How to Run System Shock 1 on Windows 2000/XP FAQ v 1.0

[Aerothorn]

Oh wow, just read that about SS Portable. That'll be useful. Though I guess this means I'll never even open the case for my copy of System Shock. Nice to have the manual, though!

[Ion_Storm]

Hi everyone, new to the forums here and just someone trying to get System Shock to download onto his XP machine (I'm new to the series, but have played its 'sister' BioShock and am a fan of it). I'm only asking this question because I don't think my problem has been addressed in the thread (or at least not that my find button could discern). You're forewarned - I have little to no real experience with computers, which is probably why I'm utterly lost as to what might be to everyone else a very simple problem to fix; I'm installing from the System Shock CD itself. So here goes:

I boot up the computer, pop the CD in go to C:\ and make a file called System Shock. I go to D:\ (now EA) and go to INSTALL.EXE. The System Shock Terminal Access Installation screen pops up. I hit 'Begin Installation.' It asks me to select a destination for a directory and I make it the (C:\Program Files\System Shock) and hit ok. It says it copies the files (though none appear later when I open it), but when it gets to the task of updating the registry, I get this message:

"Visual Studio Just-In-Time Debugger

An unhandled win32 exception occurred in INST32.EXE [3688]. Just-In-Time debugging this exception failed with the following error: No installed debugger has Just-In-Time debugging enabled. In Visual Studio, Just-In-Time debugging can be enabled from Tools/Options/Debugging/Just-In-Time.

Check the documentation index for 'Just-in-time debugging, errors' for more information."

However, again from what I understand, I can't seem to locate any such documents on my computer. Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks!

[Enchantermon]

Look two posts above yours.

[voodoo47]

info/fixes in this thread are outdated/not needed anymore,so it should probably be unstickied to avoid confusion-everything you need to know about running ss1 on new machines can be found in Kolya's new FAQ.


btw,there seems to be a shadow of this thread in the system shock subforum,strange..

[Ben1988]

Thanks for your involvement in trying to help us, I'm honored and proud of the TTLG community !

About serial ports, I can confirm this point : no problems with my Asus A8V having serial ports, errors with a Dell Dimension 8400 without serial ports...

About my case I made some experimentations :
- Setup SS1 with install.exe using cdshock.exe's VDMS profile and choosing SB16 or SB pro
- Playing with channel numbers inside the game
- placing Mok's cdshock.exe in syschock's CD in folder "CDROM" and configuring my BAT file accordingly

Nothing worked : still no audio logs but all other sounds work... So it's like sshock don't "see" the CD : even if I choose "audio only" inside the game it displays texts. Weird...

So I have few questions for the community:
- Does anyone hear audio logs with an integrated soundchip ?
- Which audio config do you use in sshock setup / VDMS ?
- Is there any version of VDMS supporting SB AWE32 (as shock displays it in it's setup) ?
- Do you use your original CD, an updated copy of the CD (for Mok's exe for example), or a hard disk located one (as I do), or it doesn't matter ?

Here's a copy of my CYB.CFG :

Thanx Drat for the info !

Here's my MD5 sum : 02b3ae041c34c7fcfc0c23ae9c83abf2
What's yours ?

I found a bypass for this problem, my version was downloaded through random torrents from a major torrent website and the audio logs were text only while all the sounds were working, by downloading the abandonware version from here

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/24...tem+Shock.html

i was able to make them work

I deleted my installed version, and by running this version from the cdshock.exe executive you can hear the audio logs, i think the problem with the audio logs is about a corrupt install or version, but this fixes the audio logs if you have all the other sounds working.

If i knew how the save games work youd be able to somehow save your current charracter but maybe someone else here knows this?

I wrote this knowing that you posted your comment long ago, it is for anyone like me who has this problem and visits websites like these to fix it, this is a solution for them, system shock is one of the best games i have ever played and it is so old, i marvel at the physics, lighting, puzzles and the overall plot everyone should play it through once in their lives on the hardest settings!

[voodoo47]

no need for any of that.

http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=211.0
http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=2123.0

[PatrickCT]

I see that there's pages & pages of how to get ss1 working on modern pc's. I bought the CDROM version in a bargain bin many years ago (lucky me, even then it was outdated). I went the whole manual route (configuring soundcard in DOS, loading hi-res mods, on a P3 Win98 pc))and got it working, but man, was it frustrating. The mouselook mod wasn't around then, & I gave up with the game because I couldn't get back into the arcane control system. I downloaded ssp and tried again, on my laptop, a WinXPsp3 2GHz core2Duo. I had to peruse a readme or two, and do some very basic configuration (or is it just the correct selections ?). The game played just played ! Sound, hi-res, mouselook, cutscenes,all ok, in DOSbox (comes with ssp). Everything worked ! I had a problem where after reloading a game a few times, I could only look around in one plane, and had to restart the game. If I recall, at some stage, this problem disappeared. Even if it didn't it was a small price to pay for an all-in-one modernised ss1 game. (Everything you need is in the ssp package, incl. the CDROM version & mods). A HUGE THANKS to the guys who waded through DOS code to make this game funtional and playable. So if you want to play the originator of so many game concepts today, a game that was way ahead of its time, then google "system shock portable" & download it and the howto. Edit: Or click on voodoo47's 1st link immediately above this post.