Getting Gold Box Games to Run

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You're right, that was the sequel.
I don't recall how they got rid of the pool in the first game. I just remember that after I beat the Copper Dragon his spirit was sucked into the pool that disappeared.

It's been about 10 years since I played either game to its conclusion. Too bad they never released an Apple II version of Secret of the Silver Blades and Pools of Darkness.

Does anybody know how to get the MS-DOS versions to work under Windows 98? Somebody gave me a CD-ROM release with all the Forgotten Realms Gold Box games a couple years ago when I lamented that I never got to play the sequals to COTAB due to being restricted to an Apple IIGS in those days while my father was out of work. When I boot to MS-DOS mode the sound doesn't work, and when I play it in Windows mode the slowdown utility on the CD doesn't work.

 

Would that CD-ROM you have happen to be called "The SSI Gold Pack" or something similar? All the games form there run flawlessly in DosBox, so go grab it and have fun!

 

If Pools of Darkness is the one where you fight drow I believe the released it for the apple a while back. I may have even had access to a copy I never used because I never got beyond Curse of the Azure Bonds.

 

Yep that's the one. It's also one of the toughest RPGs I've ever played. The final battle (well, series of battles) was SO annoying I almost gave up. It took forever before I managed to get it right. Some segments in the game are great though, like wandering around and inside Moander's body and his heart.

 

In Curse of the Azure Bonds you fight some DROW in the vulcanic mountain by Hap on the way to fighting Draconis or whatever the wizard with the sigil similar to Elminster's name was. I really don't feel like digging up the Adventurer's Handbook and hunting down the appropriate entry. I apologize if I'm slightly inaccurate as it's been a long time since I played. All I remember is the caves with lava that you enter after fighting the Efriti and Salamanders that had a lot of random encounters with DROW and a side quest with the Swanings or something like that. I cant remember if the woman was named Silkie or Silvie or whatever.


Are you sure you aren't thinking of the Apple Macintosh? I'm talking about the Apple II series, that ran DOS 3.3 and ProDOS. Although Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, and Champions of Krynn all ran on some custom OS called RDOS that was used exclusively by SSI. The Apple II series had the Apple II, Apple II+, Apple IIe, Apple IIc, and Apple IIGS. In DOS 3.3 you used commands like CATALOG to do the equivilent of "dir" or "ls".

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It is labeled "Forgotten Realms Silver Edition".

Taking a brief look at DOSbox makes me think it's designed for the NT series of OS. My XP computer recently died, and I've replaced it with a Vista 64 computer. Do you think DosBox will work as well under that?

My choices are a Win98SE computer, a Power Macintosh 6500 with OS 7.6.1 or 8.6 (some games did NOT like OS 8), or a Vista 64 home computer. I also have an Apple IIGS gathering dust from my childhood, but as I mentioned before, there was no Apple II version of Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, or any of the other Gold Box games such as Savage Frontier.

 

Vista is an NT computer and DosBox runs perfectly fine with it. I have used the same DosBox installer with both XP 32-bit and Vista 64-bit with no trouble at all. I really don't recommend trying to run any DOS games natively in Vista (or in any NT-based Windows for that matter). DosBox makes things so much easier and there are only a few basic command lines you need to know to get things running. If those commands are too much for you, you can always get the GUI front-end (I think it was called D-fender or something like it), or just post trouble you have here. I've played all the Gold Box games on DosBox and can help you solve any oddities you get. To be honest I think you'll have less trouble in DosBox uner Vista than trying to run things on Win98SE.

I had a look at the Silver Edition, seems like a nice compilation. Dungeon Hack is great fun when you're looking for nothing beyond pure hack and slash and like to gather dozens of keys and key-like items

 

Thanks, I'll have to try it, although it might be a while. I've had to move back in with my mother for a couple weeks since she was just released from the hospital and can't drive, lift more than 5lbs, or climb stairs. The doctor expects her to be able to drive again on Tuesday, but he didn't say anything about heavy lifting or stairs. As the washing machine is in the basement, I need to do the laundry and anything else she might need. Hopefully in a couple weeks she'll be back to living on her own.

I did grab my CD case with the backups for most of my PC games, but FR Silver isn't in it as I couldn't get it to work on my systems back in 2004 or 5. Heck, I never even tried it on Vista.

Will anybody object if I "necro" this thread in two or three weeks if I can't get it to work? I had enough trouble getting my mother to let me put a computer game on HER computer, given how anti-video games she was when I was growing up. It caused a lot of arguments with my dad. I doubt I could convince her to let me experiment with DosBox "for games" on her computer.

Geeze, a college graduate and I probably sound like I'm still 10 years old. Or at least a teenager.

 

Dosbox in Win 7?

When I get my new pc on Sat, I will still anticipate running Doxbox to play my old-school collection. What's the word on Doxbox running in Win 7, any issues?

 

DosBox runs fine on Windows 7... necromancer.

 

Excellent, my thanks Taza.

 

SlickRCBD a very belated thanks for the reply.