Author Topic: Vantage & Galaxian (Read 3046 times)

chablis97 · « **on:** December 16, 2004, 07:35:38 am »

I have installed Vantage on an old P60 and it works well on all games but Galaxian. Galaxian wont load at all, Galaga will though. I've see a post where someone else seemed to be having problems running Galaxian on Vantage, but it didnt seem to be resolved in that thread. Anyone else have the same problem?

SirPeale · « **Reply #1 on:** December 16, 2004, 07:44:08 am »

You've stated you have a problem, but not what the problem is.

Let me guess: garbled graphics?

chablis97 · « **Reply #2 on:** December 16, 2004, 03:45:25 pm »

At the DOS command prompt, all other games I've tried load fine, eg:-

C:>VANTAGE INVADERS

When I try this with Galaxian, I get half a screen of error messages (?) and DOS returns to the command prompt. I dont see an Galaxian graphics at all.

Note I can find my way around DOS OK, but I am a long way from being any expert!

lokki · « **Reply #3 on:** December 16, 2004, 04:10:33 pm »

Hi,
I had problems like this when trying to run Vantage on a computer with 512 MB of RAM.
Some sort of PageFault Error.
As far as I was able to determine this is a big in cwsdpmi you could try older versions of cwsdpmi (or newer depends on what you have)

http://clio.rice.edu/cwsdpmi/

chablis97 · « **Reply #4 on:** December 17, 2004, 04:18:55 am »

I'll try a different version of cwsdpmi, in the mean time, I've attached a picture of my screen showing the error messages I get, in the hope that someone can suggest a fix.

Thanks
Ron

chablis97 · « **Reply #5 on:** December 17, 2004, 05:30:00 am »

.... Just tried an older version of cwsdpmi, same result . . .

SirPeale · « **Reply #6 on:** December 17, 2004, 07:20:44 am »

What kind of memory management software are you using? smartdrv.sys, himem.sys, etc.

chablis97 · « **Reply #7 on:** December 17, 2004, 04:01:05 pm »

This is what's in my autoexec.bat and config.sys files . . .

AUTOEXEC.BAT
-------------------
LH /L:0;1,45456 /S C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /X
SET BLASTER=A220 15 D1 T4
@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\DOS

CONFIG.SYS
----------------
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
BUFFERS=15,0
FILES=30
DOS=UMB
FCBS=4,0
DEVICEHIGH /L:1,12048 =C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
DOS=HIGH
[common]
LASTDRIVE=M

lokki · « **Reply #8 on:** December 17, 2004, 04:25:18 pm »

Try the following.

Run cwsdpmi -x
before running vantage

You could try installing windows 95, and run vantage from there. (since it will use windows memory manager instead of CWSDPMI

chablis97 · « **Reply #9 on:** December 17, 2004, 04:31:36 pm »

That works! Thanks for your help! BTW, what does the -x
option do?

chablis97 · « **Reply #10 on:** December 17, 2004, 04:39:48 pm »

Bad news I'm afraid, worked that once, but several subsequent attemps have failed, including after hard and soft reboots. . . .

lokki · « **Reply #11 on:** December 17, 2004, 04:41:15 pm »

Quote from: chablis97 on December 17, 2004, 04:31:36 pm

That works!

lokki · « **Reply #12 on:** December 17, 2004, 04:43:41 pm »

Quote from: chablis97 on December 17, 2004, 04:39:48 pm

Bad news I'm afraid, worked that once, but several subsequent attemps have failed, including after hard and soft reboots. . . .

Too bad... I wonder what was the sequence the first time you ran it.

Vantage
cwsdpmi -x
Vantage

BTW you do have free space on your HD?

Have you tried playing with CWSPARAM

http://clio.rice.edu/cwsdpmi/cwsparam.doc

chablis97 · « **Reply #13 on:** December 17, 2004, 04:54:30 pm »

I've tried different sequences of running vantage and cwsdpmi -x, none get Galaxian working for a second time. Plenty of HDD space. . .

SirPeale · « **Reply #14 on:** December 17, 2004, 06:52:49 pm »

The strange thing is that it's JUST Galaxian.

Actually...have you tried any of the other games recently?

lokki · « **Reply #15 on:** December 17, 2004, 07:09:04 pm »

Quote from: Peale on December 17, 2004, 06:52:49 pm

The strange thing is that it's JUST Galaxian.

Actually...have you tried any of the other games recently?

I remeber having problems with galaxian, zaxxon and black hole.

Not sure what I tested beyond that

chablis97 · « **Reply #16 on:** December 17, 2004, 08:01:09 pm »

I've tried invaders, invadpt2 and galaga, they all work OK. I'll try others and report back. . . .

Thenasty · « **Reply #17 on:** December 17, 2004, 08:12:28 pm »

try this
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS NOVCPI

make you re-boot after.

chablis97 · « **Reply #18 on:** December 17, 2004, 08:20:20 pm »

Tried adding NOVCPI, still no luck . . .

SirPeale · « **Reply #19 on:** December 17, 2004, 08:53:19 pm »

What about just a bare boot, no extras? Comment out everything except himem.sys and sound drivers.

chablis97 · « **Reply #20 on:** December 17, 2004, 09:05:04 pm »

Tried a clean boot, same situation.

Tried the folllowiing games at random, all worked *except* Mooncrest which resulted in the same fault as Galaxian.

GALXWARS ok
PACMAN ok
ZAXXON ok
DKONG ok
JRPACMAN ok
MCPACMAN ok
PACPLUS ok
TAZMANIA ok
MOONCREST No!
FROGGER ok
ANTEATER ok
ATLANTIS ok
SPDCOIN ok
EARTHINV ok
INVRRVNGE ok

Thenasty · « **Reply #21 on:** December 17, 2004, 09:10:29 pm »

since you tried all suggestion, this should not take lots of time.

Just for the heck of it, unzip and re-zip galaxian/moooncre (whatever ROMS your having problem with).

chablis97 · « **Reply #22 on:** December 17, 2004, 10:44:33 pm »

Just tried to unzip and rezip the Galaxian archive, then run Vantage again, still no luck with Galaxian I'm affraid . . .

RacerX · « **Reply #23 on:** December 20, 2004, 03:50:09 pm »

Could it be that you just have a couple of bad ROM images (Galaxian and Moon Cresta)?

I remember way back when I was setting up MAME, I got ahold of a few bad ROM images, and I got similar errors when trying to run them in MAME. The issue was fixed when I obtained new copies of the ROM images.

chablis97 · « **Reply #24 on:** December 21, 2004, 06:15:01 am »

Tried Galaxian Rom Images from 3 different sources, none worked.

Peale, I tried Vantage 1.11, same result.

Could it be hardware related? If it could be, I'll try and get hold of an alternative P60/100 MOBO, CPU and RAM after Xmas.

lokki · « **Reply #25 on:** December 21, 2004, 12:38:31 pm »

Hi,
When I first encountered this problem and did some research and debugging I assumed that the problem was with cwsdpmi. since I found that alot of people where having the same problem with DOS apps that used CWSDPMI.

And there where several things listed as potential issues.

1) flaky support to more than 128 MB of physical RAM
But I think Joymoney reported this issue with only 64MB (or something like that)
2) Issues whith cwsdpmi trying to get more than 128 of virtual RAM (disk space)
And apparently you can use CWMPARAMS to limit the ammount of virtual RAM to be less than 128, but was never able to get it work.

Recently I have been reading that the issue could be that cwsdpmi is more sensitive to correct memory allocation and pointer references. (vs the windows dpmi which seems to be more forgiving) so this could point to a bug in Vantage where vantage is not really allocating the memory correctly but need to debug this some more to determine if this is the case. Unfortunatly I no longer have a PC do develop VAntAGE. I'll have to see about finding something I can use.

Note that this problem does not occur if you run from Windows 95 or >.

SirPeale · « **Reply #26 on:** December 21, 2004, 03:56:59 pm »

You did state P60 but not any other specs. Amount of RAM? OS? I'm guessing DOS, but if it's Windows that's important too.

chablis97 · « **Reply #27 on:** December 22, 2004, 03:45:36 am »

72Mb RAM
DOS 6.22

SirPeale · « **Reply #28 on:** December 22, 2004, 09:17:34 am »

Take some RAM out.

hsr · « **Reply #29 on:** December 26, 2004, 09:53:00 pm »

Well, I am experiencing this same issue.

SirPeale · « **Reply #30 on:** December 26, 2004, 11:11:47 pm »

You're right, it's not listed on the site. Thought I'd left it on there.

Unfortunately I can't fix it, or even send you the old version. Lost it in a hard drive crash. I know it's on the site, but I can't remember the file name.

I'll see what I can do. Looking to get some info from Twisty so I can log back into the site.

hsr · « **Reply #31 on:** December 27, 2004, 11:43:15 am »

Peale,

Found Vantage 1.11 on Arcade@home

hsr · « **Reply #32 on:** December 30, 2004, 10:35:19 pm »

Just wanted to post an update:

On my P166 running DOS 7.0 and RAM of 16 to 128mb, I have been sucessful in getting Vantage 1.12 to run all 1.11 supported games IF, I load CWSDPMI5b -x prior to launching Vantage (gamename).

The DPMI must be loaded each time

I cannot make it work without the -x or with ver 4b on any game.

Next will be trying to get the MAME roms I have for the games added in 1.12 and working on getting AOS to run

chablis97 · « **Reply #33 on:** January 03, 2005, 06:38:08 pm »

I just got back from a Christmas vacation, tried as hsr above, and it all appears to work for me too!
Thanks for everyones input into this problem.

lokki · « **Reply #34 on:** January 07, 2005, 01:25:31 pm »

Quote from: hsr on December 30, 2004, 10:35:19 pm

The DPMI must be loaded each time

I cannot make it work without the -x or with ver 4b on any game.

Hi,
I haven't tried it but if you run cwsdpmi -p -x
you should be able to set it on your autoexec.bat

By default cwsdpmi only stays in memory for a single app. (unloads when your executable finished). Use the -p argument to force it to stay in memory.

Hope this helps


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