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Betrayal At Krondor/Windows XP double-threat: review + how-to! by foolio 10/18/2004, 10:58pm PDT
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.

Review:


The game is still the best RPG I've played! 'Nuff said!

How-to:

(Windows XP only--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)

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 - in theory, your brand new 5.1 Dolby Digital sound card is SoundBlaster compatible, and in theory, if you were to find a hard drive small enough to be compatible with the most modern DOS version, and in theory, 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:

Sound: PROBLEMS.
640K: PROBLEMS.
EMM: PROBLEMS.



Let's start with sound first.

Problem #3 - Sound compatibility


Solution: VDM Sound - Web site | Download directly

Unfortunately this isn't enough to run Krondor properly, at least yetThe 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:

Sound: FIXED!
640K: PROBLEMS.
EMM: PROBLEMS.







Problems #1 and #2 - Memory problems, conventional and EMM


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 C:\KRONDOR.

KRONDOR.LNK Shortcut Properties, Tab By Tab wrote:

Hover on the images for enlightening ALT text.
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.

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:
You'll have to make your own c:\krondor\dosemu\ directory, and make the autoexec.kro and config.kro files referenced therein.


Make the directory C:\KRONDOR\dosemu. Make two new text files, autoexec.kro and config.kro. Now, copy the text below into the files:
CONFIG.KRO wrote:


dos=high, umb
device=%SystemRoot%\system32\himem.sys
files=40
EMM = RAM


AUTOEXEC.KRO wrote:


rem autoexec.kro
EMM = RAM
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T3
dosdrv



Now, set your Betrayal At Krondor shortcut to an even sweeter (if that's even possible!) icon than my red dollar sign, copy it to the desktop, and double-click.

Status:

Sound: FIXED!
640K: FIXED!
EMM: FIXED!
ME: FABULOUS!
IMAGESHACK: Cranky.
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Betrayal At Krondor/Windows XP double-threat: review + how-to! by foolio 10/18/2004, 10:58pm PDT NEW
    BaK was the most fun I've ever had with a CRPG. by FABIO 10/18/2004, 11:19pm PDT NEW
    cool by Entropy Stew 10/19/2004, 11:28am PDT NEW
    Playing old games by Ray of Light 10/19/2004, 1:01pm PDT NEW
        Re: Playing old games by Entropy Stew 10/19/2004, 1:33pm PDT NEW
            Re: Playing old games by Willdog 10/19/2004, 3:25pm PDT NEW
        re: FreeDOS/OpenDOS by foolio 10/19/2004, 6:41pm PDT NEW
            I think I use the fast foward button more than any other key in ZNES NT by FABIO 10/19/2004, 8:10pm PDT NEW
    Awesome howto, how about Warlords3? by Eugi 11/05/2004, 5:23pm PST NEW
        Re: Awesome howto, how about Warlords3? by Mister helper (light) 11/05/2004, 5:31pm PST NEW
            Re: Awesome howto, how about Warlords3? by foolio 11/06/2004, 10:23pm PST NEW
        Re: Awesome howto, how about Warlords3? by Mischief Maker 06/12/2009, 7:07am PDT NEW
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