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Game details
Privateer 2: The Darkening - Origin (1996)
Tested By: skaffman

runnable  -  playable  -  supported
100% (supported)
  DOSBox version: 0.74-3 (supported)

runnable  -  playable  -  supported
100% (supported)
  DOSBox version: 0.72 (supported)

runnable  -  playable  -  supported
90% (supported)
  DOSBox version: 0.70 (supported)

runnable  -  playable  -  supported
64% (supported)
  DOSBox version: 0.65 (supported)

runnable  -  playable  -  supported
63% (playable)
  DOSBox version: 0.63 (playable)

runnable  -  playable  -  supported
90% (supported)
  DOSBox version: 0.62 (supported)

runnable  -  playable  -  supported
90% (supported)
  DOSBox version: 0.61 (supported)

runnable  -  playable  -  supported
0% supported
  DOSBox version: 0.58 (broken)


Privateer 2 The Darkening Joystick Troubleshooting (2012-01-15 10:05) b1gd0g
If you are having trouble getting your joystick going , firstly try going to your DosBox installation directory and opening the DosBox options/configuration file [DOSBox 0.74 Options]. Scroll down to the [Joystick] section and change timed to true. You might want to try changing the joystick type to reflect whatever joystick you are using as well. My Configuration file looks like this.

joysticktype=4axis
timed=true
autofire=false
swap34=false
buttonwrap=false

Save the file.

Now you must open the file in the DosBox directory [Reset KeyMapper].

Run Privateer 2 in DosBox again, if go in the options menu and configure the joystick in game, you might get it working. If its not quite right, its still not flying stright when the joystick is centered you can try opening up the configuration file [dark.cfg] in the Privateer 2 installation directory and putting in the joystick values manually.
Privateer 2 The Darkening Troubleshooting (2012-01-15 10:03) b1gd0g
Privateer 2: The Darkening works perfectly in DosBox 0.74. I had to change a few things to get it working nicely as I will document below.

If you the game goes to a black screen and freezes after the introduction movies, choose Soundblaster 16/Pro for your music card instead of general midi, this worked for me. A good tutorial on installing can be found here.
http://www.wcnews.com/techsupport.shtml#p2
Not really functional (2011-03-29 18:57) matrices
I am a relative newbie to Dosbox so perhaps I'm off the mark, but my experience dovetails with a couple other posts here. This game is unplayable in Dosbox because, when you approach a planet or large ship, your framerate dives terribly. You can manually ratchet up your cycles to compensate, but throws your joystick calibration out of whack, so you lose either way.

I suppose you could play with the mouse and fiddle with cycle rate all the time, but who really wants to replay the game with a mouse?

Maybe there are some tricks to set in the .conf file that I don't know about that would mitigate this issue. (For reference, I'm running an Intel i5 at 3.8ghz.)

One silver lining is that you can straight up install and run this game in Windows 7 (64-bit) with the W95 version (Google to see how to turn DOS version into W95). Then you need a tool like CPU Killer to kill the hyperspeed, and the speed patch you can find on WC CIC. Between these two, you can sort of run the game at a playable level.
Inconsistent frame rates & Joystick re-calibration issue (2011-03-20 00:50) motto
@meier49:

You're right, constant cycles make the game slow down when approaching planets or when your tailing an enemy closely. What CPU settings (machine, core, cputype, cycles) work best for you?

I am still new to DOSBox and not familiar with those setting. But I remember playing this game - back in the day - on a 90MHz Pentium with one of the first Graphic Accelerator cards at very consistent frame rates.

Also tried disabling 'High-resolution' mode in-game but it didn't change much.

Further I noticed the "timed" setting in the joystick category. Will have to play with that to see if it's a possible solution to our Joystick trouble.

Other than that I am super excited that DOSBox exists and that I get to play one of my all-time favorite games again. Good job DOSBox team!!!
Check this out (2010-08-17 12:57) Flyer
Windows 7, quad-core 2.3gb, 512mb ram and DosBox 0.74 with Tubo Dos Box front end. Set CPU cycles to 16000. Everything runs smoother. Cut scenes play. Landing on a planet is quicker and less jerky. An optical mouse at this speed works better than a joystick did on a Pentium. Still need CD in though.
Cutscene trouble (2010-07-12 15:17) liltorch
Trouble is, there aren't any--the screen flashes a couple times and suddenly I'm in the bar. Can anybody help me out? I downloaded it from classic-pc-games.com
Joystick (2009-12-03 21:34) meier49
While the game itself runs fine there IS a Joystick problem. If cycles are increased/decreased the joystick calibration gets out of alignment i.e. has to be recalibrated. Running the game with constant cycles is no option, as it is way to fast with few ships but gets way to slow with many ships/planets.
I've tried both joystick methods the non-default does not work at all.
I don't see any way to resolve this aside from playing with mouse (the mouse control sucks......)
Version 0.73 - Running problems (2009-06-05 10:12) Xerosch
The game doesn't continue after the introduction cutscene. My monitor stays black after fading out.
Joystick issues (2007-07-08 00:52) Jimbot
I tried this in .70 and it couldn't recognize my USB joystick (Saitek Cyborg Evo), but this joystick works fine in .65. To calibrate in .65 I had to avoid going to the extreme top, or it would set crazy bounds (like 6 digits long). Alternatively, manually edit the file dark.cfg in the game directory with the following settings:

Joy cx 63
Joy cy 63
Joy lx 0
Joy ly 0
Joy rx 127
Joy ry 127

works for mine, at least. Unfortunately in .65 there is no support for swapping the 3rd and 4th axis, so I still have to use the kb for throttle.

On the plus side my old analog joystick works in .70, but swapping the 3rd and 4th axis didn't work.

I found gameplay and audio very smooth in both versions. No stability issues so far.
Joystick issues finally resolved (2007-04-10 19:14) cattack
I tried this on .65 and back then it was un-playable due to joysticks not being able to calibrate. Re-checked in .70 and it works now. One problem....my joystick center constantly shifts in dosbox so I am re-calibrating very often and the dead zone settings in game have little effect (infact they will cause your craft to go into an un-stopable spin down and right if changed very much). The effects of this are easly counterable with slight constant pressure away and left on the joystick though sometimes in combat it can result in sticky situations in combat with allies arround. I have only had one crash of the program since I started using the new version. Very Stable otherwise.
Status: supported (2004-02-28 15:06) Sarky
Tested with 0.61 and runs perfectly except some random flickering during the video sequences.



Compatibility statistics (3929 games in database)
Version: Games broken: Games runnable: Games playable: Games supported:
DOSBox 0.74-3 (1255) 16 (1.27%) 34 (2.71%) 48 (3.82%) 1157 (92.19%)
DOSBox 0.73 (644) 16 (2.48%) 23 (3.57%) 17 (2.64%) 588 (91.30%)
DOSBox 0.72 (722) 45 (6.23%) 24 (3.32%) 31 (4.29%) 622 (86.15%)
DOSBox 0.71 (164) 29 (17.68%) 12 (7.32%) 8 (4.88%) 115 (70.12%)
DOSBox 0.70 (952) 23 (2.42%) 17 (1.79%) 29 (3.05%) 883 (92.75%)
DOSBox 0.65 (727) 39 (5.36%) 30 (4.13%) 41 (5.64%) 617 (84.87%)
DOSBox 0.63 (918) 76 (8.28%) 45 (4.90%) 46 (5.01%) 751 (81.81%)
DOSBox 0.62 (394) 56 (14.21%) 24 (6.09%) 27 (6.85%) 287 (72.84%)
DOSBox 0.61 (998) 87 (8.72%) 59 (5.91%) 68 (6.81%) 784 (78.56%)
DOSBox 0.60 (774) 108 (13.95%) 73 (9.43%) 72 (9.30%) 521 (67.31%)
DOSBox 0.58 (1149) 266 (23.15%) 15 (1.31%) 20 (1.74%) 848 (73.80%)






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