Problem with A-Train... (Ancient game, I know =/ )

TehFury · Post by **TehFury** » 04 Oct 2005 04:46

Hey all, recently I got the urge to play the classic game, A-Train, again. I had no trouble obtaining it, and all the graphics are perfect and what I remember. The sound and music don't work, but I guess you can't have everything.

My problem is that every time I try to lay track down, it freezes up, then eventually unfreezes. Makes the game unplayable. I was wondering if anyone out there had suggestions to fix this, and if so, also knew how to fix the sound? Thanks in advance!

BobDendry · Post by **BobDendry** » 04 Oct 2005 04:51

If you are playing the original, it's very possible that it isn't compatible with your OS.

TehFury · Post by **TehFury** » 04 Oct 2005 05:14

I am playing the original, in fact. I also tried running it under different compatability modes (I am running Windows XP Media Edition) and they have not worked either. Any suggestions?

DeletedUser21 · Post by **DeletedUser21** » 04 Oct 2005 05:30

You may want to use dosbox for old software, then you have a good chance that it doesn't freeze and your sound works.

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1

TehFury · Post by **TehFury** » 04 Oct 2005 05:41

Sweet! Thanks, I'll give it a try.

TehFury · Post by **TehFury** » 04 Oct 2005 06:24

It works! Now my only problem is the game runs in black and white now... =/ Not the menus and stuff, just the actual map. Any suggestions?

SHADOW-XIII · Post by **SHADOW-XIII** » 04 Oct 2005 07:02

you can do either 2 things:
- switch game to Black and White mode, which looks probably better that you see it now

(I did the same ages ago)
- the problem may be with dosbox graphic driver, you need to find a way to configure it s standard vesa driver

Daan Timmer · Post by **Daan Timmer** » 04 Oct 2005 08:28

Thanks for that dosbox, now I can play deathrally again!

BUT!

It runs sooo sloooowww....

the loading takes AGES. any idea how to make it run faster

Zimmlock · Post by **Zimmlock** » 04 Oct 2005 08:32

I try to play A-train on my Win98se system, but had no color to, on my old 386 Win 95 machine it runs verry well, hope some one ll have a solution, don't know how long the ancient machine ll work.

DeletedUser21 · Post by **DeletedUser21** » 04 Oct 2005 08:42

DaaNtje wrote:

Thanks for that dosbox, now I can play deathrally again!

BUT!

It runs sooo sloooowww.... the loading takes AGES. any idea how to make it run faster

Dosbox is a mere Dos emulator, but the problem is most probably your PC, your machine is too good for the game, Dosbox emulates the 16-bit system but the 32-bit system of Windows (or 64-bit even) isn't compatible with it, except for floppy drives but they have windows 16-bit drivers just like the mouse and keyboard AFAIK. Those drivers are hardware specific and thus not compatible with games or other software. So it all comes down to luck, some games works good in dosbox, some games don't.
Correct me if I'm greatly wrong witch I might since this is just a logical conclusion in my eyes.

Born Acorn · Post by **Born Acorn** » 04 Oct 2005 10:46

Try playing with the settings. I set the maximum for everything in the settings and it ran smooth (TTO). THe default settings even TTO took ages to load.

Killer 11 · Post by **Killer 11** » 04 Oct 2005 11:36

Zimmlock wrote:I try to play A-train on my Win98se system, but had no color to, on my old 386 Win 95 machine it runs verry well, hope some one ll have a solution, don't know how long the ancient machine ll work.

You know actualy old PCs are quite reliable. Atleast to me.

TehFury · Post by **TehFury** » 04 Oct 2005 12:03

Well, changing it to black and white does make sense. Only problem is I can't seem to use the install function from the zip file- meaning I can't change the color mode. And I'm on a laptop, which does not have a floppy drive.

Is there any chance someone could change the color mode on their copy of A-Train, and send it to me at stormfury2000 at hotmail dot com? If not, I completely understand.

Post by **PikkaBird** » 04 Oct 2005 12:50

DaaNtje wrote:any idea how to make it run faster

Ctrl-F12 a few times. It can put a serious strain on your computer, though.

Szappy · Post by **Szappy** » 04 Oct 2005 12:59

And another advice: if anything you want to play does work on 'dynamic' CPU emulation, by all means use it!
It lowers CPU load by up to 60%.
I can run TTD dos on 32000 cycles and 40% CPU load.

Tyyppi · Post by **Tyyppi** » 04 Oct 2005 13:13

Old games are so hard to get to work properly. Still can't get that damn Syndicate work without booting to old 98.

But yeah, DOSbox is good but if it's only the sound which isn't working then you could probably try VDMsound.

broodje · Post by **broodje** » 04 Oct 2005 15:08

ohw yes I wish I could get Dungeon Keeper to run properly on my system but it alway's crashes as soon as it loads the map

. I realy liked that game. ahh well I gues I should stick with the older games, I finished Keen5 just 3 weeks ago using dosbox

. Oh now I'm trying to get SNES working again to do some serious marioworld

(it hangs on the sound every now and then)

Flavius · Post by **Flavius** » 04 Oct 2005 19:00

Nice if we could rescue A Train and have a small forum for it. Wonder if Patchman or others have ever looked at its code.

TehFury · Post by **TehFury** » 05 Oct 2005 00:54

*Points to earlier question*

I really want to play this... =/

Tyyppi · Post by **Tyyppi** » 05 Oct 2005 14:29

broodje wrote:ohw yes I wish I could get Dungeon Keeper to run properly on my system but it alway's crashes as soon as it loads the map . I realy liked that game. ahh well I gues I should stick with the older games, I finished Keen5 just 3 weeks ago using dosbox . Oh now I'm trying to get SNES working again to do some serious marioworld (it hangs on the sound every now and then)

I got Dungeon Keeper working fine on my machine. Have you tried the compatibility settings?

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Problem with A-Train... (Ancient game, I know =/ )

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