harpoon II under Win XP!!!

[artao]

Hey there all. Haven't posted here in ages, but I've got something fun to share.

Harpoon II: Admiral's Edition (and I dare say any other old DOS game you like) CAN run fine under Win XP (I've got home, but pro would prolly work too)

What you need is a nice program, a DOS emulator called DOS-Box, which you can get here http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1
Don't let the version number fool you, it works GREAT!! Try anything and everything 'old' you've wanted to run but couldn't. This program allows you to adjust emulated speed on-the-fly as well .... I could go on raving, but won't.
I urge you to check out this beautiful program. You won't regret it.

[Herman]

Please go on! :yep:

I've gotten H2AE to run with the DOSBox, but I must say that it runs very slowly. You say that you can get it to speed up? How did you do that?

I increased the number of cycles to about 30,000 and even tried to set the number of frames skipped up to the max at 10 and it still runs like a pig. My CPU is supposedly running at 100%. Any other suggestions?

Have you tested with any of the H3 databases? Are they compatible? Or do you have to stick with the ones that came with H2AE?

:up:

[artao]

One thing about DOSBox is that if you give it too many cycles, it actually slows down. I'm running an Athlon XP 1800 (~1.6 Ghz) and it runs pretty well around 10,000 cycles. (I think Ctrl-F11 & Ctrl-F12 adjust the cycles while running). I've also found that it seems to run smoother in a window, though I have no complaints with fullscreen.
Also, close down as much background stuff as possible when running DOSBox. It seems to take CPU cycles in 'surges', and if a bunch of other stuff is running that's way more apparent.
Finally, mess around with the settings for each program, especially some of the graphics settings. Many games I've found run MUCH better with double-buffering turned off. I also highly recommend the front-end D-Fend (available through DOSBox site, I believe) as it allows easy configuration for individual games. VERY useful.

Haven't tried alternate databases, though I would assume that H3 > H2 wouldn't be backward compatible.