Mother Goose?

Message

anathoth8 · #1 Post by **anathoth8** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 6:26 pm

Hello, everybody.

Recently I purchased a copy of Mixed-Up Mother Goose Deluxe for my sister to play with her young daughter. The game works just fine on my Win98 machine, but doesn't work on her XP machine. It starts fine, but the first voice sample is clipped (when asking you to pick a child), and when you try to pick a child, the game crashes with this message:

NTVDM.EXE has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

I'm not entirely sure, but this seems to be a Windows file, rather than a file in the game. Does anyone have any ideas on how to work around this and get the game to work?

I am running the game in compatibility mode. I also tried copying the CD to the hard drive and redirecting the reference file to find it there, but that didn't change anything.

Oh, yeah, and check this out too.

Angelus3K · #2 Post by **Angelus3K** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 6:28 pm

VDMSound and DosBox will get it working. ;)

anathoth8 · #3 Post by **anathoth8** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 8:15 pm

Angelus3K wrote:VDMSound and DosBox will get it working. ;)

I'm not sure. Those are both DOS emulators, are they not? This is the Windows only version.

Angelus3K · #4 Post by **Angelus3K** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 8:27 pm

Weird for a Sierra game not to have the DOS version aswell!

Looks like your stuck then, I dont think there are any Win 3.1 emulators about!

Alias · #5 Post by **Alias** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 9:24 pm

Angelus3K wrote:Weird for a Sierra game not to have the DOS version aswell!

Looks like your stuck then, I dont think there are any Win 3.1 emulators about!

Actually, if you have a mac THIS program can emulate Win 3.1. I just had to be a smart ass. :p You have to pay for it unless you magically get it from a different place. ;)

Pidgeot · #6 Post by **Pidgeot** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:19 pm

NTVDM.EXE is the 16-bit Virtual Machine for Windows XP. All Win 3.1 programs run through this.

The reason a VM is needed is to assure that all traces of 16-bit code can be removed without harming compatability. The reason that code is removed in the first place is to allow Windows to operate without DOS.

Double-check that there is no DOS version on the disk - there should be one or more of INSTALL.BAT, INSTALL.EXE or one of the DOS SCI interpreters (most likely SCIHUDV.EXE here). If there is not, try compatibility mode (Windows 98 is an obvious choice, since you know it'll work on a regular Win98 machine). Alternatively, since I assume the Windows interpreter and data files match the ones in the DOS/Windows version (this could be checked), ask someone with the DOS interpreter (such as me) to e-mail it to you.

Failing all of that, DOSBox can still be used - but only provided you can find a copy of Windows 3.1 somewhere. You can then copy it onto your XP machine, placing it inside a folder to act as your virtual C: drive.If you want to be abosultely sure that everything will work, copy the entire harddrive from a machine with a working installation of 3.1. Mount it in DOSBox, install MG, and play.

And of course there's the option of downloading and installing Linux as dual-boot, then installing WINE - but I'm guessing that's a little more trouble than you want to go to. :P

anathoth8 · #7 Post by **anathoth8** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 11:24 pm

Pidgeot wrote:Double-check that there is no DOS version on the disk - there should be one or more of INSTALL.BAT, INSTALL.EXE or one of the DOS SCI interpreters (most likely SCIHUDV.EXE here).

Wait, are you telling me that I should have these files or that I shouldn't? What do I need to do with them?

Pidgeot wrote:If there is not, try compatibility mode (Windows 98 is an obvious choice, since you know it'll work on a regular Win98 machine).

Well, as I said, I already tried that, along with other compatibility modes. It had no discernable effect.

Pidgeot wrote:Alternatively, since I assume the Windows interpreter and data files match the ones in the DOS/Windows version (this could be checked), ask someone with the DOS interpreter (such as me) to e-mail it to you.

Well, without having both versions to compare, I don't know how I would go about doing that. Also, this is the 1995 deluxe version, and as far as I know, there was never a DOS version.

The other options you suggested are not really feasible. Even without considering how difficult finding a copy of Win3.1 would be, I think it would be far too complicated for my sister to work it this way. It sounds pretty complicated even for me...

Pidgeot · #8 Post by **Pidgeot** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:40 am

anathoth8 wrote:
Pidgeot wrote:Double-check that there is no DOS version on the disk - there should be one or more of INSTALL.BAT, INSTALL.EXE or one of the DOS SCI interpreters (most likely SCIHUDV.EXE here).
Wait, are you telling me that I should have these files or that I shouldn't? What do I need to do with them?

You should have at least one of them if there's a DOS version included. The files I mentioned have names unique to the DOS versions, the Windows versions use different file names. (BTW, SIERRA.EXE is also a common name for the DOS interpreter.)

anathoth8 wrote:Well, without having both versions to compare, I don't know how I would go about doing that. Also, this is the 1995 deluxe version, and as far as I know, there was never a DOS version.

If by "1995 deluxe version" you mean the one with speech, it does exist for both DOS and Windows. I have it from the Roberta Williams Anthology, and I used to play it under DOS on my 3.1 machine. (EDIT: And no, I'm not mixing up the AGI version with the SCI/speech version!)
The way you would find out if they are identical, is by running this small program that I've made (529KB).

To use the program, simply find the directory Mother Goose is installed to (if it's not installed, you can point it to the CD - but the program is quite slow, so I DON'T recommend doing so!), and click "Calculate result". Then copy/paste the results in a PM (or post them here, if you wish). I will compare your results to mine, and find out if the versions are identical that way. (A word of warning: The program will appear to freeze if it gets hidden behind another window. It won't respond until it's done calculating.)

For the record, you *will* need either VDMSound or DOSBox to play the DOS version under XP.

Boogeyman · #9 Post by **Boogeyman** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:41 am

Angelus was probably referring to the AGI version.

Angelus3K · #10 Post by **Angelus3K** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:28 pm

Pidgeot wrote:For the record, you *will* need either VDMSound or DOSBox to play the DOS version under XP.

Yea I meant if one doesnt work then the other will. :)

anathoth8 · #11 Post by **anathoth8** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 8:58 pm

Pidgeot wrote:If by "1995 deluxe version" you mean the one with speech, it does exist for both DOS and Windows. I have it from the Roberta Williams Anthology, and I used to play it under DOS on my 3.1 machine. (EDIT: And no, I'm not mixing up the AGI version with the SCI/speech version!)

I'm sure that you are not. If you were not aware, there were a total of 4 versions of Mixed-Up Mother Goose released. I'm not sure which version was included with the Roberta Williams Anthology.

I ran that little program of yours. I get the message:
Calculating CRC32 for files in C:\SIERRA\MGDX...
BOOTDISK.ICO: 581B5321
extra:

Then an error saying "File access denied."

I posted a message on the SierraPlanet forums, so maybe someone there can help me. Thanks for trying, and let me know if you have any other ideas. :)

Pidgeot · #12 Post by **Pidgeot** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 10:16 pm

I was not aware, but thanks for letting me know. I'm not really sure which version I have either - although I'm afraid it's the 1990 version, it does have full support for Windows 3.x, which wasn't multimedia enabled until 1991. I'll look into it and let you know.

(EDIT: Yep, as I suspected. Seeing as how most of the files on my CD are dated 1990 and 1991, I think it's pretty safe to assume it's the 1990 verison I have. Sorry.)

If you can find out what interpreter version it is, you might be able to find another game using a compatible version. (assuming it uses SCI, that is)

I think the error you get might be because extra is a subdirectory. I didn't expect there to be any, so I don't think I coded support for that. And since I modified a work in progress, I didn't save the source to check.

Alias · #13 Post by **Alias** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 11:15 pm

Actually there were only 3 official solo release of Mother goose:
http://vintage-sierra.com/childrens/mothergoose.html

The one in the anthology is most likely the latest verion, release number 3. ;)

anathoth8 · #14 Post by **anathoth8** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 3:49 pm

Reptile wrote:Actually there were only 3 official solo release of Mother goose:
http://vintage-sierra.com/childrens/mothergoose.html

The one in the anthology is most likely the latest verion, release number 3. ;)

Well, according to Sierra Planet (which I linked to above) the information at vintage-sierra is incomplete. Plus I can tell you for a fact that there was a later version, because I am holding it in my hand. The disc quite cleary has the copyright year as 1995. In addition to that, there was also a VGA version released on CD, which isn't mentioned on vintage-sierra.

Check out my link above and you will see all four versions.

Angelus3K · #15 Post by **Angelus3K** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:04 pm

Ooooh Reptile just got 0wned!! :lol