I've successfully played and completed the DOS version of RAMA on WinXP Home (service pack 2), yet now that I've switched to a new computer with the same OS, I can't even make it past the animated Sierra logo at the beginning.

I've adjusted the game's compatibility settings and tried installing the GoSierra patch, but no matter what I try, when I try running the game in VDMSound, I get this error message:


And when I try running the game in DOSbox, the video of the Sierra logo plays flawlessly, then I get a window saying "Alert - Error opening resource 1001.snd. Use ENTER to retry ESC to quit." I can't find a 1001.snd file on CD 1, and it can't be a problem of a scratched CD, since all three CDs give me the same error message when I try starting the game in DOSbox.

I tried copying the CD files to my hard disk and nothing bad happened, but I couldn't run it in DOSbox -- I kept getting a "We're sorry, you have encountered an internal game error message." Things seem to be even worse than before. I searched the DOSbox forms for help on this, but I couldn't find any.

I've tried following all the instructions on this page, but after that, the game would either not run at all or give me the same "divide by zero" error message I mentioned before.

Attempting to run the game without the patch, VDMSound or DOSbox merely turns the screen black for a couple of seconds, then I end up in WinXP again.

Any tips on getting this game to run again?

Thanks,

Akril

Hello again!

To summarise from our conversation on the Sierra forum:

VDDLoader.dll seems to be something to do with VDMSound. I can't get Rama to run with VDMSound either, although VDMSound gives its own error message rather than letting DOS4GW crash out.

I'm running Rama on XP Home. It works under XP's own DOS emulation. It works a little better under DOSBox, in that sound is very poor under XP's DOS emulator but better under DOSBox.

What other games do you have on your PC? I am wondering if one of the more aggressive copy protection systems such as Starforce or Securom is getting in the way.

Try removing all trace of both Rama and the GoSierra patch, reinstall Rama under DOSBox, and see if a fresh install will help.

Oh -- I didn't realise that you and the person helping me were one and the same. Thanks for responding again.

Regarding what other games I have on my PC -- I have a lot of games, nearly all of them older than RAMA, most of them Sierra games. I have never heard of Starforce or Securom.

Regarding installing RAMA in DOSbox: I don't know how this can be done aside from running the installation program on the CD in XP's DOS emulator, then running the same program again when it gets copied to the hard disk or copying the files on the CD to the hard disk and running the install program from there. Is there a way to install a CD-based program in DOSbox that I don't know about?

You can mount the CD-Rom drive just like any other directory in DOSbox. Slightly different command for it, though:
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/wiki/inde ... ount#CDROM

I know how to run CD-based games, I just don't see how they can be installed in DOSbox. Mounting the CD drive makes it the root directory, and the installation program can't detect my C drive (or any other drives) because the mounted CD drive is acting as the C drive.

EDIT: I think I've gotten an answer to this on the VU forums...

If you mount it correctly as a CD drive, it should be a CD drive--not the root directory. Don't mount the CD drive as C (not that you are, but just saying it anyway).

For example, mount the CD drive as X. Create a folder somewhere, let's say C:\Akril\Rama. Mount that folder as C. When you run the install from the mounted CD drive, any installation paths that reference the C:\ drive should install into the folder you mounted as C.

Ah, all right, I understand now. Thank you for explaining it.

I think I've finally got it working. The problem seemed to be connected to the way I mounted the RAMADOS directory. When I mounted C:\SIERRA\RAMADOS as the root directory, the program couldn't run RAMADOS.BAT, only SIER.EXE, which kept giving me that "can't find 1001.snd" message. However, if I mount c:\SIERRA as the root directory and switch to RAMADOS\RAMADOS.BAT, the game launches flawlessly.

Thank you very much for your help, everybody. Now I've got to hope that the CD switching goes by without a hitch.