2019-06-09 22:13:25

Greetings!
Daniel nash, our resident ghetto hacker, has put together a nifty package which allows you to play BSC Games on Windows 10. The package is available here or on the audiogame archive.

Happy blasting, hunting, piping etc!

#FreeTheCheese
"The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

2019-06-09 22:48:36

That's awesome! However could the classic troopanum (the new one) have a fix done on it too? I get a run time error when I try playing it.

2019-06-09 22:51:43

Thanks.

2019-06-10 07:54:45

Thanks. This is absolutely great news. However, I am not able to get one of the games to work. Blast chamber doesn’t seem to like my computer. I do everything correctly. I run the fix file first, install the game, and then I run the fix file again. The game does not want to load. I get an error 432. Troop 2.0 does work though. What should I do?

Hopefully, we'll get a fully accessible open world game someday.

2019-06-10 08:09:01

This is nice but its not really necessary, since a simple way of fixing this is to run the games in an elevated command prompt. Unless, of course, that's stopped working too.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-06-10 14:07:58

I believe the package was created for those of us who don’t know how to use command prompt. I,  unfortunately, I’m one of those people. I don’t know what I did to get troop working, but blast chamber still doesn’t seem to run.

Hopefully, we'll get a fully accessible open world game someday.

2019-06-10 17:00:21

interesting! I wish I could play pipe, the old version, that was truly a classic for me. Someone had gotten those to run in another thread in this same forum category, I think they suggested installing the games to unconventional locations like the my documents folder or anything that did not have too much security stuff (windows really has beefed up permissions in program files and other system folders) its the only thing I remember off that thread that can be worth investigating. I haven't tried that for one, but I am sure that might just work...

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

2019-06-10 21:56:41

@7 yes, that does indeed work, however I believe that you will need to download the 7zip program in order for it to work properly. Then, run the installer for the game and install it to a location other than program files. Then run the games through the 7zip file manager rather than regular file explorer under windows 10 and they should work. If anyone would like a recording on how to do this please let me know, however if this package does work there might not be any need to do that anymore.

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2019-06-10 23:38:21

One thing to note.
1.  hunter and classic pipe work without the patch, so do the wordstrain games.
Pipe2 I do not know but classic pipe works.
The patch does fix troop2 though but thats about it.
Pipe2 refuses to run.
Troop classic has bits needing a midi synth which came with windows and windows midi mapper.
I do have a software midi mapper and software synth font synth installed but even with it all loaded the program doesn't see it so it needs a hardware midi device to play the midis for the game.
It is a pitty those midis couldn't be converted to mp3s and the game be modified to play those but thats why troop1 will not play.
Now it will also run but you can't play it.
The autoit scripts will be recognised as a virus by defender because they are autoit scripts and autoit has been used for viruses before.
You need to turn your av software off and then well it will just do.
Its good to get troop 2 back again at least.

2019-06-11 04:51:31 (edited by Ethin 2019-06-11 04:52:04)

This thing is quite happy to assume, which is typical of nash. I wouldn't use this if you want to install these games somewhere else other than the default locations. And, like every other time he assumes, he has no defend-able excuse.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-06-11 05:38:46

Hey, where can one get a mini-mapper and midi synth to play Troopanum Classic? And how are they loaded?

2019-06-11 12:04:31

@10:

Maybe. But then, it only assumes default install location and a 64-bit OS. It'd be helpful if either the program would switch over to environment variables or also add the 32-bit paths. A note that the program expects the default install locations in the readme would also clear things up, but by no means is this a game-changer because in the worst-case scenario it simply fails to install the proper files.

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

2019-06-11 23:23:54

You can't.
I have the coolsoft vertual midi synth and mapper and while that will work for winamp and windows, the bsc stuff was made for windows xp.
The fact it worked on and up to win7 is due to the fact that windows still had a hardware midi mapper or a windows midi mapper loaded into it.
Unless you have a way to install the microsoft midi mapper or call it microsoft midi mapper then we won't have anything working.
A vertual midi mapper and synth wouldn't work.
If it did, all my midi games would be playing with soundfonts.
I could in theory play any type of game.
As well as a lot of professional sound fonts, I can emulate most other devices nokia, soundblaster, etc easily.
I even have the official sound font banks from the actual sb live and the and the sb live 5.1 that they use some hacked from old systems so I am not short of banks.
To be honest only the older games had midis, I suspect because most of this was before mp3 ogg and other formats.
You wouldn't make games even if they had chip modules now because of compatability reasons.
What you would do instead would to use a chip sound bank to create the audio and have them in audio files, mp3s or oggs a lot use vorbis these days.
I have seen blind people play with chip emulation on a keyboard and it has been a success so I know that can be done.

2019-06-12 00:40:48

While this looks like a good package, probs may not use this thing, as everything works under 7zip just fine. Lol. I've already made a a recording on how to do this but if other s wanna contrib, that's cool.

Jonathan Candler, A.K.A, Jonnyboy

2019-06-12 03:34:32

@12, it should ask you where you've installed the game as to avoid problems like that. Nash does have this habit of assuming far too much about his user base, which is (IMO) something he needs to work on. I'd be just as disappointed if the windows installer (that installs windows) didn't ask you where to install it and insead just did whatever it wanted with your disk drives.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-06-12 12:43:27

@15:
I think there's a big difference between an os assuming that it should install to a harddisk (therefor deleting the data on the disk) and a program trying to move perhaps non-existent files and replacing them with a launcher. Yes, the install directory is an assumption that should be noted in the readme. Choosing an install location as you suggested would be another option. But what's the use case for installing these games to another directory? Regarding midi, for some reason it simply works on my pc. (windows 10 1903), pipe 1.0.

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

2019-06-12 13:42:16

oh. thank you!

2019-06-13 04:17:21 (edited by Ethin 2019-06-13 04:17:36)

@16, There is a big difference, but considering he even got the default paths wrong... that definitely should tell you something.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-06-14 03:26:01

Hi I have them installed and they work I don't have troop installed because I'm not really into that game.  I do have the vb6 runtime installed so I also have a windows vm with xp installed for the older freedom games and lighttech games and for some of the old Mota betas.

2019-06-14 06:09:36

if I get a windows xp vm set up will these perform OK?

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

2019-06-15 18:48:33

A windows xp vm might work, it will work best if you have an external sound card (usb) and connect it directly, no audio lag. That said, this package works too (provided that your pc has windows 10 64 bit installed.)

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

2019-09-16 14:33:23 (edited by lukas 2019-09-16 14:33:57)

Hi all,
a couple questions, as the package didn't help me to run them.

How should running the game files through 7Zip help? I mean, what is special about 7Zip's file manager, or what does it do differently than Windows 10 File Explorer or Total Commander, that justifies and explains this step?

Next, even when I did use the package and it did successfully produce the modified files in the correct locations, with the bin suffix added to the executable names, it still didn't help at all and the games, namely Blast Chamber and Troopanum 2 which are the only ones I'm interested in, still don't run.

So, I even tried running them through the elevated commant prompt manually, I tried various compatibility settings for previous iterations of Windows, I do have the VB6 runtime libraries and I even installed the Windows Media redistributables from the AG archive and even Visual Basic 5 runtime libraries from Microsoft. Still no luck at all. The games simply do nothing at all when I try to run them. It seems as though I didn't do anything at all, didn't try to run them in any way, and they are not even seen among the running processes in task manager.

Any clues as to what I might want to try next, anyone? I would really love to be able to get my hands on these two classics again just for the sake of nostalgia. :-)

Thanks,
Edit: I do have a current version of Windows 10 1903 Pro, 64-bit.
Lukas

I won't be using this account any more or participating in the forum activity through other childish means like creating an alternate account. I've asked for the account to be removed but I'm not sure if that's actually technically possible here. Just writing this for people to know that I won't be replying, posting new topics or checking private messages until the account is potentially removed.

2019-09-16 23:04:36

1. Disable UAC, because screw UAC.
2. Download and run this modified extended Visual Basic runtime package
then install the games. Set them up to run as administrator in the shortcut properties for each game.

2019-09-16 23:20:20

that is what I never managed to figure out, what is so special about 7zip that it makes all the games work, but I can tell you that it does. As I said earlyer on this topic, if anyone would like a recording on how to do this please let me know and i'll be happy to make one.

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2019-09-16 23:31:56

Ok, thanks a lot, Jack and Bryant.
I do actually already have my UAC set so low that it never interferes with program installs or runs, and my account is administrator so as to run smoothly together with NVDA.

So I've just downloaded the extended VB6 runtimes and will try that. If that doesn't work, I'll resort to 7Zip as a last hope.
Thanks a lot once again.
Lukas

I won't be using this account any more or participating in the forum activity through other childish means like creating an alternate account. I've asked for the account to be removed but I'm not sure if that's actually technically possible here. Just writing this for people to know that I won't be replying, posting new topics or checking private messages until the account is potentially removed.