why some MS-DOS games can give me black screen?

[Joaquim]

i'm trying playing the "Spear"\"Spear of Destiny"\"wolf3d". but i get the Black Screen..

why these error? is because i use the Radeon x600?

the desktop properties-config is 32 bits with 720X576 resolution

[Goodmaneuver]

That is an unusual frame size, I am not sure if I have encountered it before. The basics, make sure your monitor can display the game resolution settings. What I do is go to device manager and update driver to a standard display driver then reboot. Once back into Windows then update driver to the x600 drivers. ATIPOLL may not be running or you are running low on 16 bit resources. Make sure you are limiting the File Cache to no more than about 400MB or a quarter of your RAM. The registry gets interrupted when the DOS prompt is opened by any program that uses it with nVidia. I do not know about ATI as I have not used ATI for years. For nVidia to show the phenomenon I am talking about set up the color correction from the nVidia display properties so that there is a notable difference to that of no correction, then open a DOS prompt. The color gamma correction is reset and is not recoverable until you reboot. This happens with Adobe Gamma as well.

EDIT the DOS prompt resetting the color gamma correction I fixed by changing a capacitor and the CPU. The phenomenon does not happen any more.

Edited June 30, 2021 by Goodmaneuver

[Joaquim]

i use 512MB.. unless i must install the hotfix, because the RAM is too much

[Joaquim]

for now, no luck

[Joaquim]

on virtual mware works like a sharm

[Joaquim]

maybe i must found 1 version with setup for avoid the sound card?

[Joaquim]

after several tests i found 1 version that works, but for that i must reboot and press 'F8' and select the 'prompt mode', for enter on MS-DOS and then execute the game.

so seem the problem is the audio driver... my audio driver\device: Vinyl AC'97 Codec Combo Driver(WDM).

maybe i must disable the audio

[Joaquim]

on Device Manager - "sound, video and games controlors", i only have the 'Vinyl AC'97 Codec Combo Driver(WDM)'... these means that i don't have the Sound Blaster win98 emulation... maybe these is the problem... what anyone can tell me more?

[Joaquim]

ok.. after testing, i found the problem isn't the sound... on bat file i use:

@ECHO OFF
@break off
sod sb

i execute the batch file, but the screen stays black... is something about memory(512MB's) or the graphics? can i change these on batch file?

[Joaquim]

can anyone share me the wolf3d run file that works on Windows 98?

 i haded 1, but i losed 

[awkduck]

There is the open source-port Wolf4gw/Sod4gw. It seemed to support the unique resolution your video card is using (probably over S-Video).

That I can share.

4gw.zip

[Joaquim]

thank you so much for all to all