Freedos usb stick?

[Daniel3D]

All my stunts versions are from kalpen.de or except for the competition version.

But maybe it crashed on sound. I haven't setup a sound driver but maybe the copy of Stunts is looking for it. Will look into this later..

[llm]

stunts.com is identical for all "reachable" installations (http://stunts.kalpen.de/downldst.htm and http://wiki.stunts.hu/index.php/Download)

and gives mit a "packed blabla corrupted" error message

[llm]

stunts.com is only a starter for load.exe
does it also happen if you start stunts with "load.exe /u MCGA  /spc" - UPDATE: yes it does

so its the load.exe that make the problem - not stunts.com, not stunts_k.exe

[llm]

Solution!!!

the load.exe itself is packed with EXEPACK (an old executable compressor from Microsoft)
unpacking it with unp (http://unp.bencastricum.nl/) makes it startable under FreeDos (maybe also under DOS)

normal start of stunts works like this

Code Select Expand


1. load & run stunts.com
2.   load & run load.exe(EXEPACK unpack)
3.     combines some files from stunts (also unpack them with an stunts unpack algorithm)
4.       start game in memory


or use the execombiner exe which is just

Code Select Expand

1. load & run game

[Daniel3D]

It was the sound.
ran setup and disabled sound, no problem. on PC speaker also no problem

so stunts runs. problem solved.   [EDIT]  runs in MS-DOS. [/EDIT]
next stop, getting sound...

NB: haven't done sound config in dos on 25 years or so.,. and never on a "modern" laptop.
modern is relative here since the laptop was designed for windows XP

to be continued....

EDIT::
sound not supported in dos, not possible either according to internet. Chipset not reverse compatible.
I'm gonna put this project on hold for now..

[llm]

Its an EXEPack Bug - official and well known by Microsoft: https://jeffpar.github.io/kbarchive/kb/072/Q72360/
using loadfix is a Microsoft tip to prevent this EXEPack Bug - but that does not work if used on stunts.com only on load.exe will help

PROVE!!: https://pasteboard.co/JktVtei.png - so you're right Cas it is something from the Hardware - good old A20 Gate

https://www.bamsoftware.com/software/exepack/ (there is also a windows exe available for unpacking)

A20 bug?
"yes" means the stub relies on 8086-style 20-bit address wraparound; i.e., it requires the address fff0:0123 to map to the linear address 0x23, not 0x100000023. Stubs with this bug may falsely error out with "Packed file is corrupt" when run at a low address in memory.

http://www.os2museum.com/wp/exepack-and-the-a20-gate/

clearly points at the real problem: "The Gate A20 signal is in the wrong state after the system is booted."

some versions of EXEPack did not suffer from this problem

easily to fix by unpacking the exe - its easy and does not change anything in the game - the original developers also runned the EXEPack Tool AFTER creating the exe from source - to make it smaller - we just revert this process and remove the buggy unpacker from the original file

[llm]

the primary problem that there is no clean official package that solves such problems for everyone - time to speak to Kalpen to update the package

[Daniel3D]

the primary problem that there is no clean official package that solves such problems for everyone - time to speak to Kalpen to update the package

You mean a repack of the original files that are clean but keeping as much in tact as possible (except copy protection) ?

[llm]

You mean a repack of the original files that are clean but keeping as much in tact as possible (except copy protection) ?

A: at least the EXEPack unpacked load.exe (if that still work with stunts_k.exe for unprotecting?)
the unpacked load.exe just removes the buggy unpacking stub and does not change any code of the game

B: or using the execombiner versions: but then you need a game_mcga.exe,game_cga.exe etc. one excutable for each grafix setup (cga/ega/tandy/mcga)
and the stunts.com, setup.exe is then not useable/needed anymore

C: unpack the load.exe, unpack the code-files, remove copy protection and compress the files again to be useable with load.exe

[Daniel3D]

Option A doesn't feel right. It fixes the problem but a crack is still needed.

Option B is kind of what restunts does. So we already have that.

Option C is most appealing to me as it fixes the issue and the need for a crack.

Of course this all only matters if you want to play without emulator.

[llm]

Option A doesn't feel right. It fixes the problem but a crack is still needed.

Option B is kind of what restunts does. So we already have that.

Option C is most appealing to me as it fixes the issue and the need for a crack.

Of course this all only matters if you want to play without emulator.

A is the least changing, only load.exe gets modified, setup still works
B is the one with the most new executeables, no changes, setup does not work with these you need to configure sound setting via commandline
C is the one with most changed files: .cod, load.exe, etc., setup still works

[Daniel3D]

True. But in de end you only have (modified) original files. So basically what you had on the disk.
Feels most authentic to me.
Copy protection is outdated, nobody cares (probably) and it's a nuisance.

I don't know what the others think about this.

[llm]

There is another problem with C

To remove the copy protection the files that get combined in memory with load.exe needs to be unpacked using https://github.com/dstien/gameformats/tree/master/stunts/stunpack
, patched to unprotected - its not clear if  load.exe can handle unpacked files or if the files need to get repacked - i don't know an implementation for packing, only for unpacking

[llm]

Found a compressor: https://github.com/w4kfu/Stunts/tree/master/comp

[Daniel3D]

...and patch the single byte to prevent copy protection
see subversion links with code and this post: http://forum.stunts.hu/index.php?topic=2454.msg43618#msg43618

. some further analysis reveals the the output game.exe from the above program is compressed with exepack, as with load.exe.

to remove the copy protection, uncompress with unp and put a byte 0x1 at offset 0x2b3c

I'm not sure in which file.
But it seems like 1 file for the copy protection
And if it's another file load.exe that needs repack.

So 2 files to alter for option C
(Unless I totally missed something)

Although I can follow the conversation I'm not going to attempt to make these changes. Not comfortable with this level of editing 

Edit: missed end quote...