Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - Retail PC Steam Install from disc (DVD) fix

Image nicked off google images :)

Yes... Call of Duty. 

I guess that I should explain myself for this one a little, rather than diving straight into the fix, or at least what worked for me, other people have other issues (eg installer getting stuck after disc one);

I suddenly got the urge to play through the Call of Duty: MW3 single player campaign again, as I'd not even looked at the game since I got it and initially played through it, at the time I wasn't impressed with the multiplayer so the game was quickly uninstalled. But that's not where the issue is, the uninstall went fine, as has been the case since the game's retail release, the installation has and still is an issue. Now you may say, "dude just download it via steam, don't even bother with the DVDs" that's all well and good, if you have a decent internet connection, which I do not due to where I live, it would have taken me a very long time to download 14GB just to play the short single player campaign, it'd be much better solution for me to install from the disk and download the 300mb in updates.

My Issue was as follows, Trying to install from DVD the installer would launch steam and get to the point where it's supposed to start copying the data from the DVDs and just stall at 0% 0kb etc. no further activity, and that's the same problem I had way back when I got the game on release (my first and only (so far) midnight launch), being that far back I'd forgotten what I done to fix it back then so after much googling and trawling of dated forum posts I found the following thread and used the info to get my game installed!

https://community.callofduty.com/thread/200817251

The specific post that helped:

 
Ok I have had 3 people try it worked for one and not the other two so it is a hit and miss solution.

once I got it installed it reckons I still have to do 14GB update for multiplayer. A friend is telling me it dosnt turn out being full 14gb but I don't have the bandwidth to attempt just yet.

I will post below what I have done but it may not work for all.

......................................
To start go into steam whilst online and go to games library.

If you have already activated the game it should be in there even though you have not installed it.

Now here was my trick start to download game, and install via steam.

Only do about 8mb but then hit pause I did about 8mb to be safe once paused exit steam completely.

This means going into task manager to make sure it is not running in the background.


Now create a short cut to steam on your desktop.

Once that is done right click on short cut and go to properties.

Your target file should look like this providing you have installed steam to your c: drive ( "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe" )

What you need to do from here is add -install d: to the end so it looks like this "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe" -install d:

"Important"
If your CD/DVD drive is not D: and its E: or G: or something else just replace the d: for whatever drive letter your CD is in.

That part sets it to install from CD not on-line once double clicked on.

When you double click on short cut now it should start the game menu from CD as normal except this time it will say REINSTALL.
please hit reinstall now not install and see how it goes.
it takes awhile but you should eventually see that it is installing from cd drive now instead of nothing.
.................................................

Please post your results positive and negative and feedback online to this thread to help others with same problem, hopefully this way they can implement a fix for this problem.

Credit: dazzas27

So basically if you are starting from scratch, make sure you go into steam and delete the local content fro Call of Duty MW3, Call of Duty MW3 multiplayer and the dedicated server which should be under tools, just to make sure all the local content is gone.

Start downloading the game via steam, until you have about 8-10MB of data downloaded(I had a little bit more downloaded but it doesn't really matter)

Now pause the download, Exit steam so that it's no longer running.

I'm using windows 7 but this should work for XP / Vista also if you're running them, unsure about 8 / 8.1.

Click the start menu, type in "run" and launch the "Run" program, then type in the command to start steam and install from a disc driv, use whatever drive letter is your disc drive you have the DVD in for me it was F: like so:

So, path to where you have steam installed "E:\Games\Steam\Steam.exe" and then the option "-install F:" which tells steam to install whatever is on the DVD in drive F:

Also note that for some people simply launching the autorun from the DVD and selecting "Reinsatall" works.

You should get something along these lines:

Yours may look a little different as mine is already installed but just follow the instructions as normal.

Once it's installed you'll want to close steam and don't let it update for now as it will try and download the full 14GB even after installing 13.7GB from the discs!

So with steam closed go to the directory where you have steam games library (*path to steam*/steamapps/)  and then delete the corresponding appmanifest files which are under "steamapps", the two (one for single player one for multi) for COD:MW3 are:

appmanifest_42680.acf

appmanifest_42690.acf

Fire up steam again and then click to install game via steam from your list of steam games, like you would if you were just going to install the game over the internet. Steam will now check for files that are already installed which will be our 13.7GB from the DVDs and then download 300mb-sih of updates for the game, if you watch the folders while it's doing this you'll see the "\steamapps\common\Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3" folder go to 0 bytes or at least very low, steam has moved the files to "\steamapps\downloading\42690" while it downloads the updates and then will move it all back to the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 folder.

If everything worked then you should be ready to play. I know this is a pain in the arse, but saved hours in download time and allowed me to play the game! I even played some of the multiplayer I was ranked "11" and then ranked up to 14/15 in a few games. It's still "meh" but fun for a few rounds.

And that's all for now, I hadn't done a post here for a while so decided to put this up, I've a few more to finish up when I get the urge too. But hope this helps someone else.

Star Conflict Linux Arch / Manjaro libcurl openssl FIX

Ok So After a system update and a Star Conflict update (not sure which caused the issue but most likely the system update) on my Manjaro machine Star Conflict decided to stop working, I thought I had fixed this previously by installing the needed libs, but the System update must have undone this and updated my version of libcurl.

Star Conflict needs an older version of libcurl than what is available via Manjaro, Installing and old version via AUR is only a temporary fix as system updates can undo this, so Until this changes eg the developers do something about it the solution is this:

To make a local version of the libcurl.so.4.2.0 in the star conflict directory so that it uses that version and not your system version.

Here is a PKGBUILD file for for the correct libcurl

Download the file:  PKGBUILD

# $Id: PKGBUILD 60263 2011-12-08 19:46:25Z bluewind $
# Maintainer: Florian Pritz 

_pkgbasename=curl
pkgname=lib32-$_pkgbasename
pkgver=7.23.1
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="An URL retrieval utility and library (32-bit)"
arch=('x86_64')
url="http://curl.haxx.se"
license=('MIT')
depends=('lib32-zlib' 'lib32-openssl' 'bash' 'ca-certificates' 'lib32-libssh2' $_pkgbasename)
makedepends=(gcc-multilib)
options=('!libtool')
source=("http://curl.haxx.se/download/${_pkgbasename}-${pkgver}.tar.bz2")
md5sums=('0296d3196b4bf82c896a869b38dbc5f2')
srcdir=src/

build() {
  export CC="gcc -m32"
  export CXX="g++ -m32"
  export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/lib32/pkgconfig"

  cd ${srcdir}/${_pkgbasename}-${pkgver}

  ./configure \
      --with-random=/dev/urandom \
      --prefix=/usr \
      --mandir=/usr/share/man \
      --disable-dependency-tracking \
      --enable-ipv6 \
      --disable-ldaps \
      --disable-ldap \
      --disable-manual \
      --enable-versioned-symbols \
      --with-ca-bundle=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt \
      --with-random=/dev/urandom \
      --without-libidn \
      --libdir=/usr/lib32 \
      --enable-threaded-resolver
  make
}

package() {
  cd ${srcdir}/${_pkgbasename}-${pkgver}

  make DESTDIR=${pkgdir} install

  rm -rf "${pkgdir}"/usr/{share,bin}
  #we need curlbuild.h
  find ${pkgdir}/usr/include/curl -type f -not -name curlbuild.h -delete
  #now save it as curlbuild-32.h
  mv ${pkgdir}/usr/include/curl/curlbuild.h ${pkgdir}/usr/include/curl/curlbuild-32.h

  mkdir -p "$pkgdir/usr/share/licenses"
  ln -s $_pkgbasename "$pkgdir/usr/share/licenses/$pkgname"
}

Save that as a text file called "PKGBUILD" and put it into a directory where you can safely build it e.g. /home/username/libcurl or whatever you like, note that it does not like any spaces in the directory path so "/home/username/lib curl" will throw up errors

Anyway, open a terminal in that directory and type "makepkg"

Once that is done you'll have

lib32-curl-7.23.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

This is a package that is installable via pacman, but we're not going to install it, we're going to extract

libcurl.so.4.2.0

From this and put it in a folder in the Star Conflict directory and then create a symlink for it.

Navigate to SteamApps/common/star conflict/ and make a folder called "libs"

Copy or move libcurl.so.4.2.0 to that folder

Open a terminal in the star conflict directory and type:

ln -s libs/libcurl.so.4.2.0 libcurl.so.4

To check if Star Conflict finds the lib, in terminal in Star Conflict directory type:

ldd StarConflict

You should get something like this:



[synrgy87@syndesktop star conflict]$ ldd StarConflict 
./StarConflict: /media/ntfs1/SteamLibrary/SteamApps/common/star conflict/libcurl.so.4: no version information available (required by ./StarConflict)
./StarConflict: /media/ntfs1/SteamLibrary/SteamApps/common/star conflict/libcrypto.so.1.0.0: no version information available (required by ./StarConflict)
        linux-gate.so.1 (0xf774a000)
        libfmodevent-4.44.08.so => /media/ntfs1/SteamLibrary/SteamApps/common/star conflict/libfmodevent-4.44.08.so (0xf769b000)
        libfmodex-4.44.08.so => /media/ntfs1/SteamLibrary/SteamApps/common/star conflict/libfmodex-4.44.08.so (0xf7515000)
        libcrypto.so.1.0.0 => /media/ntfs1/SteamLibrary/SteamApps/common/star conflict/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 (0xf731f000)
        libcurl.so.4 => /media/ntfs1/SteamLibrary/SteamApps/common/star conflict/libcurl.so.4 (0xf72b0000)
        libXrandr.so.2 => /usr/lib32/libXrandr.so.2 (0xf725d000)
        libudev.so.0 => /usr/lib32/libudev.so.0 (0xf7246000)
        libsteam_api.so => /media/ntfs1/SteamLibrary/SteamApps/common/star conflict/libsteam_api.so (0xf7236000)
        libSDL2-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib32/libSDL2-2.0.so.0 (0xf7123000)
        libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib32/libX11.so.6 (0xf6feb000)
        libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib32/libGL.so.1 (0xf6f4f000)
        libdl.so.2 => /usr/lib32/libdl.so.2 (0xf6f4a000)
        libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib32/libstdc++.so.6 (0xf6e54000)
        libm.so.6 => /usr/lib32/libm.so.6 (0xf6e08000)
        libgcc_s.so.1 => /usr/lib32/libgcc_s.so.1 (0xf6dec000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /usr/lib32/libpthread.so.0 (0xf6dcf000)
        libc.so.6 => /usr/lib32/libc.so.6 (0xf6c0d000)
        libz.so.1 => /usr/lib32/libz.so.1 (0xf6bf6000)
        libssh2.so.1 => /usr/lib32/libssh2.so.1 (0xf6bc7000)
        libssl.so.1.0.0 => /usr/lib32/libssl.so.1.0.0 (0xf6b58000)
        libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib32/libXext.so.6 (0xf6b44000)
        libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib32/libXrender.so.1 (0xf6b39000)
        librt.so.1 => /usr/lib32/librt.so.1 (0xf6b30000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xf7729000)
        libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib32/libxcb.so.1 (0xf6b0a000)
        libatiuki.so.1 => /usr/lib32/libatiuki.so.1 (0xf6aef000)
        libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib32/libXau.so.6 (0xf6aea000)
        libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib32/libXdmcp.so.6 (0xf6ae3000)


No need to worry about the "no version information available" that's fine, the game should now launch and run :) and will always use the local lib for libcurl rather than your system version.

If you are missing any other libs they will show up as (not found) and it may be a good idea to find and install these.

BIOS Update Emachines 320 With HP BIOS ( Old School Gaming PC Build Part 3 )

BIOS UPDATE

This will be classed as Part 3 of my Old School Gaming PC Build, while technically it's more part of Part 2, kind of Part 2.5, but I have decided to give this it's own post, as it may be helpful to others in it's own right.

As in Part 2, I am now using an older emachines 320, with an Intel 810 chipset motherboard, a Cognac+ 115661 Cognac 20000731 Rev. G to be exact.

115661 Cognac 20000731 Rev. G

Why update the BIOS? 

The stock emachines BIOS is old and very locked down, it also lacks support for 512mb of RAM, which is what I would like to upgrade this machine to. There may be other benefits but those are the two main issues I had with the stock BIOS.

But where will I find a BIOS update for such an old machine?

Finding a compatible BIOS update for this board wasn't as hard as I expected, it took some Google time & crawling through various old forum threads, as emachines / acer or whatever the brand currently falls under has no legacy support for these old machines, which is understandable.

As it turns out, there were many variations of this board used by a number of companies, luckily one of said companies were HP who have excellent legacy support for their older products, Including BIOS updates.

Firstly I tried this file:
Cognac BIOS Update Cog_211.exe

But this was not compatible giving a DMI error when attempting to flash.

The File that worked for me was this one:
HP Pavilion Cognac BIOS Update FresnoCognac_307.exe

My stock BIOS was 2.01, BIOS ROM chip labelled: COGN+ 306784 V. 2.01 as seen here:

COGN+ 306784 V. 2.01

As stated there were many variations of this board, some with only 2 PCI slots, others with a CNR slot etc, so a different BIOS file may be needed than the one that worked for me, which is why I listed the other file which didn't work for me. And as always flashing your BIOS can go wrong so do it at your own risk!

In order to flash the new BIOS we need to be in DOS, a simple boot floppy / startup disk will be fine, or if no floppy disks are available then you could easily boot from CD, making a boot CD with the extracted BIOS files and flash tool on it also, the flash program does not like HIMEM so stick with the really basic boot disk

Windows ME start up disk creator puts a load of other crap on the disk which takes up room and is not needed, but if you already have a C: drive then you can leave the new BIOS files in a folder on the C: drive and navigate there once you're in DOS, the readme file and HP website have further instructions.

Successful flash

Now sadly I forgot to take pictures of the original emachines BIOS and boot screen, but the boot screen looked like this:
And now after the BIOS update it looks like this:

So now my emachines 320 is erm.. a HP! But more importantly should now support the full 512mb of ram this board is capable of, although I can't test that until the RAM modules arrive, which should be some time this week, Now after the BIOS update windows booted fine and greeted me with "found new hardware" and done it's thing. Also do not forget to set the time / date, boot options and whatever else you need to in the new BIOS as the old settings will have been wiped out. but it should prompt you to do this on the first reboot after flashing anyway.

I wasn't adventurous enough to attempt to change the boot image to something custom but that may be possible with some form of sorcery and would be pretty cool, but I don't want to risk corrupting the BIOS which = bad times.

So what's next? 

Part 4 of course! and the ordering of a USB 2.0 card, just to make data transfer a lot easier and faster and also provide more USB ports as this only has 2, on in the front and one on the back.

EDIT:

512mb RAM arrived today, 2x256mb PC133 SDRAM popped it in and:

All Recognised and working! Also booted into Windows and it's working nicely. SUCCESS!!!


Build Part 1
Build Part 2

Old School Gaming PC Build Update: Part 2

New Beginnings

This is an old system, It's also and old off the shelf system and not a particularly featured packed one at that, No on board Ethernet or even PCI network card, No AGP slot either.

Initial photos from seller:

So why did I even bother with this system? Two main Reasons:

1. It was cheap, paid the postage for it and that was it.
2. Initially all i wanted was the Power Supply Unit from it.

This was initially meant to be a donor machine for my windows 98 era "Old School Gaming PC", but the PSU in this system is a small form factor ATX PSU so is not mountable in the intended case. It will now become at least one of my old school gaming PCs as it works really well and has no bad capacitors etc, this makes things easier although the other system I was going to use is better spec, It's becoming too much of a pain in the arse to find it a decent power supply, without of course spending what i consider too much money on it, and the specs were overkill for intended purpose anyway.

So, here are the specs:

• Model: emachines 320
• CPU: Intel Celeron 900mhz
• RAM: 128mb PC100 SDRAM
• PSU: 150w ATX
• Hard Drive: Seagate 30GB IDE
• Floppy Disk Drive
• Optical Drive: LG 8x Dual Layer IDE DVD writer (picked this up for £4 locally as was missing an optical drive)
• Motherboard: Intel 810 Cognac+( 115661 Cognac 20000731 Rev. G )
• OS: Windows ME
• Case: Small Tower with front USB and Game/midi Port

What I Plan to Do:

• Fit PCI graphics card which i have a spare ATI Radeon 9000 64mb
• Upgrade RAM from 128mb to 512mb(max supported)
• Update bios to support 512mb of ram
• Fit Sound Card, Have a Soundblaster Audigy card
• Fit USB 2.0 Card
• Add USB network adapter of some kind, unsure on this yet
• Add extra Hard drive / hard drives
• Replace heatsink compound and clean up fans
• Maybe change CPU fan.
• Install windows 98se and Linux
• Considering a CPU upgrade to a 1ghz Pentium III 

As a bonus, this system also has some software preinstalled, including Jazz Jackrabbit 2, which is pretty cool, so i think i'll keep the Windows ME install, + it brings back some nostalgia.

Achieved so far:

• Installed Radeon 9000 64mb PCI graphics card
• Installed Soundblaster Live 5.1 Digital sound card
• Installed LG DVD writer drive
• Ordered 512mb RAM
• Ordered USB 2.0 card
• Cleaned everything up
• Flashed BIOS - Will be seperate post on this. 

I Played some games on it to test things out, and all works great I'm actually surprised the Radeon 9000 and the Soundblaster card still work, the only issue was that the Soundblaster drivers for windows 98se/ME were a pain in the ass to find as the drivers on the creative website do not work, the XP ones may work with 2000/XP but their files for the 98se/ME do not work. If i can i will share a ZIP file with the working drivers (unsure of legality issues)

Soundblaster Live 5.1 Digital SB0220 Drivers

SB0220 Drivers RAR file (15.3MB) Windows 98 / ME / 2000 / XP

For Windows 9x / ME install via Control Panel > System > Device Manager

ATI Radeon 9000 drivers are easily obtained from the amd driver / support website so that was not an issue. Also this card is passive cooled with just a heatsink, no fan so it's nice and quiet, My one concern is heat buildup with this case only having 2 fans (CPU 40mm, and PSU 80mm)especially when I add two more hard drives. 

AMD / ATI drivers

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download 

The system boots nice and quick which is also a bonus, Just need to Tidy things up on the Windows ME side, It is a 30GB drive with only 20GB Available so I assume there is also a restore partition, I may look into either opening that up or doing a complete system restore if possible.

Once the RAM arrives and possibly a new CPU fan I will get to work adding the other HDDs from the old build 2x 40GB drives, mounting them may be tricky as this case was designed for 1 3.5" hard drive.

So Onward to Part 3: The BIOS Update!

Build Part 1 

Steam Client Fix Sound on Flash Videos Linux Arch / Manjaro

Hey hey nice quick fix for anyone having this irritating issue!

This was bugging me for a while, basically under Manjaro I was unable to get sound from the flash videos on the Steam store (within the Steam client) e.g. the preview videos on a game's store page.

Flash player was working elsewhere on the system as were the sounds in games and everywhere else

The Fix:

Arch / Manjaro

A 32bit package needs to be installed from the AUR which enables the 32bit flashplugin that the Steam client uses to output sound via pulse audio, the 64bit version of this package seems to be already installed for me but Steam client needs the 32bit one!

yaourt lib32-libflashsupport-pulse

Or install lib32-libflashsupport-pulse from your favourite AUR enabled package manager.



On other Distributions this package may have a different name or already be pre-installed.

You may need to restart steam, I’m not sure but I did anyway.

Sound in steam client flash videos should now be working, just make sure you click the unmute button!

Hope this helps someone, it was bugging me for a while although not enough to investigate further until today lol. But now I am Happy.

Dino D-Day Coming to Linux (and mac) and Get it Free!

Dino D-day is a source engine, multiplayer FPS game, and PC Gamer / Bundle Stars have it up for grabs in a giveaway

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/07/02/free-steam-key/

Dino D-Day is set during WWII but well.. The Pesky NAZIs are at it again and this time they've got Dinosaurs! I love the randomness of the concept for this game, but have not yet played it myself but will soon!

So hit it up while you still can, I got mine lastnight after a notification email from bundlestars (site that sells game bundles similar to humblebundle, and owned by the focus media group) I have used them a few times, and all is safe.

The game has been out for a while but is receiving a huge revamp update and will also have DLC available, here is the blog post regarding Linux and (urgh) mac support and the game update:

http://www.dinodday.com/?p=229

and for those who are not feeling very clicky an extract:

The Free Update Itself


Soon, everyone who owns Dino D-Day will get a free update. The update is quite large – a near-total replacement of the old game with a new one. We’ve migrated the entire game to a new branch of the Source engine which will allow us to add Mac and Linux support. Linux Dedicated Server support will be available when the update ships! Huzzah for cheap servers! We are shooting for Mac support to be available when the update ships as well. A Linux build of the game itself will be added as soon as we’re able. There are still some things Valve needs to do to the code base before we can ship Linux.

In addition to all that dry, code-y stuff we’ve done a major visual overhaul. We are still working on it and the list of things we want to do is still fluid but you can expect a major overhaul of the game’s visuals. Dino D-Day’s UI has been totally redone. View models and their animations have been completely redone. Environments, characters, dinosaurs…everything is on the list and we’ll get to as much of it as we can in the time we have left.

So Linux support seems to be just waiting on some code updates / whatever from valve, I assume for the newer source engine fork.

Look forward to playing this game, and hey Free! at least for now so nab it quick!

ET Atari 2600 Urban Legend Now Fact.

This Makes me Happy.

For many reasons, but the case is now finally closed. When I seen the news regarding this after arriving home from celebrating a friends birthday, already in a good mood, this just made my weekend even more. Now it's Monday morning and I have recovered from the weekend's antics

Leaves me full of hope and dreams of what else could be true, and what else is still out there waiting to be recovered or discovered. Hope is a wonderful thing.

1983... Back then how did you fix a massive fuck up? You took it out back, shot it and buried it out in the desert  never to be heard from again, pretending it never happened... Until construction workers dig it up in the future! But some mistakes just never go away, and for Atari they just never recovered. From the start this game was a custom designed recipe for disaster, and i can only assume all parties involved were coked out of their heads, Tony Montana style:

 

So, for years, decades, It was rumoured that there was a "mass grave" of ET Atari 2600 cartridges in a landfill somewhere, and now in 2014, 31 years later not only has the legend been confirmed as true but the actual cartridges complete in their retail packaging have been unearthed at a landfill in New Mexico, after permission was finally granted to excavate the site, an Urban Legend among gamers, even inspiring films, (example below) now laid to rest.

Not going into the back story or details here, just felt this was blog worthy and one of the great gaming mysteries solved, at a humble landfill in New Mexico. Now, how many of these excavated cartridges will find their way onto ebay? Would you buy one, a piece of gaming history?(I wouldn't) only time will tell.

Old School(ish) Gaming PC Build: Part 1.

A lot going on at the minute so have not been keeping to a blogging schedule, even with videos on my Youtube channel, but less so here.

I've decided I want a dedicated Old School Gaming PC, for older games, e.g. 90's games that require windows 95/98 and support XP. Especially the games I just can't get running right on modern hardware either on Linux via WINE/DOSBox, Windows via compatibility modes or on virtual machines.

One Game in Particular pushed me to do this as I really want to play the damn thing, That game is: DARK VENGEANCE from developer Reality Bytes, which I picked up from a charity shop recently along with a few others.

The initial plan:

Objectives:

• Spend as little money as possible
• Use Parts I already had left over from old PC builds
• Run 3 OSs including windows and Linux
• Recreate original "golden age" PC Gaming experience

As I wanted to go with one PC that could run Windows 98SE, Windows XP and Linux in a triple boot situation, I needed hardware that would be supported over all 3 operating systems, Initially this is what I came up with:

• AMD Athlon XP / Socket A/462 CPU and Motherboard
• At least 1GB of RAM
• Hard Drives, 1 boot drive, and some data drives.
• DVD-ROM / Writer
• 15/17" 4:3(non widescreen) TFT screen with build in speakers.
• PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse

Hardware I already had:

• Keyboard & Mouse
• Athlon XP 3000+ CPU
• Various DDR 1 RAM modules 256mb-1GB sticks
• ATI Radeon 9200SE 128mb AGP card
• Various PCI sound cards including SB Live 5.1, SB X-FI xtreme audio.
• Gigabyte motherboard with KT266 chipset(micro atx)
• Random P4 motherboard, DFI lanparty Socket 939 motherboard.
• 1.5ghz P4 CPU, Other random P4 CPU

Some items to acquire!

Having some of the components was good but I was missing some essentials like the Monitor and Power Supply, I also needed some hard drives and a case << yeah need a case to put everything in! also a CPU heatsink + fan would be an advantage.

After checking prices and various other avenues to get a lot of the parts needed, and it seemed the best and most cost effective option was buying a complete PC, or at least the base unit, didn't need keyboard and mouse. I went around some second hand and charity shops looking for a Monitor, and Found one! also needed a desk to set the system up on, so I grabbed one of them too from the same shop, also a charity shop so I can feel good about that at least.

When I got the monitor home I found it had no power supply :( and strangely the power socket was actually built into the D-SUB 15 pin VGA connector, To address this, I decided to check the polarity, the required voltage and amp ratings were on the back of the monitor so all good there, 12v 3amp, I had a 12v 1.5amp adaptor so I tested with that and it worked, for a while, but needed a bit more current, keeping with the "spend as little as possible" objective and not trusting cheap Chinese AC adaptors: my thought train went something like this:

Monitor 12v 3amp > Only on when PC is on > PC PSU provides 12V with plenty of amps > DC in jack for monitor is on VGA connector > Bingo!

I'll power the monitor from the PC Power supply.

EM-150 TFT Proview 12v 15" monitor (not a pic of my action one but the same)

So I cut off the connector from the old 12v 1amp adaptor and wired it up to a female 4pin molex connector and tested by hooking up to PC power supply molex male (same that goes into the back of your CD/DVD drives)

Worked perfectly and for prolonged periods. nice! also the monitor worked as did the sound from the built in speakers. So I now had a Monitor with speakers a method of powering it and a Desk! Excellent!(Monty burns style)

Now for the rest of the missing hardware. Reluctantly I went to ebay to search for a cheap old PC, after a lil searching i found a few options and decided to go with one that matched my initial plans the best(and had free shipping) so scooped one for £20: specs below:

• AMD Athlon 1700+ CPU
• Jetway V266B v3 Socket A/462 Motherboard
• 1GB DDR Ram
• 2x 40GB hard drives
• 256mb Geforce 6600LE Graphics card
• Network Card
• 480w PSU
• Floppy Disk Drive
• Sony NEC A/ND5170A DVD Writer 
• CPU heatsink and cooling fan of course
• The All important case!

Nice, pretty much just what I need, and combined with the parts I already have should work well.... Should...

I also ordered a laptop IDE to Desktop IDE converter / adaptor, as I found an old 40GB laptop IDE drive I wanted to use also, and an extra 80mm cooling fan both of which were really cheap.

Anyway, everything Arrived after a few days, well packed too, Now on with the build!

The case i was happy with, nothing special but useful features like front USB ports, and one thumbscrew and you can open the whole case. plenty of room for fans and drives, solid built minimal sharp edges. While the system worked and had XP pre installed also has a license key on the side, there were a few issues, which I was ready for and expected on old hardware.

The actual Case - pic from ebay listing

Immediate Issues:

1. About 9 Swollen Capacitors(all same value)
2. Motherboard old BIOS not recognising CPU
3. Very dusty inside and fans a little noisy

 Video on fan cleaning.

Luckily the capacitors were cheap got 10 for 99p, 1800uf 6.3v, and replaced them, then more luck, the motherboard MFG (http://www.jetway.com.tw/jw/download_show.asp?productid=V266B) still has downloads for it up on their website, including chipset drivers (via anyway) and an updated BIOS from 2006(original BIOS from 2001). and having a floppy drive made updating BIOS easy, although finding a working floppy disk was the hardest part.

Also having the manual was very useful as these older boards use jumpers to set CPU speeds and multipliers etc, also for front panel connector pinouts and USB header/audio pinouts.

Now, to test further I installed a Linux distro and Windows XP, then windows 98se, although the best practice for this would be to first partition the hard drive, install windows 98, then windows XP and then Linux last. 

and so the issues started, while XP and Linux worked perfectly fine, 98se didn't like the graphics card and didn't like having the 1.5GB of ram I put in, long story short it was a pain in the ass, another issue i had was with the motherboard, now due to it's hardware constraints eg, having backwards compatibility with SDRAM so it has 2 DDR slots and 2 SDRAM slots, this means although it is a 266mhz chipset, it is limited to 133mhz, and this in turn limits the CPU, speed, i tried everything i could think of but couldn't get the CPU running stable at over 1.6ghz, the AMD Athlon XP 3000+ I put in was being detected as an 1800+

The board however does have some nice features, while lacking on-board graphics, usb2.0 and on-board network, I like the fact that if i wanted to I could throw even older hardware into it. also the BIOS post screen shows some nice data about fan speeds and temperatures etc. and it also has 2 system fan headers as well as the CPU fan one. and everything is located nicely.

Conclusion to part 1 and where i currently stand...

What I now plan to do is build two PCs one running 98se and a lightweight Linux distro for emergencies etc, and a second one running XP and Linux. I'll run these using the same keyboard mouse and monitor using a KVM switch, I've also ordered a USB 2.0 card for the V266B motherboard as 1.1 is just too slow and using usb to boot and transfer files is just easier. 

I had a spare PSU i was using for arcade boards, but sadly today, that PSU passed away, so I've also gone and ordered a new PSU which again was the cheapest one I could find, Also I still want the monitor to be powered by whichever computer is active at the time and not have a separate adapter, the only other Issues I need to address are the KVM switch and Sound distribution e.g. if the KVM switch does not also switch sound. and one in my budget probably will not lol.

Hopefully the update for Part 2 will be more successful! And also include final price and parts list, cover the software used, and any other knowledge / tips that may be useful for anyone attempting this.

Live, make mistakes, learn and adapt. 

I will not be defeated by a damn video game.

Build Part 2 

Hold The Line!

Don't Let Them Bring You Down, Stand Your Ground. 

 

Hold The Line!

HOLD...!

Maldita Castilla - New Old School Retro style Freeware Game.

Maldita Castilla 

New, Old School, Retro Feeling Awesomeness in Video Game form, and best of all Free!

Maldita Castilla - Title Screen

This is the work of some pretty cool guys over at:

http://www.locomalito.com/

Locomalito Games

From looking over their website and doing some reading, It seems these guys have a great ethos and sound, admirable philosophy on what they do and why they do it, which in turn gives the Games they produce that extra bit of soul, sometimes lost in commercial developers.
 

They have a number of games so head over and check them all out, But this post will focus on just one of the games, and that game is Maldita Castilla:

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, GNU / Linux, Ouya

Gameplay:

The Game plays pretty much exactly like Ghouls 'n' Ghosts or Ghosts 'n' Goblins, so has nice simple responsive controls and a familiar gameplay mechanic, pretty much pick up and play 2 buttons, "jump" and "fire" and the direction buttons, up, down, left, right. Kill the ghoulies, beat the bosses and collect power ups and different weapons, there's also other items such as coins, crowns and general "loot", either dropped by enemies or from chests or "secrets", the whole point is to obviously beat the game with the highest score possible, there is also a time limit so keep an eye on that. There is a variety of enemies also which change and increase in difficulty as you progress.

Graphics:

Graphics are done purposefully in the style of late 80's arcade games in fact not only the graphics but the whole game is in that style, and as far as I am concerned that is a good thing. The graphics have been created pixel by pixel to give an authentic old school look, which works. The sprites look good and animations are all smooth and flow well nothing looks out of place or tacked on. Also they graphics scale well, attention has also been taken to give the game an old school look and feel with optional scanlines and "old n used" monitor look, although I didn't see any way to configure this on the Linux version(off by default).

Sound: 

Sound for the game for me is excellent, It's been created via emulated yamaha YM2203 sound chip, which was used in many late 80's / early 90's arcade games. This gives a really nice authentic feel and sound..erm to the sound. Me Likey.

Storyline:

The game has a storyline and there's a text and graphic intro so I'll let you be the judge of that. The setting for the game is old Spanish / European medievaly legend / history. Which in itself is fairly bloody and very fitting with the graphics and gameplay.

My Youtube Video on the Developer and Game and where I found out about this little gem of nostalgic awesomeness:

Conclusion

My Verdict, in case you have not already guessed, CHECK IT OUT! NOW! GO DO IT! DOOO EEEET!

Tomb Raider (1996) via DOSBox Linux / Windows

Original DOS version of Tomb Raider on modern hardware.

This also works for the Unfinished Business add-on.

Youtube video tutorial on how to get the original Tomb Raider running on standard / default DOSBox 0.74 with no other special software.

Video(best viewed in HD 1080p):

My Custom config file(dosbox.conf):

Google Docs link

Remember that this is my .conf file and is tailored to my system and setup so edit it to suit yours. This one does not auto-launch the game, but if you want to do that just add these commands to the end of the conf file:

c:
cd tombraid
tomb.exe

This should work for any other DOS game also. Just remember that some DOS games need to be launched via a .bat file instead of the .exe


A bit about disc Images.

I use a disc image here instead of just mounting the actual cdrom in my dvd drive for a few reasons, but mainly it just makes more sense. there's a few different options that can be used but i went for a .bin / .cue image. The reason for this is it's nice, quick and easy and mounts in DOSBox with no hassle.

A lot of DOS games use CD Audio for their music and tomb raider is no exception, meaning it is a mixed mode CD having multiple tracks 1 for data and then the other audio tracks, and in order for the game's music to work it needs the CD audio tracks which is why I use a .bin / .cue image (the .cue file is the one you need to mount in DOSBox, as it contains the track information/ CD layout) they(.cue) are just simple text files and can even be edited the .bin file is the actual disc image.

ISO format does not support multi track mixed mode images so and .ISO image will only be the DATA track and no audio tracks, this will work but you'll get no music in the game.

There are other options, it is possible to use a .ISO format image along with a .CUE file pointing to audio files for example mp3 files, this will allow for smaller file sizes as the audio tracks will be compressed mp3 files. This method is also fine but a bit more involved, however it is recommended if you need to keep file sizes down.

Imgburn is what I use to make .bin / .cue files and can be found here:

http://www.imgburn.com/

Most burning software will be able to do this but I like Imgburn.

DOSBox can be found here:

http://www.dosbox.com/