Installing Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space CD Version on WIN XP

[Big RI Joe]

I eliminated lots of DOS sound problems buy installing a Soundblaster32 in my system. These old tired ears can't tell the difference in sound quality anyways, and besides, that's why I have a good steor system  . A tip of the hat to Peyre; However, while using Defend enables BARIS to run successfully, with the music and sound, the videos are garbled and screechy. More importantly, when I play a mission step that has a failure associated with it, or when the videos are shone of a Soviet accomplishment, the game freezes, requiring a good old Control-Alt-Delete to get back into Windows XP's Task Master. Any solutions?

[Peyre]

I have a few questions:

1. Does the following procedure described above work with a downloaded cd version.

Yes, it should.  I've tested the ISO and made a CD from it that worked on my system.

2. What is an ISO and how do I use it?
3. How do I use the downloaded version?

An ISO is basically an image of a CD.  To use it, you need to have CD-burning software (Nero, Roxio Easy CD Creator, or other) installed on your system.  There's two ways to run it.  Usually you can double-click on the file and that invokes the CD-burning software.  You can also open the software and use its option to burn a CD from an image.  In Easy CD Creator 6, open Creator Classic and click File, Record Disk from Image.  In Nero Express 6, select Disk Image or Saved Project from the main menu.

4. Can I buy the CD-ROM version of BARIS in stores? Amazon didn't have it. (bad sign)

I'd be very surprised if you could find it new in stores--the game hasn't been manufactured in years, as far as I know.  I found a used copy on Amazon; basically you'd have to scour online stores for it.  Personally I'd say you're better off downloading and burning the ISO if you can manage it.  If you like to get things nice & neat, I have scanned images of the CD and jewel case--you could print a jewel case cover on a nice color printer, and use a CD stomper to make the CD to make it look professionally done.

5. If the downloaded version doesn't install because it has to find the install on the hard drive what do I do?

You can bypass the installation by downloading BARIS_Installed.zip from my site and unzipping that to your hard drive.  That will create a \BARIS folder in the location you unzip to, and will install the program.  Then point DOSBox/D-Fend to it (if you're using that), and be sure to have it mount the CD as drive K:.

[Peyre]

I eliminated lots of DOS sound problems buy installing a Soundblaster32 in my system. These old tired ears can't tell the difference in sound quality anyways, and besides, that's why I have a good stereo system  . A tip of the hat to Peyre; However, while using D-fend enables BARIS to run successfully, with the music and sound, the videos are garbled and screechy. More importantly, when I play a mission step that has a failure associated with it, or when the videos are shown of a Soviet accomplishment, the game freezes, requiring a good old Control-Alt-Delete to get back into Windows XP's Task Master. Any solutions?

Wow, that's new.  I'm not sure what to do about the locking up issue.  The garbling issue might be a disconnect in reading the CD.  You'll get loud static in place of the mission movies if the CDROM mounting isn't just right.  DOSBox/D-Fend should be set to look for your CD-ROM drive on the same drive letter you installed the game from (if you used INSTALL.EXE on the CD) or on K: (if you used BARIS_Installed.zip).  Also you might try toggling I/O on and off in the Mounting tab.

[sparkmaster]

Peyre, I'm curious, what settings do you use?

[Big RI Joe]

Wow, that's new.  I'm not sure what to do about the locking up issue.  The garbling issue might be a disconnect in reading the CD.  You'll get loud static in place of the mission movies if the CDROM mounting isn't just right.  DOSBox/D-Fend should be set to look for your CD-ROM drive on the same drive letter you installed the game from (if you used INSTALL.EXE on the CD) or on K: (if you used BARIS_Installed.zip).  Also you might try toggling I/O on and off in the Mounting tab.

I'm still a little puzzled on how to set up the "Mounting" section pf Defend, Peyre> I installed BARIS off the CD. My CRROM drive is "D", and BARIS is on my "C" drive. Could you tell me what a correctly configured "Add mount" box should look like,please.

[DonPMitchell]

Hey, just poking my nose into this long thread, but I gather you're trying to run a 1993 game on Windows XP?  Have you tried using DOSBox?

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

And here's the page devoted to running Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space:

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/comp_list.php?showID=623&letter=B

[DonPMitchell]

Oh, oops...nevermind.  Hehe, I guess everyone knows about DOSBox.

[Big RI Joe]

We sure do, Don

[Peyre]

I'm still a little puzzled on how to set up the "Mounting" section pf Defend, Peyre. I installed BARIS off the CD. My CRROM drive is "D", and BARIS is on my "C" drive. Could you tell me what a correctly configured "Add mount" box should look like,please.

In D-Fend, when you create or edit a profile, there's a number of tabs to choose from.  One of those is the Mounting tab.  That's where you tell DOSBox/D-Fend what drive the game is on, what drive the CD is on, and what drive letters to assign to them (it "mounts" the drive as whatever letter you tell it to).  Usually you mount drive C as C:, but there are exceptions.  For instance, people who install BARIS using my BARIS_Installed.zip need to mount the CD-ROM drive as K:, regardless what drive letter their CD is really on.  (BARIS_Installed.zip is a copy of the BARIS install on my Windows 98 system, and K: is the CD drive on that system.  When you unzip BARIS_Installed.zip to your hard drive, BARIS then thinks your CD-ROM drive is on K:, so you need to trick it by telling DOSBox/D-Fend that your CD drive is actually K:.)

In your case, since you installed successfully from the CD, you would mount your hard drive as C: and your CD-ROM drive as D:.  Be sure to mount the hard drive as type Drive (I think that's what D-Fend calls it) and your CD-ROM drive as type CDROM.  If it doesn't work right off the bat, you may want to toggle I/O Control off or on.

[Peyre]

Peyre, I'm curious, what settings do you use?

Sorry for the delay--had to go home and get the file.  This is what my CDROM mount settings look like.  Select drive is set to K:\ because that's the actual drive letter of my computer's CD-ROM drive; Mounted drive letter is set to K because that's the drive that BARIS_Installed.zip looks for.

[Big RI Joe]

I found that no matter what I tried the videos still squealed. Setting the graphics to "camera" instead of "movie camera" led me to run BARIS successfully

[Big RI Joe]

Anyone up for a PBEM game? Perhaps we could give a blow-by-blow account for the forum upon conclusion. Let me know.Joe

[Simkid]

I'd be interested, although I've never tried any of the multiplayer modes. I'll post again once I get BARIS working (disk version, I think its ready, but I havn't used it in a few monthes, and I've been changing quite alot on the computer).

[Big RI Joe]

I'd be interested, although I've never tried any of the multiplayer modes. I'll post again once I get BARIS working (disk version, I think its ready, but I havn't used it in a few monthes, and I've been changing quite alot on the computer).

I have the CD-ROM vesion of BARIS installed, Simkid

[Simkid]

Well, I'm still interested, but I have a suspicion that the versions arn't compatible, I might make another go at the CD version, but I havn't had much luck with it so far.

Edit:

Ugh, I just proved that I havn't played in too long, forgot that the disk version only HAS hotseat.

Edit 2:

Using the new version of DosBox (released March 30th), mounting a CD image with Daemon Tools, and setting dosbox to have the image as D with ioctl support (plus running the installer through DosBox) I have got everything (including videos) working on XP.  Only strangeness is that if I don't press Run Full (that is, if I use the standard video display instead of one that increases the size) the videos run at VERY high speed.

Edit 3:

I've found that if you reduce the emulated speed to 3000 cycles the videos play about right, but this has the unfortunate effect of making the whole thing slower than ideal for play.