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Archy

Wolfenstein 3D for... Windows? [Where is Spear of Destiny?]

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While looking at eBay for Spear of Destiny, I came across this and after reading the title, noticed this:


I have never heard of Wolfenstein 3D having an official Windows port, does anyone have any info on this?

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If you get any of those OSes to run with 640KB of RAM or a 386 CPU (Windows 9x might, but 2000/XP won't), congratulations. They simply substituted "current Windows versions" for MS-DOS, it seems. While Wolf3D might run "directly" on 9x, it will realistically only work with DOSBox on 2000/XP, if you want broad compatibility.

What year is this release from? What's on the disk? Just the original DOS version with a DEICE installer?

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Archy said:

I have never heard of Wolfenstein 3D having an official Windows port, does anyone have any info on this?

Weird, it must be some late CD reprint of Wolf3D. The mention of XP implies that it must have been released 2001 or later.

I doubt there's any kind of proper Windows version included though. It probably just says Windows to avoid confusing any potential customers who look at the box.

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Maes said:

What year is this release from?

A CD version of Wolfenstein 3D (not Wolfenstein 3D + Spear of Destiny unlike the above) is claimed to have been released in 2001 by this seller.

eBay seller said:
Here is the Classic Wolfenstein 3D game for the PC by id (2001 release). Includes: The original disc in a generic jewel case only. No box etc. Disc is in excellent condition!

fraggle said:

I doubt there's any kind of proper Windows version included though. It probably just says Windows to avoid confusing any potential customers who look at the box.

Considering that Windows 95 needs at least 4MB of free RAM and not 640K, I'd assume you are right. That's very bold of Activision/ID to claim that a DOS executable will work on an NT system though...

Edit: And in some cases impossible as Windows XP does have an x64 edition, though they'd have no way of knowing that such a thing existed unless this was released in 2005 or after, which the above sellers claims as untrue.

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NTVDM was only in the 32-bit x86 versions of WinNT, and there were other architectures sporadically supported by Windows before 64-bit x86 (Itanium, Alpha, PowerPC...).

Still, someone probably just erased "MS-DOS" and replaced it with a list of relevant Windows versions with no testing. :)

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What's what I'm talking about, NTVDM is pretty unreliable when it comes to graphical application -- such as video games. Not to mention the lack compatible sound cards many 2000/XP users would posses.

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Archy said:

I have never heard of Wolfenstein 3D having an official Windows port, does anyone have any info on this?

That's Activision's 2001 re-release, it's nothing more than the DOS game with a Windows (Win95 onwards) installer. I have the Asia-Pacific release, which lacks Spear of Destiny. :(

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reminds me of when i found a Wolfenstein 3D/Spear of Destiny copy in standard DVD case on Gameshop years ago. it was cheap, but i ended up never buying it. kinda wish i would have done so, at least i'd own the game legally then.

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Blood has a Windows installer but they're not stupid enough to call it a Windows game.


Wolfenstein is being quite deceptive here.

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It still plays on NTVDM for WinXP, as far as I have checked. Sound Blaster should work. Adlib sound will not.

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Results vary drastically on different systems when it comes to NTVDM. On one of my older XP machines, NTVDM plays Doom flawlessly -- something that many can't say for themselves.

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There's nothing to do with deception. It's about selling it in a manner that lets people know it'll work on their system.

At any rate, it wouldn't fly today. Majority of PCs run 64-bit Windows.

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DOSBox.
Wolf4SDL.
ECWolf.

Doom is sold with DOSBox, and the same with other old games (like when on GOG). Probably they should sell Wolf3D likewise, so that it really works on Windows NT, but it isn't a big step to download DOSBox yourselves.

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Archy said:

Results vary drastically on different systems when it comes to NTVDM. On one of my older XP machines, NTVDM plays Doom flawlessly -- something that many can't say for themselves.


There had been a drastic change (for the worse) in NTVDM's compatibility starting from XP SP2. I recall that SP0 or SP1 XP installations could half-assedly play Wolf3D and Doom "directly" with full General MIDI music and even Sound Blaster SFX on most systems, but this became pretty much impossible after SP2, to the point that it was simply ruled out as a viable option. Installing VDMSound could restore Sound Blaster support and allow running some late DOS titles "directly" at full speed (e.g. CyberBykes or Shadow Racer VR from 1996 will play with the highest VESA resolution and full sound if VDMSound is used), but not e.g. Doom.

Generally, the more a game or app "bangs on the hardware" directly, the less probable it is that it will work with NTVDM: newer versions intercept and suppress many more direct-access attempts than older ones, something which is quite obvious with e.g. old DOS floppy disk, printer, sound and comms utilities, and of course games.

Also, some of the oldest AC'97 compatible onboard soundcards were Sound Blaster Pro compatible (some even had an optional SB16 compatibility option in the BIOS!), and a DOS game running through an old NTVDM could sometimes be allowed to "bang" close enough on the hardware to "just work". It's really many, many subtle factors, none of which will hold today and with 64-bit NT derivatives....

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I just got the disk and here's a recursive listing of its content:

 Volume in drive E is Wolfenstein 3D
 Volume Serial Number is 733F-B8E4

 Directory of e:\

10/26/2001  01:08 PM                43 AUTORUN.INF
11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          Bin
07/27/2000  01:49 PM         1,513,987 INSTMSIA.EXE
07/27/2000  01:49 PM         1,526,275 INSTMSIW.EXE
03/03/2000  07:15 PM            77,824 Launch.exe
11/27/2001  04:48 PM               370 Launch.ini
11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          PROGRAM FILES
10/23/2001  04:05 PM            83,790 README.HLP
02/07/2001  07:47 PM           102,400 SETUP.EXE
10/26/2001  10:44 AM            62,686 SETUP.INI
09/02/1997  01:04 PM             2,238 WOLF.ICO
10/26/2001  10:44 AM           268,288 WOLFENSTEIN 3D.MSI
              10 File(s)      3,637,901 bytes

 Directory of e:\Bin

11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          .
11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          ..
03/15/2000  10:44 AM           372,736 demo32.exe
03/15/2000  10:41 AM            28,672 ds32.dll
11/20/2001  02:00 PM             9,956 Greyedoutplay copy.bmp
11/27/2001  04:47 PM             5,464 WOLFEN~1.DBD
10/26/2001  11:30 AM           507,056 Wolfimage copy.bmp
11/20/2001  02:32 PM            10,920 Wolfimage final2 copy.bmp
11/09/2001  02:30 PM           170,080 Wolfimage copy3.bmp
               7 File(s)      1,104,884 bytes

 Directory of e:\PROGRAM FILES

11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          .
11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          ..
11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          Wolfenstein 3D
               0 File(s)              0 bytes

 Directory of e:\PROGRAM FILES\Wolfenstein 3D

11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          .
11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          ..
08/03/2001  12:23 PM                86 Activision.url
09/27/2001  06:18 PM                82 ID Software.URL
11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          Readme
09/27/2001  06:17 PM               117 Value Support.URL
11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          wolf3d
11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          wolfenstein
               3 File(s)            285 bytes

 Directory of e:\PROGRAM FILES\Wolfenstein 3D\Readme

11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          .
11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          ..
10/23/2001  04:02 PM           182,070 Read0000.BMP
10/23/2001  04:02 PM             4,862 Read0001.BMP
10/23/2001  04:02 PM           108,214 Read0002.BMP
10/23/2001  04:02 PM            51,478 Read0003.BMP
10/23/2001  05:40 PM            64,512 Readme.doc
10/23/2001  04:05 PM               373 Readme.err
10/23/2001  04:05 PM            83,790 README.HLP
10/23/2001  04:05 PM               535 Readme.hpj
10/23/2001  04:02 PM               166 Readme.hpr
10/23/2001  04:05 PM             2,900 Readme.hpt
10/23/2001  04:05 PM             6,288 Readme.ph
10/23/2001  04:05 PM            12,436 readme.prs
10/23/2001  04:02 PM                 0 Readme.qwm
10/23/2001  04:02 PM               150 Readme.rbh
10/23/2001  05:38 PM             5,346 Readme.rtf
              15 File(s)        523,120 bytes

 Directory of e:\PROGRAM FILES\Wolfenstein 3D\wolf3d

11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          .
11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          ..
04/13/1994  02:40 AM             1,156 AUDIOHED.WL6
04/13/1994  02:40 AM           320,209 AUDIOT.WL6
04/13/1994  02:40 AM           150,652 GAMEMAPS.WL6
04/13/1994  02:40 AM               402 MAPHEAD.WL6
04/13/1994  02:40 AM             1,024 VGADICT.WL6
04/13/1994  02:40 AM           275,774 VGAGRAPH.WL6
04/13/1994  02:40 AM               450 VGAHEAD.WL6
04/13/1994  02:40 AM         1,544,376 VSWAP.WL6
09/02/1997  01:04 PM             2,238 WOLF.ICO
01/27/1998  04:13 PM           108,779 WOLF3D.EXE
              10 File(s)      2,405,060 bytes

 Directory of e:\PROGRAM FILES\Wolfenstein 3D\wolfenstein

11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          .
11/27/2001  04:47 PM    <DIR>          ..
02/05/1998  07:34 PM           170,733 LAUNCH.EXE
08/30/2001  03:21 PM             8,899 Uninst.isu
               2 File(s)        179,632 bytes

     Total Files Listed:
              47 File(s)      7,850,882 bytes
              18 Dir(s)               0 bytes free
What I find highly... puzzling(?) is this:

Cover art said:


Yet there is no evidence of Spear of Destiny existing on the CD.

One of the menus after installation is this:

Yet selecting anything that has to do with Spear of Destiny just causes the menu to collapse to DOS without error (message).

Any ideas where Spear of Destiny could be? The disk came sealed so no tampering has occurred.

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Activision accidently printed a batch of the discs without SOD on it.

I contacted Activision about it, when I purchased a copy without SOD on it and they were nice enough to send me a CDR like disc with SOD on it.

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How should I go about contacting Activision?

Vermil said:

...CDR like disc with SOD on it.

Huh? "CDR like disc?" What on earth did they give you? Lol.

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I just went to their tech support; they asked for my name and address and sent me an unlabelled CD with a sticker on the front saying 'Spear of Destiny'.

Of course, this was probably around 2003-4, when the release or it's Xplosiv budget re-release, was still in shops.

Remember the release is about 12 years old now. So that will probably annihilate any chance you'd have of getting tech support now.

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Just looked into it and it appears they no longer support Wolfenstein 3D.

I'll contact the eBay seller, but it will be weird considering that he sold me a sealed copy...

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Well, I won't get an exchange, despite the fact that he currently sells the exact same item. Refund was offered but I denied.

Oh well, I guess it's more special getting both Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny separately; kinda like how even though I had Doom Collector's Edition, I still went out and bought The Ultimate Doom, Doom II: Hell on Earth and Final Doom individually.

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That price reminds me just how much more expensive games get as they get older and rarer.

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Note though, that Spear of Destiny Missions 2 and 3 were originally sold separately.

They were combined in the 'Spear of Destiny Super CD Pack'.

All four releases used the same box art graphic (different titles though), except that the stand alone releases of Missions 2 and 3 had coloured borders.

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The Spear of Destiny Super CD pack was released in 1994, the Activision release in 2001. Activision failed to mention on the packing that Missions 2 and 3 were included; consider it a mistake along the lines of system requirements declaring the game works on Windows, when the only Windows thing on the disc is the installer.

All three SOD Missions also look to be included in the Steam release of SOD, if the screenshots on the Steam page are anything to go by.

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Vermil said:

That price reminds me just how much more expensive games get as they get older and rarer.

Ahahaha, that price has to be a joke. I paid something like $10 for a copy of that exact same disc new less than ten years ago. (Activision sent me the SOD CD-R, too.) It was an incredibly common budget release, there's no way sealed copies are $70 rare now.

And yeah, all of the episodes are included with the Steam release.

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How could they be so careless as to make so many mistakes? Any person who knows the difference between a file and a folder should be able to avoid such errors.

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Dragonsbrethren said:

Ahahaha, that price has to be a joke. I paid something like $10 for a copy of that exact same disc new less than ten years ago. (Activision sent me the SOD CD-R, too.) It was an incredibly common budget release, there's no way sealed copies are $70 rare now.


Indeed, it probably is, but on my local Ebay, the Xplosiv budget re-release is going for about 3 times it's original cost these days. So it may have become a minor collectors item of sorts, worth about $20; it is the most recent physical release of Wolf3D for PC I believe (though don't quote me on that).

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