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So I have a Mini laptop (OS Windows XP) - and tried the Death Gate installer (figured it'd be easy for when I travel to carry around) - and it comes up with:

Unable to open voice file on the CD-ROM. Verify that the CD-ROM is in the drive (shiney side down). You also check the VOCDATA path in LEGEND.INI

So naturally CDROM isn't need for GoG. Tried the same installer on my desktop, works like a charm.

Only known differences is MINI has no CDROM at all, Desktop does. Mini is XP, Desktop Windows 7.

Checked LEGEND.INI and it matches what is shown in the desktop.


Just for giggles. I launched just DOSBOX and mounted a fake CDROM drive.

Then CD'ed into the DeathGate game, and launched - same result.


EDIT 2 -

For further giggles, I grabbed a USB CD-ROM plugged it in - waited for it to be recognized.

Tried again, same issue.
Post edited July 19, 2021 by SirTawmis
EDIT 3 -

So I dug out my DEATH GATE CD (own the actual game), installed it on the MINI.

Launch DOS - run DGATE, loads perfect.

So something is wonky with how it reads from the GoG Installer only on the Mini (because works from GoG on Windows 7).

It's cool that I got it running using the actual CD - but playing without the CD requirement would be nice since the Mini doesn't have a CD Player and don't really wanna drag around a USB one. :D
EDIT 4 -

So, I launched DOSBOX, mounted the drive.

Went into DGATE, ran DGATE from the CD Install.

Goes back to -

Unable to open voice file on the CD-ROM. Verify that the CD-ROM is in the drive (shiney side down). You also check the VOCDATA path in LEGEND.INI

But in regular XP DOS, works.

So something in how DOSBOX is reading something is failing on the Mini.
Friend of mine, wrote an installer - than allows for CD-Less play and uses DOSBOX.

Which worked perfectly on my XP MINI.

Not sure what it is about the GoG installer for Death Gate that doesn't seem to function on the XP MINI.

At any rate, I'm good now. :D
CDROM? what are you talking about? How do you own the game?
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Dogmaus: CDROM? what are you talking about? How do you own the game?
So, this game is in my GOG library, though it's been in it a long time so I can't remember how I acquired it - but I'm pretty sure it was on sale at some point years ago. The GOG Galaxy install of this game fails to launch on Windows 10, complaining about not finding VOCDATA on the CD, as in the OP. I tried opening the `dosbox_deathgate_single.conf` file and adding:

mount d "C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Death Gate\CD"

Under the existing mount command. This allowed the game to launch into the initial intro movie, but it then crashes afterwards again with a similar complaint about the CREDITS file on the CD. Interestingly, on my Linux laptop, if I use the unofficial Minigalaxy client, that can download and run the game fine. I'm not sure what the difference is in the launch commands, but will find out...

EDIT: Got it working. Just replicated the folder structure for the Linux release of the game on GOG, and edited the relevant dosbox conf file. Instructions for any future folk who managed to buy the game during the short time it was on sale, and are struggling to get it to work on Windows with GOG Galaxy:

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Note: I disabled cloud saves for Death Gate in the configuration section of the game in GOG Galaxy first, just to prevent it from messing around with the files, I'm not 100% sure disabling cloud saves is necessary, but if you do want cloud saves, you'll have to figure out the overlay mount in the dosbox conf file in the last step below (editing the conf file with replacement mount command), as I didn't bother.

* Open the game's folder in, by default, "C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Death Gate" (you can use GOG Galaxy to open the folder in "manage installation -> show folder" if it's different for you).

* Create a new folder inside the Death Gate folder called "data".

* Move the "CD" folder from the Death Gate root folder into the new "data" folder, so there is now a "CD" subfolder inside the "Death Gate\data" folder, i.e., "Death Gate\data\CD" contains INSTALL.EXE, README.TXT and the DGATE, DGATEVGA, TEST, UNIVBE50 folders, etc.

* Copy all the files with filenames in CAPITAL LETTERS from the Death Gate root folder into the "data" folder, such as "ADLIB.MDI, ADLIBG.MDI, ADRV688.DIG" files and so on, leaving the root Death Gate folder only with the gog metadata files such as .conf, .ini, .ico, etc files that are in lowercase or mixed case letters.

** Here's an imgur link to an image showing the resulting folder file listings in the root "Death Gate" folder (left), and the new "Death Gate\data" folder (right), for clarity **

* Edit the dosbox_deathgate_single.conf file from the Death Gate root folder in notepad, remove the existing mount command(s) in the [autoexec] section, and replace them with a single mount command to the absolute path of the "data" folder you created, e.g.:

mount c "C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Death Gate\data"

** Here's a pastebin link to the resulting .conf file: https://pastebin.com/raw/S5vSGp6c **

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Game now seems to run fine. I guess it was just getting confused by the additional gog metadata/icon etc files mixed in with its own files, but separating the death gate game files + cd folder into a separate folder works, which seems to be equivalent in structure to the Linux version of the game.

Btw: I also changed the goto launcher command to goto game to skip the annoying launcher menu.
Post edited April 27, 2022 by lewiji
It's never been on sale. GOG doesn't sell CD-ROMs. I have no idea what you are talking about.
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Dogmaus: It's never been on sale. GOG doesn't sell CD-ROMs. I have no idea what you are talking about.
I own the physical copy when it first came out (am a big fan of the series of books).

I also bought it on GoG when it released here (digital).

So my GoG version wasn't working - but using my physical CDs, I was able to get it to work.