Anyone know how to fix this crash? Happens right after the random number for character generation.

"Warning, Cannot open swap file c:\cwsdpmi.swp"

I do have that file

a) You do not have original Akalabeth, but some remake (since it uses DPMI - it did not exist at the time of original Akalabeth).

b) It is correct if you do not have cwsdpmi.swp . If you have it, then delete it. It is a swap file of CWSDPMI (32 bit DPMI server).
- check that C:\ (the one mounted in DOSBOX) is writable.
- if yes, find another version of CWSDPMI on Internet (it is a free program) and copy it into game directory - replacing original files
- there is an information about DPMI in the DOSBOX Guides forum ( DOSBOX and DPMI ), though it is a bit old. I think that at the moment all versions of CWSDPMI should work... Anyway it is worth trying another version.

c) if this does not help and if your remake af Akalabeth is freeware (!!!!), tell us where it is possible to get it.

Mirek

game should work.
I have it and fixed before 0.62 some bug in the display with it.
I remember xulchris bugging me about it in the irc channel.
(irc.freenode.net channel #dosbox)

I'm sorry I made a mistake. The problem is not from CWSDPMI. (I think I got confused with another post) The crash is totally different. Right after I type in the number to generate a character, the game just crashes with a lot of DOS "garbage" on the screen. I can take a screenshot and put it here if that's allowed. Should I do that?

Odd, works here. (This is for the original)

How big is your copy?

I have 2 files:

aklabeth.bas=150,457 bytes
aklabeth.exe=110,712 bytes

HeX wrote:

I'm sorry I made a mistake. The problem is not from CWSDPMI. (I think I got confused with another post) The crash is totally different. Right after I type in the number to generate a character, the game just crashes with a lot of DOS "garbage" on the screen. I can take a screenshot and put it here if that's allowed. Should I do that?

Yes, you can. But use JPG or PNG format please.

I just noticed something now that I took the screenshot. If you look in the fifth line from the top, it mentions C:\AK.exe
that file isn't there. I installed the game elsewhere and correctly mounted the drive.

Btw I bought the Ultima Collection a while back so the game is an official re-release that I installed from the CD.

Ahem 😉

For what it's worth, I'm seeing the exact same problem HeX describes. User is asked to "Type thy Lucky Number.....", then just after pressing Enter, kablooie!

My system:
Win 2000 SP2
256MB RAM
Generic on-board video adapter
Generic on-board sound card
DOSBox Shell version 0.63 (file size 1,667,584 bytes, dated 18-Nov-2004)

I have never seen any error message about a swap file.

I, too, am running the "official" Akalabeth version released by EA on the "Ultima Collection" disk (like this one: http://tinyurl.com/du7vj ). Size of executable: 559 KB (572,510 bytes, dated 14-Jan-1998 (?)).

Included in game directory (among other things): CWSDPMI.EXE (v0.90+(r4), 20,473 bytes, dated 19-Oct-1997)

HeX: as far as Line 5 on your screenshot is concerned, that's probably the correct path within the emulated environment (i.e. you mounted the actual folder that Akalabeth is installed in), so DOSbox sees that folder as C:\ and the executable is AK.EXE, hence C:\AK.EXE.

Hope this info helps. This is infinitely reproducible, so if you need more info, just ask. I'd really love to see this one resolved.

I got things to work a little better. First, I selected no digital sound card because the game does not use one. It uses midi and the PC Speaker for sound effects. Second, I could start a game by selecting "Journey Onward" rather than "Create a character". However, even then it crashes with the same error screen when you face a monster.

This is a terrible port. A 32-bit DOS extender CWSDPMI is totally unneeded for such a simple game. They could have written it for the IBM PC, slap on a frame limiter and autodetect sound blasters for midi. I'm not too sure how faithful a port it is of the Apple II version anyways.

For what it's worth, I just downloaded the latest version of CWSDPMI.EXE (r5) from (http://clio.rice.edu/cwsdpmi/). Same result.

I tend to agree that this is a horrible port - it also crashes if you try to save the game using 'Q'. At this point I don't believe the problems are directly related to DOSBox, though they do seem to be aggravated by it.

Guess I'll just have to play the Apple II version in AppleWin or something, and lose out on the music. 🙁

A bit of background on CWSDPMI: It's required for all programs compiled with DJGPP (the 32-bit DOS port of GCC, the GNU C/C++ compiler), unless you're running them in an environment that already provides DPMI (such as a Win9x/2k/XP DOS window).

It sounds like they should have used a 16-bit compiler but decided on DJGPP because it is free and had lots of free game programming APIs/SDKs available.

They could have used MS Quick Basic; I have seen a port of Akalabeth run very well with that (although it didn't support sound effects for some reason.) I like the fact that Origin's Akalabeth port color codes the dungeon levels and the text, and the Adlib music is okay, but unnecessary and repetitive. (I couldn't get the music to be output to my Roland MT or GS synthesizers in the game but listening to the midis I am not impressed.)

This seems to be one of the places you end up if you're searching the internet regarding problems with The Ultima Collection's version of Akalabeth, running on Windows 2000.

The fix: Instead of using DOSBox, get VDM Sound, which is coincidentally maintained on this forum ( Link: VDMSound General ). Install it. Right-click AK.EXE, choose "Run with VDMS." You'll see options for default or custom configuration. Just set it up with default, then finish, then right-click the new AK file that created (the icon looks like a little DOS box), and choose Properties. Check "Enable basic VESA support." Hit Okay. From now on, when you want to run the game, double-click this file.

Miscellaneous details: This version was recoded to include colors, background music and sound effects. The sound effects are bleeps and bloops during combat, picking up treasure, and running into mountains on the world's surface. Sadly, the background music, comprised of five MIDI songs (Intro, Lordbrit, Shop, Dungeon, and Over) is not enabled via this fix. However, you can run them in a media player, such as Winamp, in the background while you play. (This is a handy idea anyway, since the Ultima Collection's next installment, Ultima 1, will have no background music at all, and there are several places on the internet where you can download Ultima background music.) I have a feeling that an issue with MIDI mapping, or MIDI emulation settings, might be involved. These can be accessed via the aforementioned Right-click, Properties, and then, the Advanced button. If someone reading this is knowledgable in this area, feel free to help solve this one last mystery. Even if you're not knowledgable, feel free to test random configurations. I will do the same, but I wanted to get this fix for basic playability on some forums ASAP, so the search engines could index it ASAP.

Notes on VDM Sound: As of this posting, the program's Sourceforge entry has not been updated since 2001, and that's an old version. Be sure to use this forum's updated version, or you'll miss out on those necessary configuration options. Also, digging through Sedryn Tyros's "Ultima Classics" help file ( Link: http://www.sonic.net/~zakule/UltimaClassics/ ), I came across a line that recommended putting a line in the AUTOEXEC file. I did not need to do this. If my fix does not work, try going to the aforementioned Advanced Properties, then, under the DOS Environment tab, put this line under AUTOEXEC.BAT additional options: SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T3.

Last resort: The pseudonymous "MinerJr" ported Akalabeth to the PC from its original Basic code (Link: http://www.geocities.com/AkalabethRemake/ ). This will run fine, and is one stand-alone executable. There are differences with this original version. There are no colors, no music, and no sound effects. The initial quests are easier, but starting resources are thinner. These are just the differences I noticed at a glance. MinerJr's website also features some graphical remakes. These tile the surface world with trees and grass, and add colors, skins and textures to the monters and walls in the dungeons. More Ultima remakes and patches can be found at http://reconstruction.voyd.net/ and http://aiera.timeimmortal.net/ .

Additional reading: If you're a programmer, you may find this interesting. I found a website in my searches, which references the SIGSEGV error in the screenshot in one of the other replies. The website is called "Known DJGPP problems on Windows 2000 and XP" (Link: http://clio.rice.edu/djgpp/DJGPP_W2K.htm ), and as of this writing, it is the third problem down. The workaround apparently involves "patching each DJGPP binary," and there is a patch supplied. Also, the thing that tipped me off to the "Basic VESA support" fix, was that when I was trying to configure Akalabeth's SETUP.EXE file through DOSBox, one of the errors that I got was along the lines of "cannot locate VESA."

End note: Please feel free to post this elsewhere if you think it will help another Ultima player. The original post can be found at Akalabeth (Ultima 0) Crash, or just by going to Vogons.zetafleet.com and searching for "akalabeth." Please include this endnote, so that people can come see the error screenshot I mentioned. This fix worked for me. It may not work for you. I hope I helped.

Akalabeth does not crash with a different dosextender. I use WDOSX from http://tippach.business.t-online.de/wdosx/ and use stubit.exe on ak.exe and setup.exe. You can also delete cwsdpmi.exe as you don't need it anymore.

I think this dosextender could help with other DJGPP compiled games as well. No need for cwsdpmi anymore. I also tried stubit.exe successfully on some of my WIN32 console applications and games. Many of them it worked flawless becaus some advapi32, kernel32 and oleaut32 functions are supported. The speed is also impressive for what i have tried. I used stubit successfully on many DOS4GW games with a measurable speed increase. I havn't checked this under dosbox so far. I remember the times when i used in on real DOS. They are only a few years ago when i still had my 486 100 with only Novell Dos, Win 3.11 and a Slackware 3.5 installation for modem internet access 😉

nudgegoonies wrote:

Akalabeth does not crash with a different dosextender. I use WDOSX from http://tippach.business.t-online.de/wdosx/ and use stubit.exe on ak.exe and setup.exe. You can also delete cwsdpmi.exe as you don't need it anymore.

I think this dosextender could help with other DJGPP compiled games as well. No need for cwsdpmi anymore. I also tried stubit.exe successfully on some of my WIN32 console applications and games. Many of them it worked flawless becaus some advapi32, kernel32 and oleaut32 functions are supported. The speed is also impressive for what i have tried. I used stubit successfully on many DOS4GW games with a measurable speed increase. I havn't checked this under dosbox so far. I remember the times when i used in on real DOS. They are only a few years ago when i still had my 486 100 with only Novell Dos, Win 3.11 and a Slackware 3.5 installation for modem internet access 😉

Great tip, Akalabeth works great now. Of course, if you could compile a list of games that work with WDOSX and give a speed increase, we would all be grateful.

Hi, thanks for the answer. The problem with such a list is, all my experience is from the real thing and not under DOS box and many games are already sold.

I was a pro in replacing DOS extenders at that time. Later, when i began to use WIN98SE, i began to hack around with DOS extenders again to make the games run under WIN and had many success with either DOS32A and WDOSX and, when i remember right, some luck with PMODEW and CAUSWAY as well. But from my experience DOS32A and WDOSX are the most compatible and the fastest.

WDOSX also featured runtime compression of the executable wich also was a point in my DOS times because of diskspace. But sometimes this is a problem with some games who have data resources linked to the executable. But the compression can be disabled with a command line interpreter in STUBIT.EXE. But there is a bug with DJGPP files when you turn the compression off so leave it on (for Akalabeth for example).

To handle these DJGPP files (those who require CWSDPMI) along with WIN32 PE console files is the true advancement of WDOSX.