Has anyone tried installing DOS on the Aspire One? Any problems running games?
Not sure if you can do much in DOS ebcause you need drivers for pretty much anything (sound, card readers, etc.) I think the best way is to juse use DosBox (which is kind of slow though) or some virtualization (VMware or something).
I do not require sound or card readers or usb support, or anything really. All I require is a pure, native DOS environment. Emulation software is inadequate for my needs. I have used DOSbox for a very long time, and I've played with VMware as well. The only solution is a real dos environment. I have tried dual-booting my netbook with DOS (FreeDOS). I have done this on two desktops and I have been able to run anything in DOS without a problem. Problems with my netbook version of DOS (dual-booted with XP): I have been able to play DOOM and Mortal Combat 1. I have failed to load MSWORD, Word Perfect, Ascendancy, MAster of Magic and a few others. All of these blackscreen right after launch, even after being properly installed (I've installed them multiple times before). I have tried installing a mouse to see if that was the problem -- no luck. Could something be conflicting with DOS on my Acer Aspire One? Is the 1024x600 resolution problematic for DOS games and applications?
Well, I don't know, to be honest. But it might well not be VGA-compatible. It's certainly the wrong shape to support any of the standard VGA modes. But this is really a question about the i810 (or whatever chipset it is) graphics device rather than the AA1. Try telling whatever other OS you use (XP, Linux, whatever) that you have a standard VGA screen, and see what happens. And have a boot disk handy in case it just breaks
MoM is a GREAT game, one of the best I can think of a few causes for the crash: 1. Problem with FreeDos accessing the hardware (can you try MsDoS)? 2. Driver issues regarding the keyboard or video card (although you said some other VGA games work). Did you disable the sound for the games that crash? 3. The game might make some wrong assumptions about the CPU speed, althoug MoM doesn't and it runs fine from Windows' DOS prompt.. 4. Not enough XMS/EMS memory, not enough buffers, file handles, etc. Can you share with us the reasons why VMware is inadequate for your needs?
radu, to answer your questions: 1. I will try replacing FreeDOS with MSDOS 6.22 and post the results. 2. I will look into potential keyboard conflicts with DOS games. I disabled the sound in every game I installed. (sound isn't that important to me.) 3. You're right that MoM runs fine with a fast CPU in DOS. I've confirmed this myself on two fast, modern desktops. 4. I know that the memory settings are perfect. It took me forever the first time I installed MoM to get the memory configuration right, and I've done it so many times since then that I know it by heart. I will, however, look at my config.sys and autoexec.bat, and post the contents here to make sure I've made them correctly. VMWare (and DOSbox) cannot run a game like MoM properly. I've tried tons of different config settings for DOSbox, and MoM is still inadequately run. Like you said, this is one of the best games ever made, and all this is worth it to me to have it on my AA1. With emulation, the game runs fine at the beginning (not perfectly, but very good anyway). If you play on HArd or Impossible difficulty, however, the game takes a long time to beat, and when that happens the game becomes incredibly sluggish. Actually, it becomes unplayably sluggish. In native DOS, a single turn later in the game takes very little time. With VMware or DOSbox, instead of a few seconds, it takes fifteen to thirty seconds a turn, and that's with a SMALL map. WHile many accounts say that Master of MAgic runs perfectly in emulation, this is not true for anyone who reminds themselves of how fast it is with native DOS. As it is, a game of MoM that is emulated will take five, maybe ten, times longer to play. thanks for your help, I will post back
I remember playing MoM a year or two ago from the windows DOS emulation (for some reason, I tried it just now and it complained that I need 2700K of expanded memory, wtf?), and I always play it on impossible, large map, and it took maybe 10 seconds or so between turns. One reason is that it shows the enemy movements, and that can take a while to display. I am not sure if you can disable that, but if you can, try and see if it is faster. Under DosBOX, how many cycles did you set your machine to? The default is 3000, which would be around 3 Mhz or so.
radu, We have lift-off! I removed FreeDOS and installed DOS 7.1. MAster of Magic loaded immediately after reboot. I'm not sure why FreeDOS wasn't working. THis isn't disapproval of FreeDOS, either. I've used FreeDOS for years with perfect success. So most likely, I did something wrong when installing freeDOS. Afterall, how could freeDOS cause comp0atibility issues while MSDOS does not? It's not that this isn't possible, it's just that I've never heard anyone mention such a thing. (For those who want to dual-boot their AA1's with DOS while keeping XP in tact, http://odin.fdos.org/dual/fdinst091.pdf -- this is an excellent step by step guide. However, I'd recommend using something other than freeDOS, since I found better success with MSDOS 7.1) I will report now that the ESC button does NOT work currently in MoM so far. The ESC button is fairly important in a menu-driven, turn based game. However, the lack of it isn't a game-ender. Also, I have a bilingual keyboard (Canada), maybe I need different keyboard drivers. So, again, this failure may be my fault. The final goal is to get the AA1 Touchpad to work in DOS. The touchpad seems to be made by Syanptics, who has made touchpads for other Acers laptops. I found the DOS driver syntouch.com, however, it has so far failed to work with my AA1. syntouch.com can, apparantly, make Acer laptops with Synaptic touchpads work in DOS. Seems that netbooks may not work with the syntouch.com DOS touchpad driver, sadly. I will continue trying to get it to work under my new dos setup. Congratulations on playing MoM on impossible. What setups do you use?
Glad to see that you got MoM working. How about your other applications? Are they still crashing? As for my MoM setup, I start as a troll on the second plane, where I only have one enemy (in my plane). I chose mostly life books so that I can get the Chosen hero, which has magic immunity and some other goodies. Sometimes what I will do I summon a hero until I get Ronald, who also has magic immunity. Then I build my army, kill my plane neighbour, and cast Plane Seal, or whatever it is called (sometimes I cast Plane Seal before killing the neighbour). Then I just build my army until I am ready to take off the next plane, start casting Plane Seal again, and before it is ready (next turn) I break the current Plane Seal spell, go with my heroes on the other plane, and next turn Plane Seal is active again
Sounds like a good setup. Life magic is by far the most powerful (as is always the damn case!) I like trolls with death magic. You can turn the trolls into undead creatures, which means you don't have to give them food or money. They won't heal, BUT trolls have regen so it doesn't matter. It's a good way to make an unstoppable force that doesn't take any money or food to support.
why not get the xp versions and save all the trouble it seems to exist sounds like alot of crap to dual boot for not your game but not just aquiring another version before going to all the trouble to play your games like this one...http://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Magic-Cl ... B000ME76KQ
midori, the link you posted is, unfortunately, fake. There is no mention anywhere of such a version coming out. THere is no where else to buy such a product, nor any available pirate version. Microprose did not make such a thing and release it for XP -- EVER. The reviews on the Amazon page you linked are just glowing reviews of the game itself, and not this supposedly new version. It is also currently unavaible. If someone did put this out, it is just some emulator with a .bat file that runs it for you (probably an illegal distriubtion of the emulator, too). And as said earlier in the thread, I am unwilling to accept the terribleness of DOS emulation for MoM. This is seriously sad, I hope no one bought this. Especially if they were playing it in 95 or 98, since thye are so DOS-like that it runs quite well.
julyderek, because, as I am finding, there are concerns on the Acer ASpire One in DOS mode for the following reasons: 1. the synaptic touchpad does not seem to be able to run in DOS mode. Other synaptics touchpads could get working in DOS with the driver syntouch.com, and perhaps even be run from more generic drivers. I managed to get the touchpad to partially work by loading fakemous.com (a program that fakes the existence of a physical mouse being plugged in) and then loading mouse.com. THe touchpad sort of reacted, but would only move/appear on the top and right side of my screen. It seems, then, that there must be some way to get this touchpad working in DOS, and I just don't know how. 2. There is no legacy support in the BIOS. Legacy support helps with USB devices in DOS (like a USB mouse). THis is bad, because usb drivers take up a lot of conventional memory in DOS, so much that some games can't run. If anyone knows of a SUPER small USB DOS mouse driver, let me know. 3. As there is no legacy support of any kind in the BIOS, it is harder to get sound working in DOS. In fact, so far I cannot see any way of doing this. The Acer ASpire One onboard audio (ICH7 chipset) is both HDA (high definition audio) and AC'97 compatible (the technology that HDA replaced). I have tested drivers for HDA and Ac'97 in DOS, but I have been entirely unable to get sound to work in DOS at all. Some drivers out there seem like the solution, but some of the ones I found only work if you ALSO have legacy support in your BIOS. THe most important thing on my agenda is to get the touchpad to work. I don't want to have to bring around a real mouse with my AA1 -- that defeats the whole purpose of such a nice, compact computer. NOTE: OHCI.EXE and UCHI.EXE will enable you to use a USB mouse IN DOS, WITHOUT LEGACY SUPPORT. However, they take up about 120k of conventional memory -- so much that many games do not have the needed memory to load. This is a solution only if you are using DOS in limited ways.
Update: After reconfiguring my config.sys, mouse.com began to work. Why this is, I have no idea. Also, a USB mouse that I had connected, whcih had no USB driver for it loaded in DOS, began to work as well. This may mean that legacy usb support IS in the Aspire One, just not adjustable in the BIOS. I have found that if I restart from windows xp and go into DOS, that the touchpad will not work or will be erratically unusable. IF I shut the computer down entirely, instead of restarting, it seems to work consistently. Now that the touchpad works for me (and a USB mouse), my last challenge is the sound issue. High Definition Audio, Realtek ALC880 chip support for DOS. HEre;s hoping.
