Running Jazz Jackrabbit 1 on Windows 98 SE

[JustRob]

Hello,

I've recently set up a Windows 98 virtual machine on my MacBook Pro, and would like to play Jazz Jackrabbit on it (since it was MEANT to be played on Windows 95 / 98, right?).

Anyway, at first I couldn't get it to work, after which I downloaded TPPatch and patched my game. Then I got it to work, but it would only start up if I selected a certain soundcard in Setup.exe, and even then, the game would run way too fast, and there would be graphical glitches (part of top of the screen coming through the bottom, etc). Also, I could not get any sound or music at all.

So, is there a way to get it to work perfectly? Obviously I could plazz Jazz on DosBox on my Windows XP VM, but I'm really psyched about being able to play my favorite game on the real Windows 98.

[Slaz]

Jazz1 was supposed to be played on a clean MS-DOS and the intro text actually warned when it detected Windows 3.1 etc.

But putting that aside, it should work fine under Windows 95/98 as long as TPPatch is installed. What VM program are you using? Does it virtualize a Sound Blaster compatible driver? And does it have an option to choose the desired CPU speed/type for the VM?

I know that most VM software just create a virtual envoirement without emulating a certain machine type.

As for the graphical glitches, I'm not familiar with those. I do know that Jazz1 somehow relied on a different resolution for in-game play than on the menu screens, that could trick the VM Window in some way though I'm not 100% sure.

[JustRob]

Jazz1 was supposed to be played on a clean MS-DOS and the intro text actually warned when it detected Windows 3.1 etc.

But putting that aside, it should work fine under Windows 95/98 as long as TPPatch is installed. What VM program are you using? Does it virtualize a Sound Blaster compatible driver? And does it have an option to choose the desired CPU speed/type for the VM?

I know that most VM software just create a virtual envoirement without emulating a certain machine type.

As for the graphical glitches, I'm not familiar with those. I do know that Jazz1 somehow relied on a different resolution for in-game play than on the menu screens, that could trick the VM Window in some way though I'm not 100% sure.

I'm using Parallels Desktop.

I don't know if it's Sound Blaster compatible, but it comes with its own driver that's based on AC'97 something, I think. There's no option to control CPU speed, only how many CPU's you can have and how much memory they all have.

[Slaz]

You could try setting up a Sound Blaster driver in Windows 98's Device Manager, I'm not sure if that gets true the virtual layer but it's worth a try.

But since there's no way to set speed, I think you're bound to old software based solutions. I remember a program called 'MoSlo' that can slow down the system to play older games, and there's VDMSound that can emulate a Sound Blaster though I think that was for Win2000/XP only.

My recommendation is to either create a new VM with just a native MS-DOS, since Jazz1 was supposed to be played with that, or stick to DOSBox and try to optimize dosbox.conf to match JJ1's specification. I'm not familiar with Parallels Desktop so you'd have to peek if it's possible to have a virtual sound driver for DOS that passes Sound Blaster.

For DOSBox, I highly recommend setting these dosbox.conf changes for Jazz1 to make it look like it's played in the good old days:

fullresolution=Your native resolution
output=ddraw (opengl could perhaps be better for MacOSX?)
scaler=normal2x
cycles=fixed 6000 (6000 cycles is exact speed for Jazz1)

For sound, Sound Blaster 16 is the standard option for DOSBox, but it could emulate Gravis Ultrasound using the config setting. It was supposed to be the best sound for Jazz1, but I never used it. :p

[JustRob]

Alright, but if I try to play it using native MS-Dos, won't I get the same problems with visuals and sounds?

[Slaz]

Alright, but if I try to play it using native MS-Dos, won't I get the same problems with visuals and sounds?

Most likely yes, but maybe Parallels Desktop supplies different VM drivers for a DOS setup, I don't know. Either way, DOSBox will always work. :D

[burnout92]

Try Windows 98 with Virtualbox. It's compatibile with Sound Blaster sound card.

[Love & Thunder]

I don't think that will work, I tried Jazz 1 on Windows 98 SE with VirtualBox and all I got was a sound-less black screen with some brown vertical lines.
And, Windows 98 is REALLY hard to get working in VirtualBox, and when you're done with the long, complicated proccess of installing it, it barely works.

So, maybe VirtualBox isn't such a good idea(Unless you want to use it to run Windows XP or later, which you're not, so let's move on...).

[burnout92]

Robo. Want do you think the Vmware? Because i used Windows ME on Vmware it's runned perfectly.

[Love & Thunder]

Well, I haven't actually tried VMWare yet. I will do soon, though. :)
But, we were talking about VirtualBox, not VMWare.

[burnout92]

It's true. Sorry. I just though about a another solution.

[Jgke]

You should perhaps try DosBox (http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1) instead of a virtual machine. It might run much better and easier.