Hi,

What is the best way to run this game without Launcher.exe? I think more specifically, the question is what is the best shortcut command line to run this game via dosbox directly and use all the optimized/proper dosbox config settings that would be used if I was using Launcher.exe?

To clarify, I cannot run Launcher.exe. I bought this game based on having heard of it off and on over the years, good reviews, and the fact it is old so obviously should run on my machine (XPSP3, which runs dosbox quite well). I installed it and my first clue that something was wrong was that the installer was VERY slow. It finally stated that it was (very much against my will and to my horror) installing .Net 4.7.2. Well, I don't want nor should need .Net 4.7.2 for a game made in 1994! Nor is it needed for dosbox. I'm fairly sure 4.7.2 does not work on XPSP3 and regardless, I most definitely don't want it on my machine. It finally displayed an error dialog about a DLL but later said it was done installing successfully. When I tried running the installed shortcut, it was to Launcher.exe instead of dosbox and Launcher.exe would not run, mostly likely because of XP (probably what uses that version of .Net and therefore why it was installed). The games I bought previously from this site that use dosbox have a command line to dosbox with some arguments setting up the configuration files. Why not for this one? But that aside, if it were provided, what should it be? I've configured dosbox myself, although quite a few years ago, but part of why I have paid for games here is so I don't have to spend my time sorting that out myself (it took me a lot of work to get Arena running correctly). I just want to play the game, not spend my time messing around with optimizing dosbox settings. So I'm fairly angry that instead of having a well-configured dosbox command line for this one, I instead have an exe that requires a recent OS despite neither the game and dosbox not having such a requirement, just this launcher happens to be written in an unnecessarily restrictive manner, using these techniques with very poor backwards-compatability even though the game itself and dosbox are quite old and should work fine on XP. It is just one minor component of the package, this launcher, that is getting in the way.

The one used for Ultima Underworld is:
"C:\Games\GOG.com\Ultima Underworld\DOSBOX\DOSBox.exe" -conf "..\dosboxULTIMA1.conf" -conf "..\dosboxULTIMA1_single.conf" -noconsole -c "exit"

I could do the same here (changing filenames to match, of course), and maybe I'm overthinking it, but I don't know if simply using the same basic line is really correctly optimized and such.

Anyway, any advise on the best command line would be appreciated - thanks

(I should mention that I have my reasons for using older OS's so don't want to get into a discussion about that.)

(I should also mention that part of this post is to encourage the developers who put these packages together (if they read any of these posts) to always use technologies that match the age of the games and dosbox (dosbox of course would probably always be the more restrictive of the two requirements). PLEASE don't add a requirement for .Net 4 and whatnot simply to add a launcher. Please either avoid a launcher and use a shortcut directly to dosbox, or else if a launcher must be used for some reason, use something simple like a batch file or an exe written using techniques that don't force a requirement for new OS's simply for that reason (personally, I prefer to use C++ and Win32) - thank you)

UPDATE: Ok, it looks to me like using the Ultima Underworld command line as a template/example is close to correct because the settings are mostly under the config files. Still, please let me know if there's additional settings needed on the command line. I did have to turn the cycles way down in the config file to prevent the music from stuttering. I don't know if having started the game via Launcher.exe would have helped with that in some way (some setup process or auto-configuration based on machine speed or something). Again, please let me know what Launcher.exe may be doing that may not match the approach of the above command line.

It looks to me that going through the launcher would have only parsed the same config files that you've used from the command line - so no, I don't think it would have made any difference whatsoever. The launcher was written by Slitherine's developers, and is pretty much a constant source of anguish for multiple reasons. But that's probably all I can say on the subject without picking a bone I don't really want to. Sorry.

Thanks for your reply. I'm glad to hear that I am probably on the right track with using that command line. I'd hate to be playing with inferior settings and therefore it is very good to have someone else verify that the command line is probably the correct way to go - thank you.

I was also kind of tired and a little angry when I wrote the original post (never fun to have installer problems particularly when trying to take my mind off of other unrelated problems by trying to have some fun playing a new game). Thinking about it after getting some sleep and being a little more calm, I was able to more clearly remember my experiences a few years back configuring plain dosbox myself to make Arena (Elder Scrolls) work, and I finally remembered that I did almost everything via config files and very little with the dosbox shortcut's arguments. So it makes sense that it wouldn't change much for this one either. Nonetheless, it was still definitely worth asking because it may have been possible that I was missing something.

Also, after I wrote the question I spent some time trying to get the game to work and it seems ok so far by using that command line based on my limited understanding of the game so far. I still need to spend more time learning how to play it properly before I'll have a better idea if it is working correctly or not. But I was able to get the music working, create and start a new game, go into some menus, etc. and all that seemed to go ok. Hopefully that will be enough and it won't require a bunch more effort; it took quite a bit of work to get the (unmodified) dosbox settings optimized for Arena back when I did that a few years ago and I think between that and having lived through the original dos game configuration days back in the 90's (messing with config.sys and autoexex.bat memory limitation stuff and whatnot) I'm more than ready for things to just work "out of the box".

I'm very happy to hear that the launcher was third party, which means I hopefully won't have to deal with that poorly-designed thing again in most other old games.

Anyway, thank you again for your reply, I really appreciate it

What about an idea to install the Classic version first and then copy the command line from Classic MoM EXE to Slitherine one?