[Help] Return Fire Win95

[Neshma]

Hello everyone,

I've been on a mission for several years now to get this classic game working and every avenue so far has failed. I was suggested to try out PCem and was hoping I might get a bit of skill help with this project?

Return Fire is a class Win95 game which has thwarted all my attempts to emulate it. Having searched the net extensively it seems like I'm not the only one with a few people having resorted to using the playstation version.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/return-fire

Any help would be fantastic as I'm looking at PCem and my eyes are going

Cheers

Neshma

[leilei]

What is the problem? I'm seeing no problem with running Return Fire... the worst that happens is that it asks you to set your color depth to 256 colors before continuing.

[Neshma]

No way!!! Thats amazing!! Oh man ok I'm not doing this right, will have to try again when I get home tonight!

Sorry I'm a novice at this kinda thing.

[leilei]

Yes.

[Neshma]

Ok I'm quite stuck. Is there a help spot I can find info on how to setup PCem properly? Fiddling isnt getting me far and I cant find any instructions Sorry a bit of a novice.

Thanks so much!!

[omarsis81]

The most difficult part of getting PCem to work is finding the BIOSEs for each system you want to emulate
For the 430VX mother (the most powerful for the time being) you need to get the file "55XWUQ0E.BIN" in roms/430vx
We can't post links because of Copyright policy, but if you're good with Google you won't find much trouble.
The other file needed is a similar ROM file for a 2D VGA card, like a ViRGE DX (s3virge.bin) placed in the "roms" folder.
You may also need the driver for the VGA card for Windows 9x

What I don't know is if "Return Fire" uses the Voodoo card, in that case you'll also need to install a Voodoo 1 or 2 and its drivers (luckily, Voodoo cards don't need ROM files)

If I can help you with something else, just say so

[Neshma]

Thanks Omarsis

So I've grabbed the rom and have a lovely CPU drawing ancient computer embedded in my own.

Next step is to get an OS on there and link it to the files for the game. Just wondering how I get an OS in now that my emulated computer is working? Do I need to find an ISO of Win98 or Win95?

[omarsis81]

Right, an ISO of either Windows 9x
AND a bootable floppy disk with support for CD-ROM IF the ISO is not boot capable (Windows 95 is not, but 98SE is)
Pretty much the same as a real computer if you had one back in the mid 90s

[Neshma]

Hmmm so I downloaded a Win98SE ISO, loaded it under Settings -> CD-ROM -> ISO
It asks to reset PCem, then....nothing? Remains a blank grey box. Doesnt appear to be loading the disc?

Thanks for all the help Dont suppose theres a help for novices guide out there to save you time?

[omarsis81]

This thread could help as a guide!

Did you select as the first bootable option the CDROM in the BIOS screen? Hit DEL when memory counts

[Neshma]

I didnt even get that? It just beeped and remained a grey screen, no bios or OS/bootable CD loadup screen

[Neshma]

Also I should mentioned that I tried to get ViRGE DX (s3virge.bin) and found

GPU/Chipset: S3 ViRGE/DX (86C375) BIOS: S3 86C375/86C385 Video BIOS. Version 2.01.07 (86c375_5.bin)

I put that in the rom folder. Could that be where I've gone wrong? Couldnt find the one you posted?

[omarsis81]

86c375_5 is not useful. You could use a similar 86c375_1
All cards with its ROM files are listed here:
https://bitbucket.org/pcem_emulator/pcem

[Neshma]

Thanks Omarsis,

So I think there's a few basic things im not understanding about how to use PCem.

Actions so far:

1. I've extracted PCem to a new folder
2. I've copied 86c375_1 into the ROM folder and 55WUQ0E.bin into the 430vx folder.
3. Under Setting -> Configure I've set:
- Machine: Award 430VX PCI
- Video: S3 ViRGE /DX
- CPU Type: Intel
- CPU: Pentium 75
4. Under Settings -> CD-ROM -> ISO and I've selected a .iso file of Win98SE

Result:

Now when I load up PCem, I get a noise and the CPU is getting a clock speed up the top. The screen is black & blank.

Next up questions:

1. How do I get a boot screen? From there I assume I set the .iso as the bootable media and start installing a Win98 machine?
1a. Do I need a separate partition to do all this or can it all be based just under the PCem folder?
2. How do I then load up & into my installed copy of Win98 from PCem
3. Once I have a working Win98 install, I just need to find the game folder. Again will Win98 pick up my entire hard drive folder tree or a sub-tree from the PCem folder?

Hope that makes my questions abit easier to follow Thanks very much for your help!

[szadycbr]

Neshma please [Moderator: do not link to copyrighted material], you need only Rom folder so, unpack it and replace the rom frolder in your pcem v12 directory with the rom folder you just extracted. Dont do anything except copy and paste the rom folder, cos most likely you doing something wrong, and download PCem from PCem site , not any other.
Then when you set up yor 430vx machine i use also virge dx/gx and sb16 for sound. give floppy B as none, and floppy A as 1.44mb. you must create hard disk image, PCem have entry to do so. then when win98se boot type "fdisk" and you must create partition on the disk. after that restart emulated machine and again, when you see command line use "format c: " then change letter of disk to your cd rom letter , while it boots up it will show you what letter cd driver get, it might be "r:" or "e:" but you will see, change patch to that letter by typing eg. "r:" and hit enter. write "dir" hit enter and you will see directories , you must start setup.exe it might be in win98 directory , if you need to chnge to it write "cd win98" enter , "dir" to see files, if there is to many put "dir /p" and you will see every page.
You do not set .iso as a botable media, once you will see screen and memory will count, press delete and you will get in to bios, and from there will you set first bootable device CDrom, like omarsis81 said.
judging on what you said , most likely the bios you download is wrong, so listen to my advice and get that pack.

[szadycbr]

Sorry Sarah, but You should leave the part "please google "pcem bios pack"" , cos i dont think it does violate in any way rules of the forum.

[Neshma]

Hey szad!

Thank you so much, I've got it working!!

Wow so much nostalgia. Thanks to everyone for your help My poor friend had his jeep running for dear life while I hunted it last night muhahahaha capture the flag returns!!! Fantastic software btw, incredible seeing those old startup screens and config'ing my ancient Win98 machine just like I used to!

Nesh