Some games don't mount the CD (Batocera v32)

[Tovarichtch]

Hello,

I've been trying games with CDs for fun and I can't understand what is going on. Some of them works flawlessly, others they just can't mount the CD. It always gives me the error "the image must be on a host or local drive". I tried to compare two games with CDs that one works, the other one won't. I always run dosbox.bat.

Crusade - No Regret does mount the CD. CyberMage doesn't.

Lines are the same, or maybe I'm missing something ? Maybe a hidden feature that DosBox-ECE can do but since it's unavailable on Batocera v32, DosBox can't ?

[Voljega]

Hello.

Well I can't say I've seen this error before, but I'll have a look at CyberMage when possible. Maybe your collection is on a shared host / lan or something ? Never tested that, maybe it can cause trouble

In the meantime here's what you can do:

• never use dosbox pure, use another core.
• use the pause instruction inside your dosbox.bat file juste after the cd mounting instruction and see if the cd mounts correctly at least from dosbox point of view.

[Tovarichtch]

I just tested a few things by hypothesis and I just fixed the problem for this particular game. It was caused by the filename itself. The file "cmv1.01f.cue" with "cmv1.01f.img" couldn't load. I removed the dot between "1" and "0" for "cmv101f" in the cue file, in the dosbox.bat and on the filenames themselves (cue & img). Now it loads properly. I suspect the first "." was confusing maybe Batocera maybe DosBox to think that the file extension is ".01f.img" instead of ".img" ? Maybe because the letters are in lowercase, it doesn't understand ? Can't be sure. Sadly, the game crashed right after the "DOS4GW" topscreen loading line.

But to be clear : I was using DosBox core, but the problem was the same in all of them. I wasn't running Batocera or the collection outside the SSD itself. It was on a local drive with the OS.

Now, I found another problem which I don't understand : Lords of the Realm 2. The CD is properly mounted, but the game doesn't find it. It asks to insert it if I wanna play. Some kind of a copy protection ?

[Voljega]

Thanks for reporting. I'll see what I can do about those two

[Tovarichtch]

Hello again.

I took my time to test a bit my favorite games. Half of them are using CD. I don't know how many games have this subtile problem : when the CD is seen as mounted, there's no music, no sound coming from it. Either the automatic suggested settings from the run.bat is plain wrong for DosBox in Batocera, or the CD is not properly loaded. Here's a list of the games in which I found problems with some fixes I did to make them work. Other than that, some games are badly optimized on Batocera. I had to tweak them a bit myself into the .conf file of those games.

Action Soccer Error : disk not found

• Doing install.exe fixed this

Al-Qadim

• Playable, but with installation error about native Gravis Sound elements

Blake Stone (both games) IMG with dots in their name, can't mount them.

• Still playable, without the extra stuff like music.

Call of Cthulhu : Shadow of the Comet Ask to install, freezes.

• After manually installing the game, it works.

CyberMage Cannot open main file: C:\CM\CMDATA.CNF

• I fixed it by installing (full) with sound configuration (autodetect), then removing "cd CyberMag" from the dosbox.bat because this game only consider the root as C:\CM. Then, I changed the line "call run" for "call CM" because the run.bat file don't exist there, and if it does, it changes the whole sound setup which makes the game crashes.

Constructor

• No extra stuff like videos from the CD

Dark Sun II Disc image with dots in filename, can't mount.

Discworld Disc image with dots in filename, can't mount.

• Still playable, but no sound, no music.

Earthworm 2

• Setup must be run first, or insta-crash

Jurassic Park For the CD version, the CD is mounted, but not found in game.

• Still playable, just no music and extra stuff like videos.

Lords of the Realm 2 CD mounted, not found by the game. Even with installation, can't play.

• Fix : edit the file lordsom2/LORDS2.ini.
• The first line "cdpath=C:\FILES" must be corrected. "C:" for "D:"

MDK Error opening MISC/MDKFONT.FTI (and bunch of files)

• CD is mounted, didn't check how to fix it manually.

Orion Burger Stack fault after checking CD

• I can't find a way to bypass that. On PC, it crashes instantly.

Prisoner of Ice Crash every time, nothing works.

• Problem with the mounting ?

Red Baron The drive or directory path that you have specified is invalid

• I didn't check further

Return to Zork imgmount d .\rzork\cd\image.cue -t iso Image file not found.

• I didn't check further

Sam & Max Sound drivers failed to initialize

• Fix : run setup from the CD first

Screamer Cannot open main file: C:\SCREAMER\data\GEN.dat (and more)

• Partial fix : running the installation. No more error. But the mandatoy SETUP.EXE kept crashing.

Tyrian and Tyrian 2000 CD mounted, not loaded by the game. No music and extra stuff.

Ultima VIII : Pagan CD mounted, not loaded by the game. No music, sound and extra stuff.

Worms United Crashes.

• Fix : install first, then setup to be sure. Playable, but no music, extra stuff from CD.

Z No music and extra stuff from CD.

I hope this helps.

[Voljega]

Thank you for the report !

[Tovarichtch]

One more game :

KKND GAME PATH not found

• Fix : run install first

[Voljega]

Most likely these games requires the game files to be in C: whereas I copy them in a subfolder Will test all of these and to a test if needed

Besides the . in cd path I mean

[Voljega]

Fixed in next version (with lr-dosboxpure):

• Screamer
• Blake Stone I & II
• Action Soccer
• CyberMage
• Call of Cthulhu - Shadow of the Comet
• Discworld
• Earthworm Jim 2
• MDK
• Lords of the Realms II
• Orion Burger
• Red Baron
• KKND
• Z
• Sam & Max

Unsure:

• Constructor: I see the intro video, but no music in game, am I missing something ?
• Jurassic Park: I have music ingame, not sure where I should see the videos ?
• Tyrian 2000: there's music but it's very low
• Ultima VIII: there's music but it's very low

Unfixed:

• Dark Sun II: 'DSP Detect Fail' after run.bat but older version from previous eXoDOS version works ...
• Al-Qadim: there's a ticket on Batocera's side actually https://github.com/batocera-linux/batocera.linux/issues/9009
• Prisoner of Ice no launch
• Tyrian: weird bootloop on attract mode
• Return to Zork no launch
• Worms Reinforcement crashes after intro videos