Failed trying to allocate DOS Near Pointers

I have been looking everywhere, including the forums and the net, for a description of this problem. If this has been posted before, I do appologize- for I'm the type to register to forums and search for answers instead of posting questions. I've found answers on here to all my questions, save this one. You guys got a solid team of experts on here.

I am getting this message when I try and run BOOM (and its command lines). For the life of me, I can't figure out why. I don't see anything written about it anywhere-

I'm sure this is probably an easy configuration issue I'm getting because I left out some simple detail. Of course, I read the txt files with the game- and they don't say anything about this problem.

The wads and all supporting files are in the proper directory. I can't even get it to start up in regular DOOM2, much less command lines to run PWADS.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

OS in question: Windows XP

The most important question of all: Which operating system are you using?

All I can tell you that this has nothing to do with Doom data files. This error message looks like the program cannot initialize due to an incompatibility.

Yeah, sorry about that. That was pretty stupid of me. Im running Windows XP

If you do manage to get Boom or Doom to run on Windows XP, it'll be without sound, or else with laggy behavior. You're better off trying these on DOSBox rather than the Windows command line.

Ah, so BOOM doesn't run on Windows XP. I have the collectors edition as well as the old CD-ROM editions. The Windows 95 launcher works, as well as ZDOOM and DoomLegacy and a few other sourceports.

I'll give it a shot on DOSBOX. If that is too laggy like you said- then I guess I'll just fire up the Windows 98 machine and try it there. Does anyone know if there is a VDMSound for BOOM, yet?

Since it appears to be an OS problem, I'm assuming I'm just SOL as far as BOOM on WinXP.

DOSBox is a DOS emulator. Boom is a DOS program, but with DOSBox, you can run any DOS program on Windows XP.

And if you want a Windows compatible experience that feels like Boom, then just download PrBoom or PrBoom-plus. Much easier.

What about using PrBoom instead? As far as I know, it's as close as possible from Boom (other ports have diverged more from it) but is compatible with Windows.

Frayo said:
If that is too laggy like you said-

Actually I meant it would be laggy in the Windows console, because of the way DOS programs access sound hardware, not DOSBox (unless your system is old).

If you try PrBoom as suggested, it has something called compatibility levels, that allow it to function much like Doom, Boom, or related engines.

Gez said:

What about using PrBoom instead? As far as I know, it's as close as possible from Boom (other ports have diverged more from it) but is compatible with Windows.

PrBoom 2.02 is more like a straight port of Boom to Windows, and is far more useful if you actually want to see if your maps run on *plain* Boom. Not that the later PrBoom versions are bad, but they have increased limits and extra features that don't really make them very useful for seeing if your map can run on Boom itself (the complevels don't do a thing except demo compatibility, sorry).

MikeRS said:
Not that the later PrBoom versions are bad, but they have increased limits and extra features that don't really make them very useful for seeing if your map can run on Boom itself (the complevels don't do a thing except demo compatibility, sorry).

What are you trying to say? They can be used for playing (without recording or anything). The only main difference is limits (twice as many sidedefs, particularly), and maybe a couple of vulnerabilities Boom may have. Level-editing related features that don't apply to Boom are not applied when the compatibility setting is used, and behavior is just like in Boom. I think PrBoom+ is slightly more reliable than PrBoom in this respect (if I remember correctly, plain PrBoom applies the MBF sky transfer line in Boom).

Yes, it's best to test with a purist engine, but PrBoom's compatibility levels are much better for testing Doom/+ and Boom levels than any other engine that doesn't have true compatibility or compatibility modes. They are useful for map editing. Doing most of the testing in PrBoom/+ and enough to ensure stability in Doom/Boom should be almost 100% reliable.

I mean, you can't really use recent versions of PrBoom(+) to see if your WAD can run in *plain* Boom. All you'd really see, is if it runs in PrBoom(+), complevel or not.

Otherwise this wouldn't happen (scroll down a few posts).

It looks to me that Frayo is just looking for a good way to play Boom maps that he's downloaded. He definitely isn't yet in the mapping stage of his Doom career - most people learn to play it before they learn to map for it. So don't bother extolling the virtues of Boom right now - PrBoom (or ZDoom) would be best for him at this point.