I've been attempting to play my CD version of Magic Carpet. I've got it working and performing great in dosbox (0.74), even in Hi-Res mode. But i'm getting random crashes when switching spells or going back and forth from the map screen. I'm not even sure if it's actually crashing, there is no error reported by Dosbox, it's basically like the game is just quitting randomly as if i'm hitting the keystroke for exiting the game.

Are there any issues like this with the GoG version? I'm thinking of rebuying it but I want to be sure this isn't an issue.

The original CD version had a CD check when you first went to the Map/Spell Assignment screen - if that check failed it exited to the desktop with no error message or warning. I suspect you might have had an issue with your CD mounting in DosBox.

You can either copy the entire CD to a directory and use the mount command, for example copy the CD to C:\dosbox\mcarpet and use the following in DosBox
mount d c:\dosbox\mcarpet -t cdrom

Or mount the original CD in DosBox
mount d d:\ -t cdrom (where d:\ is your CD letter in Windows)

Or you can create an ISO image of the CD and use imgmount in DosBox, for example the carpet.iso image in c:\dosbox\iso\
imgmount d "c:\dosbox\iso\carpet.iso" -t cdrom

I am guessing the GoG version doesn't have that CD check issue, but haven't bought it since I still have the original. I may just go ahead and pick it up anyway during the current sale - it's a great game.

I have both the cdrom ans the gog-version.

afaik the crash doesn't occur in the floppy version nor the mc plus version. since the gog-version is neither, but doesn't crash anyway, i wonder:

HOW T** F*** DID GOG DO THIS?

:)

btw both mouting with -t cdrom or using not the image but the folder won't work either.

ENLIGHTEN US, OH DOSBOX-WIZARDS OF GOG!

Just take a look at the files and setup they provide.

They have 2 config files that get run :

dosboxMC_single.conf & dosboxMC.conf. The former contains the setup for Dosdox; configuration and tweaks. The latter provides the setup for this specific game. If you look at that, there's the below line which is them mounting the actual ISO (renamed as game.gog).

imgmount d "..\CARPET.CD\game.gog" -t iso -fs iso

[url=ftp://ftp.ea-europe.com/Pub/legacy_support/bullfrog/patch/Magic_Carpet_Level_50_Patch/]I know there was a patch for the normal Magic Carpet which was integrated into MCP by default[/url], but I can assure you, they are doing no sorcery to achieve the results they have with this game (or any other). It's likely just the settings they choose.

[url=ftp://ftp.ea-europe.com/Pub/legacy_support/bullfrog/patch/Magic_Carpet_Level_50_Patch/Magic_Carpet_Patch_Readme.txt]ftp://ftp.ea-europe.com/Pub/legacy_support/bullfrog/patch/Magic_Carpet_Level_50_Patch/Magic_Carpet_Patch_Readme.txt[/url]

http://www.reocities.com/TimesSquare/Dungeon/7027/magicarp.html

http://www.gratisgames24.de/trainer/rrtt020903/MCARPET.TXT

Try:

[cpu]
cycles=max 75% limit 131195

They may have adjusted the executable in ways that are friendly with DOS and DOSBox, but that were not considered 'normal' back in the day.