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Game worked - then stopped working

Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 2:55 am
by ajamyarg
Hi all,
Hoping someone here can help me solve this problem. I just got a new computer (MacBook Air) so I'm attempting to re-emulate 7.5.3 on it with BasiliskII. For years, I had it successfully emulated on my old computer, and it was really pretty stable: I'd regularly play an old game (Castles: Siege & Conquest) and it worked fine.

So this evening I started from ground zero and re-installed: added the DiskTools image to the BasiliskII GUI, created my MacOS753 disk and Installer Parts disk, copied the installer parts from my Shared/Unix folder onto the Installer Parts disk, and installed 7.5.3 successfully. Ejected the extra disks, restarted Basilisk, all was good.

Then downloaded the four version of Castles from MacGarden, copied them from Shared/Unix onto my MacOS753 hard disk, figured out which of them would work for me, and ran the game from my hard drive. I opened the game, played it for about half an hour, and then the game crashed.

Okay, fine! I thought. Easy. I restarted Basilisk. Except that EXACT SAME copy of Castles now wouldn't open. I just got the little gray-squares animation of an opening file, and then nothing. So I tried downloading Castles again, copying into Unix/Shared, then copying to the Mac753 hard drive—no dice. Tried installing a different Castles version from .dsk images this time—but same result.

I didn't change any settings in the GUI between when I had a working version and when it wouldn't work. Any ideas? This is stymying me. I'm usually pretty good at problem solving but not in this case, I guess!

Thanks, all.

Re: Game worked - then stopped working

Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 3:57 am
by adespoton
Your preference file in the system folder is likely corrupted. Run Disk first Aid to fix the disk image and then delete the castles prefs.

By the way: you could have copied the disk image from your old computer to your new one and it would have booted and run fine.

Re: Game worked - then stopped working

Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 7:39 pm
by Jorpho
ajamyarg wrote:For years, I had it successfully emulated on my old computer, and it was really pretty stable: I'd regularly play an old game (Castles: Siege & Conquest) and it worked fine.
Ahh, good times, that game.

Just in case you're not aware, GOG has the DOS version packaged with DOSBox; it's cheap (when it goes on sale, anyway) and should give you practically no trouble. Or is the Mac version substantially improved?
https://www.gog.com/game/castles_castles_2