucy graphics. that being said, i'll be getting them in about 2 days, and i'll let you know on the board if i find anything.

I love Tie fighter. I also play x-wing alliance. I played tie fighter with an old joystick on my old computer. On my newer computer I'm using vdm sound to emulate the old system, but because my new joystick uses usb instead of serial, the game wont recognize it! heeeeeeeelllllp!

That's my advise : use dosbox, .
I don't know if it's a rip you have or the full game ,i will suppose you have the full game .
I have the full X-wing and Tie-fighter CD's......yes yes.

Tie-fighter AND X-wing run perfect through dosbox on XP,with USB support.
Run dosbox ,mount your gamesfolder as c:(alter the x to match your HD drive letter and use a "games" folder ,don't work on the HD root)
mount c x:/ games<enter>
mount your cdrom as d: (alter the x to your cd driveletter in win)
mount d x:/ -t cdrom -usecd 0 -iotcl<enter>
d:<enter>
install<enter>
Choose max install , dir c:\tiecd
after install setup your sound card :
Music:
4-op fm
FX
soundblaster
adress = 220
IRQ= 7
DMA = 1


Last tip to make your life easy:
open notepad and copy / paste these lines:
mount d x:/ -t cdrom -usecd 0 -iotcl
cd tiecd
tie
Save as : x:\games\tie.bat MAKE NO TYPO'S !!

On your dosbox start item hit dosbox.conf ,it will open in notepad,scroll down to:
[autoexec]
add those 2 lines:
mount c x:/ games
c:
that will start dosbox with x:\games mounted as c:

To play tie-fighter:
run dosbox
tie<enter> ,that will call tie.bat and set the whole thing up for you.
your joystick is autodetected and the game will ask for calibration.
On my pc it runs smoothly will music and full FX sounds on approx 10 000 cpucycles.
Ingame hit ALT+ENTERfor fullscreen.
Also ingame hit ESC for more setups (screen.....)

For those on W98 the cd mount is:
mount d x:/ -t cdrom -usecd 0
If you install other dosgames install them on x:\games\subdir (c:\subdir in dosbox)
I get some beers from you one day , i may hope.

next time I'm in Belgium I'll be sure to bring you lots of beer.

Did everything and checked it twice but for some reason i cant get it to boot from the shortcuts. I can get it through the install though

A more complete explanation might let us help you better. Thanks.

I followed the instructions and can get hte game to run, but it's very laggy.

Also the screen is skewed so the text overlaps on the bottom and top of the screen.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

P.S I use Windows 2000

Always use dosbox fullscreen, and shut everything down that is running on the background and isn't needed ( msn-internet-........) give dosbox the max free cpu time.

from the TIE readme:
If the game runs too slowly when there is a lot of action try using the ALT-D command to set the Graphicsdetail to LOW or LOWEST.

also set the EMS=TRUE in dosbox.conf.
Fiddle around with
<CTRL>+<F12>to raise cpu-cycles
<CTRL>+<F11>to lower cpu-cycles
frameskipping: ( not really a good idea to raise those but as last resort)
<CTRL>+<F8>to increase frame-skip
<CTRL>+<F7>to decrease frameskip

Another speed-up : shut the music off , but that's a shame for TieFighter...