Football Pro '95 1.03 patch crash?

[BFBullpup]

Hi everyone. I haven't been able to find an answer online so I thought I would try here. I found Front Page Sports Football Pro '95 in a thrift store and decided to give it a try. The 1.00 game works fine. I found the 1.03 patch online. After applying the patch, I am able to view the coin toss before the game but as soon as the play selection screen for kickoff appears, the game crashes and quits to DOS mode. I get an error message that reads like:

if playing:

sim: seed = xx, assert failed: playsub.c:90 ()

if demo (1 minute after the start menu appears):

sim: seed = xx, assert failed: logic.c:231 ()

The "xx" seems to be random two-digit numbers as I haven't really been able to get the same number twice.

Has anyone ever been able to get 1.03 to work on any computer? I've tried on DOSBox, Windows 7's Command Prompt, and even Windows 98se/DOS 7.0 (on modern hardware)! In all instances the 1.03 game works fine until it is time to kick off. I've tried the 1.02 patch as well but no dice.

1.0 plays great but has no fans in the stands and the A.I. does a few silly things (miss kicks after touchdowns, for instance) so I would be thrilled to death to be able to play the game as it was meant to be played (1.03).

[Collector]

I am not familiar with the game, but I do have it. If I get some time I'll take a look at it, but I don't know when I'll be able to. I've got a lot on my plate right now.

[BFBullpup]

Great news! I got it working after all. I was ready to give up and go to bed so I posted here for help. After sleeping on it I tried one last idea and it worked!

For others' reference (I did find this site on Google while trying to find a solution), the game works perfectly fine on Win7's command prompt (with minor config/autoexec tweaks) and DOSBox. The patch wouldn't work because the patch's installer batch wasn't recognized by either Win7 or DOSBox as valid files. At the time I tried to install the patches myself (by first using "update" on the command prompt from an A: drive, then running "patch" on the C: game's directory and manually entering "patcha", then again running "patch" and entering "patchb", and so on until "patchd" was finished. Trying to play the game caused the errors in my original post. Manually installing the patches seem to cause problems with the game.

How I fixed the 1.03 patch:
1) Install Windows 98se in my computer as a dual-boot (it was the last version of "pure" MS-DOS and compatible with my USB input devices).
2) Install 1.0 version of the game game into the C: of the Win98 partition as normal (had to do this from Win7 because Win98se wouldn't recognize my new DVD drive with the game's install CD inside).
3) Restart into Win98se.
4) Run the 1.03 patch, already extracted, from another hard drive (I used a FireWire drive recognized by Win98se as D:, so entered D:/ UPDATE D: C: \SIERRA\FBPRO95). I'm not sure if you can actually run the patch install if the patch files are also in the C: drive. My USB floppy drive wouldn't work with Win98se.

The game is playable (but without input from my USB mouse) if I restart the computer into MS-DOS prompt with EMS support (there is an alias in C:\WINDOWS\). However, it freezes and the keyboard powers off if I quit a game in progress and return to the main menu.

No big deal, as I don't want to play the game on Win98 anyway. I simply restarted to Win7, copied the entire game folder into my Win7 C: disk, and used #4 from this suggestion page: http://www.dosgames.com/xphints.php#4 (run using Win7's Command Prompt). I did that autoexec.nt/configsys.nt tweak because Win7's CP wouldn't turn on the extended memory necessary to run the game.

I started this project 3 weeks ago so I'm pretty proud of myself.

[Collector]

Thanks for reporting, but I am still going to look at it when I can. It should be possible to do it all form DOSBox. If not that is an issue for the DOSBox devs. The NTVDM is not really a viable solution. For 32-bit users it means compatibility issues and speed problems. 64-bit users don't even have the NTVDM option.

[BFBullpup]

I had to look up NTVDM. The correctly patched game plays fine in DOSBox as well as NTVDM. Sorry if my post sounds like it wouldn't work, it does.

I just tested the 1.03 update utility in DOSBox and it seems to patch the game just fine after all. I wish I had thought to try it in there! You're right, NTVDM was not able to read the patch correctly and kept saying that the patch files were not valid Win32 applications or something like that. I incorrectly assumed that DOSBox would tell me the same thing (as I thought if it was Microsoft's emulator it must therefore be superior) and didn't think to try it.

However as to gameplay NTVDM was superior, even with DOSBox increasing its framerate.

Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to point out DOSBox's capabilities.

[Collector]

The patch is 16-bit. Anyone with 64-bit Windows will not be able to run it without an emulator like DOSBox.

[BFBullpup]

So Win32 means 32-bit... got it.