Forum Overview :: Reviews :: Betrayal At Krondor/Windows XP double-threat: review + how-to!

[quote name="foolio"]<img src="http://www.if-legends.org/~adventure/images/Dynamix/krondor.jpg" ALT="Note VGA graphics, a selling point at the time. It turns out it's probably not VGA, but MCGA--basically the lowest resolution Quake1 allowed, 320x240. The game rocks, though." /> <H1>Review:</H1> The game is <B>still</B> the best RPG I've played! <B>'Nuff said!</B> <H1>How-to:</H1><small><small><font color=gray>(<font color=red>Windows XP only</font>--though this how-to could probably work with Win2K as well, Win2K support will remain UNOFFICIAL/UNSUPPORTED like 90% of all the software we use)</font></small></small> There are three problems getting any traditional DOS game to work: 1. 640K of conventional memory, 2. EMM RAM, a page-based memory allocation scheme that was incompatible with most standard DOS setups, and, every modern Windows setup trying to emulate most standard DOS setups, 3. Soundblaster/SBPro/SB16/AdLib + MIDI sound compatibility for the game - <i><font color=cyan>in theory,</font></i> your brand new 5.1 Dolby Digital sound card is SoundBlaster compatible, and <i><font color=cyan>in theory,</font></i> if you were to find a hard drive <i><font color=cyan>small enough</font></i> to be compatible with the most modern DOS version, and <i><font color=cyan>in theory,</font></i> if you were to load DOS onto this lightweight-capacity HDD and your modern sound card's DOS-based sound drivers, you would enjoy perfectly crisp 8-bit or 16-bit sounds coming out of your DOS box. But in practice, your NT-based XP system is running on the NTFS filesystem which pretty much eliminates any chance or hope of actual DOS drivers running on your emulated DOS environment. So the score is: <H4>Sound: <font color="red"><B>PROBLEMS.</B></font> 640K: <font color="red"><B>PROBLEMS.</B></font> EMM: <font color="red"><B>PROBLEMS.</B></font></H4> Let's start with sound first. <H4>Problem #3 - Sound compatibility</H4> Solution: VDM Sound - <A HREF="http://ntvdm.cjb.net/">Web site</A> | <A HREF="https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=20091&release_id=46941">Download directly</A> <img src="http://img57.exs.cx/img57/243/VDM_is_awesome.jpg" alt="Unfortunately this isn't enough to run Krondor properly, at least yet" ALIGN=LEFT />The quick how-to on this is: 1. Download and install, 2a. Either right-click on the DOS-based .exe file and select the "Run with VDM" option, or 2b. somehow run the command "dosdrv.EXE" to load the VDM Sound sound driver. For Krondor, we have to use option 2b, because we'll have to tinker with EMM settings to get Krondor to run at all. So now the score is at: <H4>Sound: <font color="lime"><B>FIXED!</B></font> 640K: <font color="red"><B>PROBLEMS.</B></font> EMM: <font color="red"><B>PROBLEMS.</B></font></H4> <H4>Problems #1 and #2 - Memory problems, conventional and EMM</H4> Solution - heavy customization of the "Krondor shortcut", custom AUTOEXEC.KRO and CONFIG.KRO files. For the setup of this system, it is absolutely necessary you install everything at <font color=red>C:\KRONDOR</font>. [quote name="KRONDOR.LNK Shortcut Properties, Tab By Tab"]Hover on the images for enlightening ALT text. <img src="http://img97.exs.cx/img97/6552/krondor_lnk_memory_tab.jpg" alt="Yeah, I set everything to the maximum amount. Who cares if I'm wasting 15MB of DPMI-allocated RAM! As a maximum, I'm wasting something like 50MB of RAM. Who cares. This works, no more questions." /> <img src="http://img97.exs.cx/img97/1135/krondor_lnk_program_tab.jpg" alt="Note working directory, and sweet dollar-sign icon, courtesy of system32\moricons.dll " /> Click on the "Advanced" button to get to the dialog shown below: <img src="http://img97.exs.cx/img97/4864/krondor_lnk_program_advanced.jpg" alt="You'll have to make your own c:\krondor\dosemu\ directory, and make the autoexec.kro and config.kro files referenced therein." /> [/quote] Make the directory <font color=red>C:\KRONDOR\dosemu</font>. Make two new text files, autoexec.kro and config.kro. Now, copy the text below into the files: [quote name="CONFIG.KRO"] dos=high, umb device=%SystemRoot%\system32\himem.sys files=40 EMM = RAM [/quote] [quote name="AUTOEXEC.KRO"] rem autoexec.kro EMM = RAM SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T3 dosdrv [/quote] Now, set your Betrayal At Krondor shortcut to an <B>even sweeter (if that's even possible!)</B> icon than my red dollar sign, copy it to the desktop, and double-click. Status: <H4>Sound: <font color="lime"><B>FIXED!</B></font> 640K: <font color="lime"><B>FIXED!</B></font> EMM: <font color="lime"><B>FIXED!</B></font> ME: <font color="pink"><B>FABULOUS!</B></font> IMAGESHACK: <font color="orange"><B>Cranky.</B></font></H4> [/quote]