Constructor was one of the first pc-games i ever played on my 1st computer, so when i found it in a used games store i couldnt resist. But to my dissapointment it will not run on my current computer. The installation runs fine, so does sound configuration and tests, but when i try to run the game it says sound card not compatibleI have tried looking around this site for help, but im not a computer-wizz like all of you, so i dont understand half of it. Somebody please help!?

any more info on your current computer?

Sure, sorry, its a 733 mgh running on windows 98 se. Does that help?

Sure, sorry, its a 733 mgh running on windows 98 se. Does that help? [/b][/quote]
What's that "733 mgh"?

Anyway, are you trying to run it directly under Win98? If it's so, probably you should try to run it using DosBox!

What a prejudices! :D
You are sure that you installed the game sound driver correctly?
Look for an executable called setup.exe, sound.exe, and so on. Tell me if it's not present.
As far as I'm concerned, many dosgames are compatible with 98... but I'm 1.25% sure.

What a prejudices! :D
You are sure that you installed the game sound driver correctly?
Look for an executable called setup.exe, sound.exe, and so on. Tell me if it's not present.
As far as I'm concerned, many dosgames are compatible with 98... but I'm 1.25% sure. [/b][/quote]
I'm not sure of anything... I installed the game like i normally would, followed the directions, configured the sound settings. Did the sound test it sounded fine to me. When i attempt to launch the game it says "error" and that i need 419k of memory to run the game, which i have.
I thought it would run fine when i bought it.

With mgh i mean megahertz, i dont remember the correct abreviation...
I dont have dosbox. Read the "how-to" and it seems to complicated for my skills to install it correctly... :eeeeeh:

Did you try to turn off the sound in the configuration, see if it'll run then?

No i didnt, ill get back to you on that. But i really would prefer to run it WITH the sound...

I used to change manually the amount of memory alocated to running DOS games - EMS, XMS, and whatever else was needed. You can try different settings when you right-click on the program icon.

Just tried it. Didnt work. Anything else?

I'm not sure because of the language barrier (Im Danish!) but i think i tried what u are suggesting, and it didnt work either. It still says i need 490k of free base memory.
Another thing: when i try to launch the uvconfig from the cd-rom it says "no super vga sound chip detected"

Long guess but did you try to run it in win98, or 95 compatibility mode?

You can find it on right click ->properties ->compatibility

From which year is the game anyway?

edit: oopsy then

she is running it in win98 already


in the Memory tab you should have couple of different memory names: conventional, base, expanded etc.
try altering them: they are on 'auto' now (probably), set them with one of the higher values.

I remember playing it on win98, never had problems with it...
strange

Sabina: What you might be encountering is the usual DOS memory problem when you try to run from windows. There are 2 options... you can go here http://www.computerhope.com/ac.htm and read all about what the autoexec.bat and config.sys files do and how to free some conventional memory or you can simply boot into dos mode and start the game from there. You might have to make sure your soundcard initializes in DOS. You spoke about the fact that it wanted 419kb of memory that means it's asking for 419kb conventional free memory out of 640kb memory. (old DOS talk here)
If you need more help just ask in a pm... I can tell you all this in Danish as I'm Danish myself but don't want to post it in here and make everybody more confused :)

Or you could go directly to our Troubleshooting archive, look at this post and read the quoted guide at the end of the page. Make sure everything is in order.

Best tip I can give you: if a game is not working, fire the so called "DOS Mode" and try it from there instead. As long as your autoexec.bat and config.sys are well configured, it should work fine.

When running a DOS program under Win 98SE it should easily be able to get 419Kb of conventional memory. For example, I'm running 98SE here at the moment. I've just opened a DOS box (just a DOS command prompt window, not the DOSBox program) and typed the command MEM at the prompt. The MEM program has come back and told me that I have 572Kb of free conventional memory.

If you open a DOS window and type MEM what does it say? If you don't have more than 419 Kb then it means that something else is taking that memory. This could be because your CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT files, which are executed automatically when the computer is started, are loading a program or an old DOS device driver before Windows starts. Sometimes certain programs which are started while Windows is running may reduce the amount of memory available (because they don't observe Windows's memory conventions.)

Have a look at CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT ; they are in the root directory on your C: drive. If you don't understand them then post them here. Also, is there anything else that you are running under Windows at the same time as you are trying to run your game?

Note, I usually find it very easy to run DOS programs under 98SE. I very rarely find an old game that it won't run. I don't use the DOSBox program. I also find that for those that it won't run I just have to boot into real DOS either as my computer starts - if you hold down the F8 key just after the computer has recognised its disks it will give to a menu; choose the Command Prompt option to enter DOS rather than Windows - or by shutting down Windows and selecting the Restart in MS-DOS mode option.

With mgh i mean megahertz, i dont remember the correct abreviation...
I dont have dosbox. Read the "how-to" and it seems to complicated for my skills to install it correctly... :eeeeeh: [/b][/quote]
Megahertz=MHz

DosBox isn't so difficult to use, but you could try to use VDMsound (which you can find from the Abandonia home page "Utilities-->Programs"). You have just to install it, then right click on the executable file of Constructor and choose "run with VDMSound" from the menu that will appear...
But I don't know how constructor run in that way :whistle:

Which of course is totaly useless, as well as VDMSound, since he uses Win98SE.

Follow the link to the quoted guide I posted above, this should work.

It's from 97. I dont get the option you suggest, when right clicking...?

Set everything on the max memory available, still doesnt work...

You only have that option in winxp, I didn't read that you have win98, sorry ;)

It says I have 573k of free memory.

Ive tried that to... but im probably not doing it right. What ever i write it says "invalid directory". What exactly am i supposed to write?

It say invalid directory when you are trying to do what?

When i try to run the game from dosprompt. I cant get it to leave windows and go to the C directory, where the acclaim folder is located. I havent used dos much on this computer, so maybe im doing something wrong?

to go to c type:
c:

then
cd acclaim

if the folder is in the main directory of course

Tell us exactly in which directory your game is located, and we will tell you what to do.

Its on the C drive in a folder called "ACCLAIM". In that folder is another folder called "CN" and thats where the game titled "game" is located.

Here is two essential commands you should know:

CD (which mean Change Directory)
DIR (used to show you what is in the current directory)

So, when you get to c:\ at the beginning, type

CD ACCLAIM

then type

DIR

At that point, you should see what is in the acclaim directory. It should be exactly the same thing than browsing the directory in Win98, but only in text. Assuming that you then need to continue to the CN directory, type

CD CN

And you should be in the CN directory. Type DIR again to see the files, and spot those ending in .exe, .com and .bat. One of those files is the executable needed to start the game, usually it's a .bat.

Something else you need to know: DOS support only files with 8 characters long, along with the 3 character extention. Windows can go over that, that's why you might encounter files ending with ~1. You can still access those files or directory, but you must find the ~ on your keyboard and type the exact same thing than you see when you type DIR. To prevent this, rename all directories or files longer than 8 characters in the directries you need to access for DOS gaming.

But how do I get there? When i restart my computer in dos it starts out still in windows. I can't get it to make a : it makes > (or is it < ?) instead. How do i get from c:\windows> to c:\

I know I'm probably asking a lot of stupid questions... but I really appreciate your patience!

Alright, great! So far so good, i've finally launched the game from dos. But i still have the same problem. It says i need 490k of free base memory to run Uvconfig.
But I have 572k, so whats the problem? any ideas? And no I'm not running other programmes that could take up the memory...

what does it say when you type: mem

it should give you memory and description of various types of it.

maybe you need EMM386 to run the game or config. also sometimes part of basic memory can be moved to upper level so you free more of the basic mamory.

edit:

there are two types of memory in DOS.

EMS and XMS. some games require EMS to run, while others use XMS. i dont' know about this game i never tried it. i somehow missed it. :blink:
too bad i dont' have time for games lately, otherwise i would give a solution to your problem. still i could give you my settings of autoexec.bat and config.sys which might help you. maybe later in the evening if i remember....

When i type mem from the dosprompt, it says that i have 573k free base memory and that the max size of a programme it can execute is 572k.
BUT, and this is a bit odd, when i restart my computer in ms-dos and type mem it says i have 515k. Shouldnt i have MORE memory available when windows is shut down? :eeeeeh:

if you went in menu Start->shutdown->restart in dos
then your available memmory will be lower, because windows left some parts in it. for example you can then type exit and it will return you to windows.

otherwise if you went through the F8 menu then you should get more memmory. btw have you tried with abandonia boot disk avilable on the site? it can clear up a lot of memmory and make the games run. especially if you use the mouse driver (also found on the site). that one takes up only a fraction fo memory. so oyu might even have over 600k free memmory available.
well later when i get home i can try and see what happens because i have Win98 too.

Your rnning it from startup?

Make a bootdisk. It's real easy with this thingo:
http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/modboot/

If you follow the directives in this quoted guide at the end of the post, you'll be able to configure your memory for gaming.

Make sure you are talking about conventionnal memory. There is 3 kind of memory in DOS, and the game should tell you which kind it's lacking. There is conventional memory, EMS memory and XMS memory.

It says "free base memory"?

I read it once alredy, just read it again, to be sure, and no, I don't understand it. Remember i'm a rookie here?! I'm just scared i'll do something wrong and f*** my whole system up...

My best bet is that you have too many resident programs loaded in memory when you try to play this game. What I would do if I were you would be to put "rem" commands in front of the lines you think you should disable. This "rem" command don't delete the line but make the startup overlook it and pass to the next line.

Since you don't really know what you should do, I suggest you copy and paste your whole config.sys file in your next post and I will point to you what to do (you can open that file with notepad like a normal .txt file).

well that is why i propose to make a boot floppy disk. you can then change any paramater on floppy disk and you can't mess anything up. if you do you just take out the floppy and reset the computer.



here is my autoexec on abandonia boot disk:


@ECHO OFF
path=c:\windows\command

LH /L:1 MOUSE.COM
rem c:\mouse\mouse.exe


SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T2
SET SNDSCAPE=C:\WINDOWS
SET CTSYN=C:\sbpci
c:\sbpci\apinit


c:\windows\command\mscdex.exe /D:TEAC-CDI /M:15

prompt $p$g

i coloured the lines. here blue defines mouse, red defines sounblaster parameters, and green defines my CD drive.

this is my config.sys

NUMLOCK=ON
BREAK=ON

DOS=HIGH,UMB,NOAUTO
FILESHIGH=40
FCBSHIGH=1,0
BUFFERSHIGH=30,0

rem LASTDRIVEHIGH=J
LASTDRIVE=Z
DEVICE=C:\TEAC\TEAC_CDI.SYS /D:TEAC-CDI
STACKSHIGH=9,256

DEVICE=A:\HIMEM.SYS /V
DEVICE=A:\EMM386.EXE RAM /MIN=0 I=B000-B7FF /V

SHELL=A:\COMMAND.COM A:\ /E:1024 /P

here lines in blue define that your memory is transfered to upper memory to free the conventioanl memory. conventional memmory is 640kB, upper memmory is memmory between 640kB and 1MB RAM.
the red line defines type of memmory used. first line is XMS memmory and second one is EMS memmory. if i write rem in fron of the second line the computer will "jump" over it and EMS wont get installed. sometimes this is needed to free more conventional memmory.

edit these configs give me 541kB free ram. if i remove teac cd drivers (for trunning the cd) by typing rem in front of them the number drastically increases.