Aces of the Deep on WINXP!!!!

[filboid42]

OK you Ol' swabs!

I was able to get Aces Over Europe(from the original 3 Sierra floppies) up and running on my winxp pro system! As well as Aces Of The Deep!! You may already know about this but I thought I would pass it on anyway.

What I did was download a program called DOSBox and another windows frontend for DOSBox called D-Fren v2.

The links for these are below.

DOSBox-0.63-install.exe
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1

D-Fend-2.0.62.42.exe
http://members.home.nl/mabus/

Installed DOSBox first and then D-Fend.

D-Fend has a setup wizard and is extremely easy to use.

So far I have tested about 20 old dos games and everyone worked perfect.

Here is my setup: WinXP Pro, 2GB Ram, ATI Radeon XT 256MB,STA soundcard. I was viewing it on a 24inch SyncMaster monitor too!

Aces Over Europe
Aces Of The Pacific
Aces Of The Deep
Red Baron
Doom,1,2,SE
Spear of Destiny
Wolfenstien
BlackThorn

Pretty cool to see these old games and hear the music again.

Filboid42

[Antonin]

Can you provide more info about whoever makes this utility? I hesitate to DL things from sites I do not know well.

I loved AOD, and would love to get it to run on my Win XP PC. I'd play SH1 if I could.

Because I still have not decided whether to buy SH3 because of Starforce, I'm really dying to play a U-boat sim!

[Sonarman]

Im using the Dosbox/Dfend combo too and managed to get good old "Task Force 1942" up and running fine I've also been trying the "Great Naval Battles" series but no luck there as yet.

One more interesting thing, I discovered the receipt for Task Force 1942 in the box, it cost 49.99 UK pounds in 1992 almost twice as much as games cost today!

[Tanyrhiew]

I've had tf1942 & AoD running under dosbox for about a year - I posted here with the instructions.

With tf1942 I'm running an "abandonware" version (i have tried to buy a legal version, even going to the extent of ringing microprose who nothing about it - even the budget cd version they released under the soldout label) - my original (andthe first game I ever bought) having gone to the place games go when they die, the box having been left on top of some stereo speakers with disasterous consequences for the floppies inside, when we moved house about 10 years ago.

What i dont have however is the keyboard commands and wonder if you can confirm if there were keys for changing ammunition type and the searchlights .

Still the best simulation of "Big gun" naval combat ever done. Og for a remake.

[Sonarman]

Hi Tanyrhiew

Here are the keys for TF1942

Esc Return to bridge
F1 Bridge
F2 Charts
F3 Gun Director
F4 Observer View
F5 Torpedo Director
F6 Damage Control
F7 Binoculars
F8 Save game
F9 Load Game
F10 Graphic Options
Alt+F10 Realism Options (in patched v1.1)

1 Increase Speed
2 Decrease Speed
shift + 1 increase to one half max (if below half speed) or go to flank speed if not
shift + 2 decrease to one half max (if above half speed) or stop if not
3 Gun Director ID book switch
8 Load/Unload Starshells
9 Searchlights on/off
0 Switch Torpedo mount
- decrease time scale
+ increase time scale
shift + arrow key scroll screen
ctrl + arrow key move pointer to hotspot
z zoom view
x expand view (zoom out)
< turn to port gradually
> turn to starboard gradually
shift + < turn to port 1 point (22.5 degrees)
shift + > turn to stbd 1 point (22.5 degrees)
Enter Fire weapons
spacebar Director targetting on / off
Numeric keypad
8 Gunner adjust range longer
2 Gunner adjust range shorter
4 view left
6 view right

Other controls
Alt + P pause
Alt + S sound
Alt + J joystick adjust
Alt + Q quit to dos

Good luck on finding an original copy eBay is still the best bet.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Antonin

Can you provide more info about whoever makes this utility? I hesitate to DL things from sites I do not know well.

I loved AOD, and would love to get it to run on my Win XP PC. I'd play SH1 if I could.

I've experiemented with DOSBOX and Silent Hunter 1. I was able to get the game to play, but not very smoothly and with no sound. Here are the steps I took:
http://www.subsim.com/tips/tip_sh1.php#winxp

I would be interested in seeing if some of you old SH skippers can complete this and get the sound working. Let me know and I will add it to the tips section.

[donut]

@ Onkel Sir
http://www.subsowespac.org/sh_xp/silent_hunterxp.shtml It works.
Yours,Donut Ck Your Email Onkel
E-mail Address(es):
subsim@subsim.com

You will need to configure VDMS sound emulation correctly

[Smaragdadler]

I have installed Silent Hunter I (Commander Edition) on my vaio-laptop with WinXP. To get it running I made a full install, deleted copyr.smk,logo444.smk and skin.smk-files. For sound I have just run the soundconfig-programm in the SH root directory. I had success in choosing the very first option 'Media Vision Thunderboard (TM) FM Sound'.
All runs smooth and well.

I also have tried to install Command Aces of the Deep. It all goes well till the programm starts to load the playing part of the sim. When press the 'go' button on the briefing screen the programm hangs up and it tells me it needs so and so much memory. But in real I have much more.
There was some adivice here on subsim to make a boot disk - but this was vor Win98 - not XP.
And yes I have marked to run in win95 compatibiliy (sp?) mode.
But I'm fine with SH1 for now..

[CB..]

i've got CAOTD and it runs perfectly more or less on Win XP SP2
all the sound works well--the only problem i have experienced with it is due to me running it in 32 bit colour-(and thats normal anyway)
nicely tho-instead of the scope and uzo tdc view being all mangled up as normal when running at 32 bit colour- all i see is the scope/uzo view and the rest of the screen is black---see-ing as im too laxy to change to 16 bit all the time--i just pop down to the command room and use the tdc screen there--which displays perfectly (as do all the other pop up screens) which is an improvement on my old ME set up--
perfectly playable--

[Onkel Neal]

Try changing to 256K colors, that's what worked for me.

[CB..]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Try changing to 256K colors, that's what worked for me.

Cheers Neal
i'm lazy and hate to keep changing the settings---but was very surpised to find that CAOTD works better on XP than it did on win ME,
on ME the graphics were screwed unlesss you set it as you say--in XP the normally distorted scope uzoTDC graphics just dont appear at all---which is better ! cos for some reason the TDC and other pop ups show spot on from the command room---nice to see the game in semi 32 bit!

[u-Boat commander]

Hi, I´ve installed the program dos box, and i tried with the program boxer because i didn´t understand how to use the other program. I´ve used boxer and when i´m in DOS, i can´t run the game because it is made for run in windows. What do i do? i don´t have any idea of this kind of programs.

[Hellcat]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I've experiemented with DOSBOX and Silent Hunter 1. I was able to get the game to play, but not very smoothly and with no sound. Here are the steps I took:
http://www.subsim.com/tips/tip_sh1.php#winxp

Neal, your short tutorial made no mention of using some of the commands in dosbox to optimize the game while playing it.

Make sure to try "Ctrl + F8" to increase frameskip and "Ctrl + F7" to decrease it. The game is very playable with frameskip at "4" (it will say what your at in the dosbox window)

You can also try to increase the cpu allocation to dos box by pressing "Ctril + F12" or "Ctrl + F11" to reduce it.

[vinceor]

I have ran SH1 well using Dosbox. Follow the directions given at this site http://www.subsowespac.org/silent-hunter-dosbox.shtml . The music entering port isn't to hot but the rest worked well.

[Warmonger]

Originally Posted by Smaragdadler

I also have tried to install Command Aces of the Deep. It all goes well till the programm starts to load the playing part of the sim. When press the 'go' button on the briefing screen the programm hangs up and it tells me it needs so and so much memory. But in real I have much more.

Same problem here, is there any solution? I got the sound running even with a soundblaster live but the memory error is still there when starting a mission. Edit: Solution here, at the bottom of this page...doh http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=97271