Stargunner

[Guest]

Well how goes ppl?

Anyone else having a problem running Stargunner? The setup app gives me a "divide by zero error" and the game exe stops AFTER sound blaster detection (no error.) This before and after patch.
However about 2 weeks ago I managed to get the game to at least play the movie but then it stopped with an the error "run time 200" BEFORE the menu loads.

Now both times the game was ran under win98 se; however, I have the same problems running under DOS (and that's booting into DOS.)
Running this game on a P2 350mmx, 192mb ram, v3 3000, abit be6-2 MB.

The game ran fine on a pent 200mmx v2 1000 setup; my old system. And that was under win98 se!

Any solutions?

WWII Fighter

[Delphi Dude]

Well, you're not the only one.

If I run it under Windows 95B, I can run the setup utility just fine, start the game, and it will freeze at startup.

Under DOS, I'll get all those funky characters and colors when I run either the setup program or the game. The effect will last for 2 seconds, after which it reboots.

Runs perfectly on my old Pentium 233 MMX though. Oh well, things could be worse...

[Guest]

I *think* I know why this is. 'Runtime error #???' indicates the game was probably programmed in Turbo Pascal, and your computer is probably too fast for it. TP had a bug, that would cause programs to die with a runtime error when you tried to play them on a fast box... try slowing your box down.

[Guest]

Thx for your helps.

I disabled vesa checking via cmd line and it worked. However, the setup exe still will not work; glad Stargunner auto detects sound!

Also Halloween Harry and a couple of epic megagames I got to work via "MoSlo."

BTW, anyone have any add-on levels for the Duke Nukem 1 game? Got to love Duke!!

Laters,
WWII Fighter

[Admiral_Bob]

And here's another issue with Stargunner...

System in question:
CPU: AMD K6-200MHz
M/B: Soyo 5EAS5
RAM: 32MB SDRAM
Video: Diamond Stealth II S220 PCI 4MB 3D accelerator, VESA 2.0 compliant BIOS (Diamond BIOS v1.36), Non-VGA controller*, Rendition Verite 2200 chipset.
Sound card: Aztech Sound Galaxy Washington 16
OS: Win 98

BTW I am smart enough to know to press "F8,5" to boot to DOS when playing DOS games, so I'm running this under pure DOS. I never run DOS games in a DOS box under Win9x.

Okay, the sound setup works great, and the menu/shop screens are fine when I configure the game for VESA 2.0, however when I play a level the status bar is missing - the area where it should be is instead replaced with the bottom portion of the previous "Loading..." screen with the wrong palette. The rest of the screen is ok. When I take a screen shot the .PCX file contains the whole screen including the status bar. Using the "/lfb-" command line option has no effect.

*I can't disable VESA 2.0 support because this card is not register VGA-compatible, meaning "tweaked" VGA modes (ie. Std. VGA 320x240x8) are emulated by the BIOS through hardware interrupts, which slows the game down beyond the speed of an IBM XT (and the music sounds awful).

I tried using Scitech Display Doctor, but that made things worse, skewing the whole display at 320x240 res thru the game. I can't get any other VESA drivers or updates for this card (I'm using the latest Windows drivers). Playing under a Win98 DOS box also made no difference, as well as restart in DOS mode.

This is a machine I've built for myself from good second hand parts at really low cost, and I'm kinda low on money right now, so try not to resort to telling me "Get a new video card..."

Other Apogee/3DRealms titles and also other games that use VESA 2.0 like Duke3D work fine at all screen resolutions with this video card.

Any suggestions, anyone? Thanks.

PS. See my other posting in the "Runtime error 200" thread for a solution to that problem. Stargunner's a 32-bit DOS protected mode program, so I don't think it would be written with TP, more like Watcom C++.

Also, isn't there a set of DN1 levels released as freeware known as "REDUKE" - I currently have a copy of this set which I found on a shareware CD compilation. It's 10 new levels which replace the shareware episode. Email me if you want them.

[This message has been edited by Admiral_Bob (edited 05-13-2000).]

[Guest]

Hello there Admiral_Bob!

Unfortunately, I am not much help for that kind of problem. It probably has something to do with the game itself and the video card, as you probably already know.

You might want to update Stargunner (2923mb patch) to 1.1a.

ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/3drealms/3drealms/patches/sgr11pt.zip


And update your card with the lastest drivers too.
http://www.s3.com/customer_caretechnical_supportOther_GraphicsStealt h_II_S220.htm

To idendify your Card:
http://www.s3.com/customer_caretechnical_supportvideo_idGraphics.htm

You might try dropping an email to gt and/or wizardworks for support. Both companies have a support area for stagunner but nothing for help (faq, drivers, etc.).
http://www.wizworks.com/ http://www.gtisonline.com/

I would update the game and video drivers first. If that doesn't work start emailing.
Maybe Joe will see your msg and give you a hand. He helped with the graphics design for this game.

Later,

WWII FIhgter

P.S. WATCOM C/C++32 was used.

[This message has been edited by WWII Fighter (edited 05-24-2000).]