Two irritating issues

[rottenvenetic]

These aren't exactly gamebreakers, but still.
Warning - long post!

Number one - Pictures

Context:
Running MMO II (dos) on an XP machine, in fullscreen & by itself - i.e. no dos-sim.
Version is 1.40, latest, with pickhack and meltingpot 0.95... for a different racepick framework designed to balance against prod races somewhat.
I have redone all the races to fit with the new racepick costs, keeping their names.

Problem:
The race pictures for selection (except the custom race incomplete clone guy) and the small race pictures in the diplo screen are gone, the game displays black in their stead.
I have tried with both the "default" setting and the "custom" setting with the pics that come with the meltingpot mod and it doesn't work either way.

Possible sollution?
If someone can tell me which lbx holds the racepicks I do start a fresh installation, copy that lbx into the current one and delete the rest.

But if that doesn'twork, then what?

Number two - Music

This is much simpler. Context is same as above; the game sound doesn't work but that's ok. What's not ok is that the game interferes with the music I listen to, or try, while playing (youtube) to the extent of killing it almost completely.
If there is a way, I need this stomped too.

[mooncalf]

I believe "races.lbx" is the file that holds the smaller bitmaps (used in diplomacy); while the large pictures are stored in "racesel.lbx" (races el stands for races extra large?)

The first file (races.lbx) is among those patched in 1.31. The second file (racesel.lbx) apparrently isn't normally installed at all, so you should be able to delete it; or it can be copied off the CD.

I'm not certain that you won't get unexpected results by replacing/deleting those files (I don't think they hold other important data, but they might).

I can't remember ever running into blackened pictures, but I haven't played the game on XP, either. (Melting Pot was tricky for me to install in Vista, but it seems to work, including with the 1.40 patch.)

-----

No good idea on the music, but some random thoughts/questions:

Any similar problem running other games in DOS?

Have you tried using SETSOUND.EXE and using no MIDI and no Digital audio? Turning down music and sounds all the way inside the game with options?

Is it related to CD access? At least with my version, it's possible to copy the entire MOO2 CD to a harddrive, and install the game from there; no CD needed. (IIRC, "stream.lbx" and/or "streamhd.lbx" is/are the music files.)

[rottenvenetic]

1. Well I solved that problem by using another editor, so I could edit the racepicks and default races without messing up the pictures or anything else. (The Sakkra I've made are unbelievably strong for an ai despite being feudal and uncreative!) so there's no point in using the meltingpot anymore.

2. No sound problems with dos games that I remember.

The settings were as you say with the problems; I'm running the game with the cd's contents on the hdd.

Whatever I do, the music only works with the game minimized at best. Well I'm prolly going to give that dosbox thing a try, I hear it's needed even for mp. Maybe if I play the game windowed I can do it while listening to "absolute sole right" etc. That'd be nice.