«

[another_guest]

Originally posted by Guest_MARIO@May 1 2006, 04:23 PM
Does this mean that I can't run it on XP? There must be some way..........

Dosbox seems to work fine for most (?) people, even if it needs a few attempts sometimes.

[guesst]

Originally posted by Guest_MARIO@May 1 2006, 04:21 PM
I can't run it! Black screen Look what i've read at http://www.gamesover.com/walkthroughs/archon_ultra.txt
If you're running Windows 95 or lower,
everything is A-OK. If you're running Windows 98, you'll have to run Archon
Ultra is DOS mode, but everything will still be A-OK -- you'll just have to
go through a reboot when you're done playing. But if you have ANY VERSION OF
WINDOWS LATER THAN 98, you *CANNOT* play Archon Ultra. Period. So before you
go hunting around trying to find this game, please keep this in mind!

This is an old FAQ (not entirely useless, tho) made before DOSBox was. Or at least before DOSBox could run Archon Ultra (some of the time).

Jeeze, 3 pages on this topic and most of it "I can't make it run." How about I comment on...

I found the Banshee to be pretty unbeatable, too, at least against the computer.

Just keep throwing your face at the enemy. Afaik every enemy gets instantly killed when 3 faces are rolling beneath him. Even the Phoenix or the Mage.

This is the issue that gets the self proclaimed curmudgi going, and it's a valid point. The game isn't nearly as balanced unit for unit as Star Control or a later game in a similar vein; Unholy Wars for the PS1. First of all, these sort of rat-dink manuvers are only completely effective against the computer and if you want the salvaget the stragety of the game turn it on cyborg mode and let the computer do the fighting for you.

And if you have the fortune of fighting against antoher human, just agree not to use the alt attacks and your practaclly playing Archon original flavor.

Just one last question.I never made any attempt to research using DOSBox to enable modem or network play. Is it possible and has anyone tried getting a remote game going?

Im using DOSBox-0.65 using Windows XP Home as my OS, and ive tried all the tips on the review+download page but whenever I start it using dosbox (using mount or drop and drag) I hear 3 speaker blips and I get a non responsive black screen. I rly Need teh Help to get it going! :help:

Originally posted by Guest@May 3 2006, 05:38 AM
Im using DOSBox-0.65 using Windows XP Home as my OS, and ive tried all the tips on the review+download page but whenever I start it using dosbox (using mount or drop and drag) I hear 3 speaker blips and I get a non responsive black screen. I rly Need teh Help to get it going! :help:

Got it working! You need to have this in your dosbox.conf which I could only find in start-all programs-dosbox-0.65 (double click).
-------------------

(under [mixer])

nosound=false
rate=44100
blocksize=44100
prebuffer=44100

(under [cpu])

core=normal
cycles=8000
cycleup=500
cycledown=20

(under [dos])

xms=true
ems=false
umb=true

(under [ipx])

ipx=false

[DarkCoiote]

At least Im not the only one having trouble with this fabulous game....

And what is really weird is that the first couple of times I ran the game It went fine, no lag, good sound and speed. Using the tech notes that are on the review.

But now it seems random... I get it to work only on less than 1 of 10 tries! and sometimes the games freezes on the FreeFall logo, not on the first one.......

I've tweaked so many options that I cant even remember all of them..... All configurations listed here I ve tried.... with no sucess....


I hope one day someone find THE solution... till there, let's play something else!...

[Firstborn Dragon]

XP here too, and dosen't work.

It loads the main screen with all the adjustments done, and just sits there. No sound, no movement, nothing. Just the SSL screen page.

Mind you, since the game hated me when my brother got it once for his birthday, I shouldn't be surprised that it still hates me.

Originally posted by Firstborn Dragon@May 5 2006, 03:50 AM
XP here too, and dosen't work.

It loads the main screen with all the adjustments done, and just sits there. No sound, no movement, nothing. Just the SSL screen page.

Mind you, since the game hated me when my brother got it once for his birthday, I shouldn't be surprised that it still hates me.

You need to download dosbox! heres the website dosbox.sourceforge.net/ - btw use the commands on the last post of page 3. Good luck k:

[DarkCoiote]

Hey guys, I had better luck doing the following:

- In my dosbox.conf I have:
in SDL
output=overlay // is faster to draw
in CPU
core=dynamic

the rest is the default.

Then, after starting Dosbox I set the cycles up to 20 000, set to fullscreen and then ran the game with the patched version (archon1.exe).

I get it working in 1 of 7 ... Which at least is something!
working with sound , music, and lagging veeeeryyy little.

My cpu specs are: Amd Athlon 2000 XP running at 1.75ghz, 512 ddr ram, a simple GForce 4 mx..... not too bad but neither good

I hope this will help someone....

Cya

Yes! I got it working too!

I used the settings from the post above, added to the settings listed in the techincal details.

I have noticed something strange though. Unlike the post above me, I am only running it at 8,000 cycles on my machine. It works at this speed, though it feels a little slow to me. I tried increasing the cycles to 10,000, but it would not run again. When I returned the cycles back to 8,000 it would work again.

I don't quite understand why, but I suspect it may have to do with performance or the game's running speed.

I did some more testing, and I determined that I can only run the game from 6,000 to 9,000 cycles with these settings. I am still not quite sure, but at least it works for me now.

Thanks.

UPDATE! :help:

I have been playing with my settings and have determined that the primary way for me to get it working is adjusting the inital cpu cycles.

Starting from where I left off in the previous post, I tried undoing the settings from DarkCoiote's post and then just adjusted the cycles. I found that the game would work from 12,000 to 16,000 cycles. Thinking that was strange, I decided to use completely default settings and adjust the cycles only. I found that the game would work from 14,000 to 17,000 cycles. Note that these are results produced by my system and will not be the same due to differences in cpu performance.

From these results I conclude that everyone who cannot get the game working to try just adjusting your cycles under the [cpu] section using a default config file. Try many different cycle settings. I would guess that it would be somewhere in the range of 6,000 to 24,000 cycles, but it could be out of that range, keep trying different ones until it works!

Good luck everyone! k: