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Dark Forces on WinXP and newer Operating Systems


The_One

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Since this is always coming up, I think it's high time we had a sticky containing all the information anyone would need to get Dark Forces running on the latest Operating Systems. There is a common myth among the DF community that the game won't run on anything later than Windows 98. This is not true. There are tonnes of people out there who have it running, me included. Read on if you are having trouble...

 

 

Getting Started:

 

1. Try a regular install from the DF CD.

 

2. Doesn't work? OK, try this:

 

http://www.df-21.net/articles/install.html

 

This is a very useful guide, and most people who follow it can get it working fine on their systems. I hear of very few people who ever continue to have problems after using that guide.

 

3. Still doesn't work? Try this:

 

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/

 

This is a DOS Emulator. I haven't tried it personally, but I hear good things about it. Give it a shot!

 

Sound Problems

 

Sound problems are common when running Dark Forces on newer Operating Systems. No music is one of the most common, or simply no sound at all.

 

Sound emulation is very much the way forward, and almost always works. VDM Sound is the one most people recommend, and works great for me. Here is the link:

 

http://ntvdm.cjb.net/

 

Further Problems

 

Head here:

 

http://forums.df-21.net/

 

DF-21 is pretty much the last remaining (very active) DF community on the internet. Try searching their forums for information, or failing that, post there what your problem is - they will hopefully have the expertise to help you.

 

I hope this guide helps anyone with problems, usually some combination of the above links will work for you ;) Also, feel free to post any links/info you have on this subject, and I'll be sure to include them in this thread.

 

Happy fragging!

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ok....i got dark forces working but now i dont have sound and i open it with vdmn or whatever emulator thing but i still dont get sound, and all the .gob files in the DARK folder are set to open with winamp for some reason, i think that may be the problem, so what should the open with...and any other suggestions to get one of my favorite games working will be gladly accepted.

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What they are set to open with shouldn't make any difference to how Dark Forces itself reads them.

 

Make sure you set your sound up in "imuse" - try selecting SoundBlaster Pro if you can't find anything that resembles your card. Then when you run Dark Forces, I believe you have to right click on it and choose "Run with VDM Sound" or something similar.

 

Gimme a shout if you still have problems.

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  • 5 months later...
  • 1 month later...

When I had trouble getting Dark Forces to work on my pc, I went to Yoda's Helpdesk on LucasArts.com in the trouble shooting pages.

 

And it worked!

 

Previously I could get the music to work but not the sound effects (or vice versa) but then it worked for good.

 

Hey, whatever works!

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I am currently using VDM, but I am wondering if anyone can tell me the comparison between VDM and DosBox...which emulator runs better?

 

VDM does not fully support a CH Flightstick Pro, nor does it support Add-on levels. Any changes made from the DF-21 instructions on VDM result in a rainbow graphic effect.

 

Please.........hookabrothaup!!!

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
Originally posted by death knigth

WingXP is WXP?

I could find nothing else similar in this thread that he might have been referring to ... I know there was the old 'WinG' graphics <ahem> standard from Microsoft, but not much else comes to mind ...

 

Mike

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Well, in the spirit of having everything available cross-platform, I just re-installed Dark Forces on my ultra-portable Dell (no internal CD). I twiddled around for a while and managed to get it working without CD, and get the sound running with VDMSound.

 

First time running Dark Forces on a PC in ~9 years! Boy the Mac version is much better looking! That 2x resolution and enhanced sound make a difference ...

 

Oh well, it is quite playable in a pinch, and since this is the machine I have JK & MotS on ...

 

Mike

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  • 2 months later...

Well I am a noob at using computers and I would love to play Dark Forces II again but when I try the dosbox emulator it tells me that "This program cannot be run in dos mode" Now what do I do???? I don't understand that first guide really well. I also heard of patches that allow you to play older Star War games on newer OS systems. Is that true????

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I have XP and the game does not work on it. Dark Forces II does not work at all. I already tried to run the setup but the problem is that it only runs on Windows 98, not XP.

 

I then tried another old Star Wars PC game (Shadows of the Empire) and it gave gave me the same problems. But when I install a newer game like Republic Commando, it installs easily.

 

When I try to run the old games, a message pops out saying:

 

"C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\AUTOEXEC.NT The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications. Choose 'Close' to terminate the application."

 

Then two options come out saying "Close" and "Ignore".

 

When I click ignore, nothing happens and the program never starts. When I click close, everything closes.

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The link to that sound emulation no longer works. Is there a place for another? I'm in a real mood to play DF and haven't gotten the chance ever since I got this new PC almost a year ago.

 

EDIT- Found it and tried right clicking and hitting run with VDMS or whatever and it told me access was denies. Now what? I'll try the DOSBox thing I guess....

 

EDIT 2 - DOSBox runs the sound like a dream, but it's really choppy gameplay, even with the graphics reduced in detail (wow, and I thought it looked bad with the detail maxed out :p)

 

Any other ideas anyone?

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  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...
I have XP and the game does not work on it. Dark Forces II does not work at all. I already tried to run the setup but the problem is that it only runs on Windows 98, not XP.

 

I then tried another old Star Wars PC game (Shadows of the Empire) and it gave gave me the same problems. But when I install a newer game like Republic Commando, it installs easily.

 

When I try to run the old games, a message pops out saying:

 

"C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\AUTOEXEC.NT The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications. Choose 'Close' to terminate the application."

 

Then two options come out saying "Close" and "Ignore".

 

When I click ignore, nothing happens and the program never starts. When I click close, everything closes.

 

 

Well, I have Windows XP and as long as its not a DOS game it works fine. The reason you need an emulator like VDM Sound is because Windows XP doesnt have the full version of DOS, but older operating systems (Windows 95, Windows 98/SE) run it fine because they run on top of DOS, but Windows XP doesnt, and Microsoft apparently didnt expect anyone to try DOS games on Windows XP. Dark Forces II Jedi Knight works great on my computer, as all other games like SOTE, AS LONG AS ITS NOT A DOS GAME!! For those I use VDM Sound, which took me *hours* to configure to work with DOS games like Dark Forces, Duke Nukem 3D, Doom I & II.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Does Windows 2k have DOS? Or is this a unique problem to XP?

 

There's no doubt it runs, it's just a question of how much frustration a person puts up with. ;) The "Windows" version of Dark Forces is really just a Win95/98 launcher for the DOS program if I'm not mistaken.

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  • 2 months later...

Waaaaaahhh!! :cry6: Why won't DF work???

 

I popped a new HDD in my comp recently and went through a new install of WinXP. I'd backed up all the necessary stuff, including the contents of my C:\Dark\ folder so that I'd keep my settings and savegames etc.

 

Now, the annoying thing is that when I re-installed all of my apps and games, I tested Dark Forces and it worked fine! Since then I've updated Windows with Service Pack 1 and various 'hotfixes' etc and DF doesn't want to know now. :(

 

When I run either the version on the CD or the version on the HDD, and either the installer or dark.exe itself, Windows puts up a DOS window (with nothing actually 'in' it, just the heading "C:\dark\dark\DARK.EXE") and at the point where it usually switches to full screen and the game starts... it just disappears! Every effing time!

 

I've tried looking in the Task Manager's Applications and Processes tabs and it doesn't appear in there. So I'd gather the program's just terminating itself rather than hiding.

 

I think it's fairly safe to say that everyone in here loves DF so you can imagine how annoying this is. I can't be certain that Windows is at fault, but it's the only thing I can think of that's really changed system-wise. So:

 

• Anyone else had this problem?

• Would an upgrade to SP2 help do ya think?

 

I've tried DosBox in the past and found it to be so choppy it was unplayable. I've also tried the .bat method from DF-21.net but when it starts the program, the same thing happens; it just terminates.

 

Any help you could give me would be massively appreciated! The PS1 version's just not the same.

 

Cheers in advance!

B.

 

EDIT: Sorted :)http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?p=1963376#post1963376

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  • 1 year later...

Dark Forces runs on DosBox .70 like a dream.

 

Have two mounts, one to the DF folder, one to the DF cd.

Make sure to run the setup in DosBox first(imuse.exe), use Sound Blaster and it's default settings, if you want better music, goto advanced and choose General Midi for the Music.

 

Basic Settings for Dosbox to run DF smoothly. Anything else is to to your taste.

 

-Environment

--Dos Memory - 63MB

--Cycles - 20000

--CPU Core - dynamic

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  • 1 month later...

Okay, my problem is mounting. What the hell is "mounting" in the first place? The directions on the DosBox and readme aren't really clear and I try to do what they say, but it never works. How the hell do I mount? Basically, I need to make a "D:" drive and a "C:" drive.

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