author: Pete Karsanow, hentaihelper[AT}dellepro{DOT)com
location: the latest revision of this FAQ will be posted to my
site at:
http://www.geocities.com/hentaihelper/
as the file: hgamefaq.txt
If you are reading this document on some other website, PLEASE
DON'T ask me about problems with that other website!
See section XI. below for legal considerations.
last revision: 31 August 2002
changes in last few revisions:
- changed Copyright/public domain part of Legal section
- added 'hair nude' to definitions, link tto J-List glossary
- expanded the range of the "3 sizes" convversion tables
- minor text editing
- changed my email address
- ABGA FAQ put in "other questions"
- several alternatives to NJWIN
- translation patches discussed, minor texxt tweaks
- added ACE compressor
- expanded the range of the "3 sizes" convversion tables
- added 'bishonen' and 'shoujo' to definittions, revised a few
others
- revised my trading policy: no English, ddon't need others
- PeaPri is on a mission from ... not a ...., forget it.
- finish conversion from the old format
- put the definitions in alphabetical ordeer, changed a few
- added 'bishoujo', 'Japanimation' to defiinitions
- photoshop for JAST games updated in III..c.
- "3 sizes" for the "feet and inches" amonng us
- switched to the "hentaihelper" email adddress
- switched to the "hentaihelper" web addreess
- minor text editing
- strange aside added to 'bromide' definittion
- added 'bromide' to definitions
- info about FCD and a mention of Virtual CD
- dug up some info from a MS-DOS 5.0 manuaal
- if Cyb ever updates the copy of this doccument on his website,
maybe I'll stop getting complaints about bad links there!
- added more from Curtis H. Hoffman's "Dr.. Etchi's Guide to 'H'
Manga" (so now I can delete the document!)
- mentioned the un-mosaic software
- more about files and operating systems
changes to come:
- none planned
Document Outline
----------------
I. Introduction
II. Definitions (in alphabetical order)
a. anime
b. BGM
c. bishoujo / shoujo
d. bishonen
e. bromide
f. CG
g. chikan
h. cosplay
i. ecchi / etchi
j. hair nude
k. hentai / H
l. Japanimation
m. omake / photoshop
n. sukebe
o. Super Deformed / SD
III. Hentai Anime Games
a. "Where do I find the games?"
b. "Where do the games come from?"
c. "How do I get to see the pictures?"
d. "I can't read Japanese (or Chinese)!"
e. "What about trading?"
f. "What about cracking or pirating games?"
g. "Are there non-H anime games?"
h. "How do I play these games?"
i. "What are these 3 strange numbers?"
j. "Why do you play these perverted games!?"
IV. Files you may need to play H games
a. DOS/V
b. DOSJ
c. NJWIN and other Asian language displayers
d. WINNLS.DLL
e. *.FCD, FAKECD.EXE, Virtual CD
f. *.ZIP, *.RAR, *.ARJ, *.LZH, *.ACE
V. DOS/V games on non-DOS/V PCs
a. "This anime game doesn't work!"
b. "This anime game doesn't display text!"
c. "This anime game plays messed-up music!"
c. "This anime game has messed-up graphics!"
e. "How do I capture images from this anime game?"
f. "How do I know if this game will work on my PC?"
g. non-ANSI characters in filenames
VI. DOS games in Windows 9x
a. "What's all this about shortcut properties?"
b. "Do I really need to use DOS mode?"
c. "How do you increase EMS? My game won't run, or
complains there is not enough EMS or expanded memory!"
VII. Japanese Windows games in Windows 9x
a. "I don't have Japanese Windows!"
b. "This anime game doesn't work!"
c. "This anime doesn't display text!"
VIII. Patching and Binary File Editors
a. "Why do I need to patch?"
b. "What means 'patch'?"
c. "OK, now what means 'binary file editor'?"
d. "Where do I get one of these marvelous editors?"
e. "What do I do with an editor?"
f. "Is there a patch to make ..a non-English game.. into
English?"
IX. Pete's or Pete's Site-specific questions
a. "Where are the games on your site?"
b. "Where are the hentai pictures on your site?"
c. "Send me ..an English-language game..!"
d. "I'll trade you for ..an English-language game..!"
e. "Why is there no file for ..game..?"
f. "When will you provide a file for ..game..?"
g. "What's your trading policy?"
h. "I'm having trouble downloading ..name of game.. from
your site..."
X. Other questions
a. "I have another question or want to know more!"
XI. LEGAL
---
I. Introduction
After previous incarnations as a long list of rambling
paragraphs, I finally got fed up and tried to organize my
knowledge and opinions on hentai games and related subjects. This
saves me the effort of putting the same explanations into many of
the files specific to a single game that I have or will write. It
also lets me respond with "read the FAQ" (RTF"faq") to people
that ask questions I have gotten tired of answering in e-mail.
I'm not trying to be mean, I just have too many demands on my
time.
A big portion of this FAQ will be general advice on how to run
DOS/V games under Windows 9x or DOS for the PC. Sorry, while I
used to have access to a Mac, I don't anymore, the amount of
anime software is heavily biased towards the PC, and the
computer-specific advice would be completely different. So, if
somebody complains about the lack of Mac, *nix, Amiga, or
whatever computer, they are welcome to develop that niche
themselves.
II. Definitions (in alphabetical order)
a. "anime" - pronounced "ah-knee-meh" by me. Basically, Japanese
animation ("Japanimation" is NOT encouraged). There are plenty of
"clean" sites to find a good definition, and lots of pictures
elsewhere that illustrate the wide range of possibilities in
anime. Suffice that there's a lot more to anime than the
relatively small hentai/ecchi genre. You should look on those
other sites for definitions of manga and OAV, too.
b. "BGM" - an abbreviation for 'background music'. Something that
is often ignored in American games, but is given a lot of
attention in Japanese games. For some games, you can buy
soundtrack albums! When a BGM entry is present on a menu in a
game, it should take you to a jukebox for all the various pieces
of music in the game, or will toggle music on/off.
c. "bishoujo" - literally "pretty girl" in Japanese. For the
purposes of this FAQ, a game or product that is focused on
beautiful young women (even if the main character is a guy). Peach
Princess is on a mission to use this word instead of hentai.
Unless there are no pretty girls in it at all, I'm using "bishoujo
game" instead of "non-H anime game." There can be adult bishoujo,
which we used to call H, and non-adult - just as there is adult
and non-adult anime work in many different kinds of media.
"shoujo" is "girl", and is used often when referring to media
targetted at girls, e.g. "shoujo manga."
d. "bishonen" - literally "pretty boy" in Japanese. From what I've
seen so far, much less popular than bishoujo.
e. "bromide" - a picture of a scantily-clad girl, from the
Japanese 'promaido' - picture of a famous person. I've only seen
this in the Playstation game "Lunar Silver Star Story Complete",
but it seems applicable here. See "CG" and "omake."
Strangely though, in 1900 bromide was thought to diminish sexual
desire in women!
f. "CG" - CG is an abbreviation for Computer Graphics, used in
some games and elsewhere to refer to computer-generated anime
pictures (see "bromide" and "omake"). These aren't necessarily H,
although in a H game they usually are.
g. "chikan" - Groper, molester of women, would-be rapist
(definition courtesy of Curtis H. Hoffman's "Dr. Etchi's Guide to
'H' Manga"). Title of an H game where it specifically referred to
a "train-riding pervert who fondles girls". It's apparently not
uncommon for this to happen on Japanese commuter trains each day.
I found a mention in a tabloid about one chikan who specifically
targeted deaf girls from one particular school for the deaf.
h. "cosplay" - I'm taking a wild swing at this one, but it's
probably a colloquialism for "costume play". Used when talking
about the people (usually girls) who dress up in costumes to pay
tribute or just because they want to look like a character from
some anime manga, game, or OAV. I've seen this at gaming and anime
conventions in the USA, but it's apparently even more prevalent in
Japan!
i. "ecchi" / "etchi" - pronounced "eh-chi" by me. The way that
the letter "h" is pronounced in Japanese, and therefore another
way to refer to "hentai".
"Etchi" is a variant spelling I found once in a document about H
manga, and I include it here only for completeness.
Somebody who should know (says he's been in Japan for 9 years)
said:
"Ecchi" is the short form of the Japanese mutilation of the word
"erotic" or "erochikku" shortened to "e-cchi". "Erotic" actually
means "perverted" in the Japanese sense of the word. You may
also see just "ero" as in "ero-bon" (erotic book, or "porn mag").
Or "ero-jiji" as in "erotic old man"...
The use of the roman letter "H" has to do with the fact that it
resembles the sound of the shortening of "erotic" into ecchi.
This was first used to my knowledge in a japanese animation show
of the title "H" in the early 80's and it caught on.
I hope we've beaten that one into the ground now...
j. "hair nude" - after several mentions of it by Peter Payne on
J-List, it seems to refer to bishoujo graphics that show pubic hair
but no anatomical details beyond that. Seen in the "Anime Pinup Girls"
series of 4 disks, and others. Considered "censored" by some people,
but a mild form compared to mosaic, flower pots in the way, or "bright
light from the genitals."
k. "hentai" / "H" - first one pronounced "hen-tie" by me. Hentai
is a Japanese word best understood as "perverted" or "sexually
oriented". Li Sun defined it on his web site as "male fun." The
letter H is often used to abbreviate hentai, thereby leading to
ecchi (see above). Hentai can be used as an adjective ("hentai
game"), or as a noun by itself - then it means a sex-crazed male
or more commonly "dirty old man" (usually with drooling). See
the "ecchi" entry for where H is supposed to have come from. Peach
Princess prefers using "bishoujo" instead of hentai, to avoid the
commerical aversion to adult-only products.
l. "Japanimation" - a deprecated (i.e. use is discouraged) term
formerly used for anime. AVOID AVOID AVOID!
m. "omake" / "photoshop" - first one pronounced "oh-ma-kay" by
me. The omake in a hentai game is often also called the
photoshop, the menu option that shows you some or all of the sexy
anime pictures present in the game. Further details are specific
to a particular game. I've been informed that better definitions
for "omake" are "extras" and "bonus", and "present" or "gift."
The omake may include a photoshop, tally of all endings seen so
far, % or # of graphics seen so far, music jukebox (see BGM),
extra images (see CG), previews of other products, credits and
other information about the creators.
n. "sukebe" - don't know pronunciation, but it's "normal sex",
as opposed to the "perverted sex" in hentai, H, or ecchi. You
can be a dirty old man and be sukebe, but if you're drooling or
looking for panties, you're past that. Courtesy of Curtis H.
Hoffman's "Dr. Etchi's Guide to 'H' Manga".
o. "Super Deformed" / "SD" - SD is the abbreviation of Super
Deformed. These are the really small and cute-and-silly-looking
versions of anime characters that are there to be, well, cute and
silly-looking. In games where you have to walk around a graphical
map, or there isn't much room to display a realistic looking
character, or a character is supposed to get so upset that they
don't look normal, SD graphics are often used. You may also get
them on the last screen before a bad ending in a game. SD usually
has small body and big head, but is still anime.
If there are further terms that you want defined, try looking at
http://www.jlist.com/glossary.html
III. Hentai Anime Games
a. "Where do I find the games?"
Sorry, officially I can't help you on this one, except to suggest
doing a lot of Internet searching. The phrase "hentai game" is a
good starting point. Why don't I help? Well, the ABPEA FAQ is
pretty good there - better read it! The leech phenomenon is as
bad or worse now than when the FAQ was first written. Plus it
pays me to keep my mouth shut so nice people will give me access
to their secret stash so I can help with more games. Hint Hint!
Oh, by the way, ABPEA stands for
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.anime, the name of a Usenet
newsgroup where people used to sometimes post games or even
erotic anime pictures. Unfortunately, like much of Usenet, ABPEA
is now often clogged with spam. I don't check it anymore.
This also seems like a good place for a diatribe about leeches,
but I'll pass, because I'm a leech in my own small way. I hang my
head in shame, but I'm just as responsible as some unknown number
of people for bringing down at least one Web site where game(s)
were available.
b. "Where do the games come from?"
Originally, many of these games are written and sold in Japan,
Taiwan, Hong Kong (well, maybe not there anymore), and South
Korea. Some were originally written in Japanese and then
converted to Chinese. If you are the typical American, the
reliance on sex as part of the story is staggering, but it is
quite normal, although maybe a bit "low-class", throughout
society there.
Now how do they get out here, where "here" is the rest of the
world (not only Americans go for this stuff - I've found people
or sites in Myanmar, Mexico, Australia, Great Britain, Canada,
Spain, and Germany)? Well, there is apparently a thriving
"cracker" and "courier" subculture out there which often
distributes cracked versions of these games long before some
legitimate company decides to translate it to English. I have no
direct connection with any of these people. See my trading policy
regarding trading translated games. Also see the ABPEA FAQ.
c. "How do I get to see the pictures?"
That depends on the exact game. Some are distributed with the
photoshop already turned on, so all you have to do is look in the
right place. Many others are supplied "new", so you have to play
the game or read one of my helpful files (if there is one).
And some don't have a photoshop at all, so you have to play
through the game to see any pictures. JAST games, even the
English versions, have all done this so far. If there's no
photoshop, you may be forced to use a capture utility while
playing the game, or search the Net to see if somebody else has
done it already and collected the images as a series for you to
download.
UPDATE: Using a principle that I described long ago, it has now
been demonstrated that a JAST game which uses a script embedded in
a .OVL file can have a photoshop. Basically, somebody creates a
sequence of .OVL files that will show all the sexy pictures in the
game, and modifies a saved game file to start up the game at the
beginning of this photoshop sequence. This requires that you copy
the game to your hard drive and overwrite at least one saved game,
but it has been made to work for "Runaway City" and "3 Sister's
Story." Unfortunately, while the principle should be applicable to
other JAST games like "Season of the Sakura" and "Setsuju", the
hand coding of a .OVL file to make it work is difficult, and I
haven't had time to figure it out for more than the two games
mentioned above.
d. "I can't read Japanese (or Chinese)!"
Neither can I. I've compared trying to figure out what goes on in
one of these games to "understanding Shakespeare just from the
punctuation marks." You may recognize "..." and "!", but the
quotation marks are sometimes strange bracket things not in the
ASCII character set. And the ASCII character set isn't used there
either - without the text being in graphics already, you need
special driver software (see below) to get more than gibberish on
the screen. With the right stuff, at least it looks like Japanese
or Chinese. If you're really interested, you can learn the
language, but it will be rather difficult, even if you already
learned to speak it. If you're willing to click through lots of
text without knowing or caring what's really going on, in many
games you can get by just by looking at the pictures. That's the
way I do it, and I write up files on many anime games.
By the way, unless the translators are very good, and the program
has the space for it, English takes up about double the space of
Japanese. So don't expect an English version to make a lot of
sense. Sometimes its the translators and lousy proofreading,
other times it's trying to put 10 pounds in a 5 pound sack. In
newer games, it's the former.
And even if the translation is done well, there are a lot of
things taken for granted in Japan that require a lot of
explanation to make sense to gaijin like me.
e. "What about trading?"
I've done some trading of games with other people, but its not an
easy process. What helps is having a current list of what you
have, and maybe even what you most want to get. Then the two
parties can negotiate what they will trade with each other. It
also helps to have a good way to transfer the data.
I'd use email as a last resort, but some people have even sent
boxes of floppies via snail mail. If you don't think too many
people know about your site, an FTP site is good. IRC and ICQ
also has a file transfer capability. Then just make sure you
follow through and actually do the trade! Somebody that gets and
never gives will quickly get a bad reputation. There are too many
games out there to get all of them by being a leech.
Why don't I like email trading? In my case, I use a rather dumb
mail client, all I can tell is that I'm getting message "m of n",
and sometimes how far along the download is. When it takes 40
minutes to download your mail, and one glitch can force you to do
it all over again, I'm sure you can appreciate why I sort of
dread getting new mail. Same thing but worse for sending out
large files - if it bounces, you get the whole thing back! With
an error message added! Some people also have limits on how large
an included file can be (too big and it bounces back!). All this
makes email trading difficult for me, but I have done it.
There's also the issue of if trading is legal - see the next
question below.
My policy is now to avoid trading; I don't need anything else and
have more than enough to keep me busy. I definitely refuse to
trade any kind of game translated into English and sold as a
commercial product. That's my way of encouraging the Japanese
companies and those in other countries into releasing products
that at least the American and British and other English-speaking
countries can use. I may ignore messages that ask me to trade
English games, except to ask how to legally obtain something I
haven't heard of or ordered yet. It really bugs me that I still
get stuff like "I heard really good things about Nocturnal
Illusion but I can't afford it. whine whine. Send it to me!"
f. "What about cracking and pirating games?"
There are groups out there that crack or pirate games. I don't
know any personally, but I have encountered enough .NFO files to
realize that I'm not seeing all the stuff that's out there. I
don't crack games, just patch them to show the pictures that
you'd see if you played the game all the way through. In many
cases, the game is distributed cracked. Of course, everything
except the ones I buy comes without printed documentation. That's
the price you don't pay. If the SPA or something like it wants to
beat on me, the worst they can get me for is being a user, not a
distributor or producer. You can hide behind "24 hour trial" and
stuff like that (like the 24 hours being counted only when you
are running the game, not July 7th alone), but it sounds hollow
to me. I don't have any really good answers on this one.
g. "Are there non-H anime games?"
You'd think these would be a lot easier to find, but it seems
that sex is an incentive for people to produce, sell, trade, and
pirate the H ones more than the non-H. So while there are some
games out there which are not H but are still anime, they can be
tougher to find! These are of interest to me too, but probably
not to the true hentai. But even I have trouble staying
interested in a horse racing game without pictures of naked
women...
Here's one of my soapboxes: I'd gladly play a game like Cobra
Mission or Knight of Xentar without the sexy images, if that was
all that was available. And putting those images in a mediocre
game may even redeem it a little, but it shouldn't be an excuse
for pushing crap on the marketplace. I have a low tolerance for
badly written games or bad grammar, although people are sometimes
amazed how much time I'll waste on a product that "everybody"
agrees isn't worth it. On the other hand, I'm not interested in a
3-D real-time shooter - I'd rather have the kind of walk-around
RPG that Knight of Xentar was. That's my opinion, and you're
welcome to it.
I know of at least 3 sites where you can get non-H anime games,
and there may be H stuff there too. But since nobody has asked me
about them in almost a year, it looks like nobody cares.
h. "How do I play these games?"
There are a lot of different types of H (or even non-H) anime
games, just like non-anime games. However, the AVG or adventure
game is a common type. There are others, such as RPG (Role Playing
Game), or sub-types like SLG (Simulated Life Game or "bring-up
simulation"), and even ARC (Arcade games). The subjects can vary a
lot, but a common theme is a young man (the main character, you,
often not shown very well) in a situation where he can meet lots
of different girls (and try to have sex with one or more of them).
Mahjong and horse-racing are very popular with some people. So,
it's hard to give advice on playing the games in general. Often,
it can be "trial and error" or just relying on your experience in
playing similar games.
Thanks to "Li Sun" for bringing this subject up on his web
page: most of the anime adventure games are of the "Multiple
Choice Text Command" (MCTC) type. Actually, they are even more
particular than that. Sometimes the game makes snide comments
when you pick the "wrong" choice, or it really doesn't matter
what you pick sometimes. In an effort to keep the player from
"losing face" (supposition on my part), in many of them you
can't help reaching the end. Well, that's just the programming
of only one end. There are some (e.g. Isle) with many endings,
although only a few can be considered a "happy end" or "good
ending." So, in many of these games, especially if you can't
read the language, there is no real harm in just wildly
clicking on a menu option, waiting for a lot of text to
display (pressing a key or a mouse click may speed this up)
and repeating it until the output text stabilizes. Then try
another option, and do the same over and over with different
options or repeating the same ones until you go somewhere
else, judging by the graphics or music. That's my standard
operating procedure. Modify only when a particular response
must be given (I figure this out when I keep ending up at
"bad end" situations) or you have no clue why things are not
going anywhere fast. In one case, I resorted to rolling
a die to generate the number of the option to pick next.
You may also notice that I've copied Li Sun's short
descriptions of the games when they are available. I hope he
doesn't mind...
Besides MCTC AVGs, it can sometimes be extremely difficult to
figure out how to play some games. Try strange things! A lot
of newer Windows-based games WILL do something different when
you right-click. Without documentation for a particular game,
and no way to read the text output, you're in the same boat
as me when it comes to trying to figure things out - except
that I've got a bunch of games and I'm writing files to help
you guys out...
i. "What are these 3 strange numbers?"
Nearly all of the civilized world uses the metric system of
measurement, except the United States of America, Yemen, and
possibly certain old-fashioned British grocers who don't get this
newfangled thing about kilograms. So when you see a person's
height given in a game, or information about a game (like a demo),
it will usually be given in terms of centimeters or cm. 2.54
centimeters to an inch, you know the drill... For those Americans
who haven't memorized converting from centimeters to feet and
inches without cybernetic aid (e.g. calculator), here's a handy
table (rounded off to the nearest inch):
height in cm: feet & inches:
141-143 4' 8" (56")
144-146 4' 9" (57")
147-148 4'10" (58")
149-151 4'11" (59")
152-153 5' 0" (60") }
154-156 5' 1" (61") this range is typical
157-158 5' 2" (62") Japanese female height
159-161 5' 3" (63") }
162-163 5' 4" (64") }
164-166 5' 5" (65") }
167-168 5' 6" (66")
169-171 5' 7" (67")
172-173 5' 8" (68")
------- ------------
187-189 6' 2" (74") usually a guy
Now to answer the original question, some games will give the "3
measurements" or "3 sizes" (bust, waist, hips - or B W H) for a
girl/woman. Of course, most times these are in centimeters as well.
Therefore, here's another handy table for those used to "36-26-36"
(also rounded off to the nearest inch):
measurement in cm: inches:
50-52 20
53-54 21 }
55-57 22 this better be a Waist...
58-59 23 }
60-62 24 }
63-64 25 }
----- --
70-72 28 no-see-ums!
73-74 29
75-77 30
78-80 31 }
81-82 32 }
83-85 33 }
86-87 34 Bust and Hips typically
88-90 35 }
91-92 36 }
93-95 37 } (.) (.)!
Therefore, Ayumi Shimizu in "Tokimeki Check-In!" is 5'2" tall, and
measures 35-22-33. Japanese women in H games are often smaller
than Americans are used to, but can be well-endowed for their
height. I doubt that realistic measurements are always used, or
what's given is the pictured girl's "actual" measurements, as
sometimes very large bust sizes are given, or the hips are bigger
than the bust, and the image is of a reasonable "3 sizes."
Anyway, these numbers just give a better idea of the girl's
physical appearance. The tables above cover all the values for
the "Tokimeki Check-In!", "Lakers 2", "The Maid's Story",
"LoveLoveShow" and "Muto's Memories" games.
j. "Why do you play these perverted games!?"
I won't get into a morality argument on the alleged sins of
creating or playing adult-oriented games.
My purpose in beating on these games is to see the pictures,
basically. If you can read the language, the game has additional
entertainment value. So, in most cases, the most important thing
to both me and the audience will be "how do I get to see all the
(sexy) pictures in the game?" That's usually called a photoshop,
or "omake" (oh-mah-kay). In many games, you must complete:
the game just once, or ...
all the game's various endings at least once, or ...
the game with a certain item or after a certain action
in order to activate a game main menu option that will show you
the pictures. Some games don't even have a photoshop, even though
they have dozens of pictures you'd like to see again. For example,
I've never seen a photoshop in any JAST game. Anyway, the cheat
part is that either somebody who has finished the game properly,
or somebody who has figured out what bit values in game files do
the job, provides a file or instructions that will turn on the
photoshop in your copy of a game. Some people even distribute the
game files necessary, although I usually write text files with
instructions on how to make your own photoshop patches.
IV. Files you may need to play H games
a. DOS/V is the version of MS-DOS you're supposed to have if you
are running a Japanese or Chinese PC like the ones that are
commonly available in the US. That's as opposed to an FM-TOWNS
or NEC PC-9801 which are actually very different machines but
rather common in Japan. DOS/V handles the large and complicated
character sets used in those languages with special display
driver software and font files. It really complicates the
CONFIG.SYS file and the bootup process to have it, and will
interfere in minor ways (e.g. the '1/2' and '1/4' characters
display as something else) with English versions of DOS or
Windows, even Windows 95. The first game that was found to
require some form of DOS/V and wouldn't work with DOSJ, was
KINX. Ruined a perfect record! There are others too. But DOSJ
still works for a lot of DOS/V games, and I suggest you use it
instead of DOS/V when you can.
The implementation of DOS/V can be done several ways. One that is
distributed as "dosvptch.zip" just includes some driver and font
files, you have to patch your CONFIG.SYS file, and requires you
to locate a COUNTRY.SYS file, but lets you create a way to switch
easily between DOS/V and regular DOS. In fact, I suggest you
create a DOS/V boot floppy. There are other ways to load up
DOS/V, but for getting the KINX game to work, dosvptch is the way
to go.
b. DOSJ is a small freeware TSR program that sets up a minimal
display driver function to allow the display of Japanese symbols
on an American PC screen. This turns out to be sufficient for
most (but not all) DOS/V games to work on your "American" PC. It
uses a small amount of conventional memory, a reasonable amount
of expanded memory (I forget exactly, but you won't notice it on
anything less than 4 MB total). You may have to get some font
files to make it work, if they aren't included with your copy of
DOSJ when you find one out there on the Net. Because there are
other sites where you can obtain DOSJ, I'm not bothering to put
it on mine. I recommend using DOSJ, version 1.0 or later, instead
of DOS/V because it takes up minimal memory, can be removed from
memory later, and is compatible with several different fonts. You
should be able to find DOSJ out on the Net yourself pretty easily
as dosj.zip, or by doing a search for the word "dosj".
If you can't, then you obviously know so little about the
Internet and how to find software that I don't want to spend the
hours it will take to help you. Sorry, but I'm tired of walking
clueless newbies through the baby section.
..step down from soapbox..
One thing which may not be obvious is that the DOSJ archive you
get may not come with any font files. The reason given by the
DOSJ author is that they would have made the archive a lot
bigger, and you can get the files easily yourself. Some versions
of the archive have fonts, some don't. The easiest font files to
find are the JKF2.DAT, JKF3.DAT, and JKF4.DAT files from the
"Angel" or B3X game. Just copy them to the DOSJ directory, or use
the command line for DOSJ to tell it where the files are. This
makes more sense if have read and understood the DOSJ
documentation.
c. NJWIN is a shareware package with a 30 day timer (until you
register it) that runs under Windows 95 (there is a separate
version for Windows 3.x) which allows the display of Japanese,
Chinese, and Korean characters on the Windows screen. I haven't
tried a printout yet to see if a screen capture or dump is
supported. NJWIN has many options, appears to be very stable, and
is actively supported by a software company that makes, among
other things, a Japanese word processing program. NJWIN has no
apparent effect on full-screen DOS sessions, which most DOS or
DOS/V games need. But for the Japanese or Chinese Windows games
out there, NJWIN is sometimes needed to display text correctly. I
think you should get it, and support the company that produces
it, if you have or get any Windows games that don't display
Japanese or Chinese text properly. One annoyance with NJWIN is
that in some games the text comes out with a white background,
which doesn't fit in with the game. No idea how to fix that one.
Another annoyance is that sometimes the text is displayed with a
"[" for every character ("l[i[k[e[ [t[h[i[s"). It may be that my
version is too old, but I'm not trying to read the text anyway.
X-GIRL and some other Ides games had this problem.
I don't have enough information about it to give it a separate
entry yet, but there is another program out there called MView
which does many of the same things as NJWIN, but has different
sized fonts. Supposed to run slower, but you shouldn't notice it
on H games. When I know more, or am forced to use it, I'll put in
a full entry on MView.
There are more alternatives to NJWIN. Some of them are:
KanjiWEB, Babylon, MView Pro, Richwin and Unionway. All these do
is attempt to properly display Chinese, Japanese and/or Korean
characters under "English" Windows. They do NOT translate the
foreign language to English! The individual software packages may
actually do more, for instance supporting printing or foreign
language character input, but for our purposes (playing games),
those functionalities are unnecessary.
d. WINNLS.DLL is a file that some Windows 95 (maybe Windows 3.x)
anime games require to run. I'm not sure if it is supposed to be
purchased from Microsoft as part of a language support package,
but apparently just that one file is enough to get some otherwise
useless software (e.g. a demo of KINDAN on a Japanese games
magazine CD) to work. I've found several sites where you can get
it, or have somebody send it to you on request. Because of the
legal ambiguity, I'm not providing WINNLS.DLL on my site.
There are at least 3 versions of WINNLS.DLL available. One was
just a short stub, but it fails when the program really needs it
to perform functions, instead of just wanting a file with that
name to exist. Another was labeled as part of a TwinBridge
package, and needed the file TBIMM.DLL as well to work.
I'm sticking with the one I have, which is a file from a company
I love to hate. Bill, you didn't really need ALL those lawyers
fo' lil' ol' me... :)
e. *.FCD, FAKECD.EXE and Virtual CD
You may find files with the extension FCD (*.FCD) out there,
especially on the newsgroup alt.binaries.games.anime (according to
Steve, who asked me about them so I wrote this). It's a virtual
CD-ROM file format. Others that do much the same job are .NRG
(Nero CD image) and .RAW (image file for WinOnCD and ToGo).
There's an FAQ for the people that burn CDs (not quite what FCD is
used for) at:
http://www.butthedd.com/abcdi-faq/thefaq.html
FCD is the file extension for the FakeCD program, you can download
that from several places:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/2812/download.html
http://www.levelten.demon.co.uk/software/cracks/fakecd.exe
http://members.tripod.com/~Nacho69/Filez.html
(all unverified).
But the absolute "horse's mouth" source for FAKECD (i.e. this guy
claims to be the author) is apparently:
http://www.math.uni-rostock.de/~nfa506/fakecddr.html
which also has FAKEDR.
FakeCD is described as a MSCDEX emulator that allows you to present
a FCD file where your computer is looking for a real CD. It may
require you to exit Windows 95/98 to DOS, possibly even reboot to
DOS 6.22 or lower. If you don't have a CD drive -and- the CD, FCD
may be the way to go. It should also have the side effect of
speeding up data access, because you're using your hard drive
instead of a CD.
Something better and more recent called Virtual CD from an outfit
that may be called FARSTONE, only other information I have is that
a time-limited demo was available.
f. *.ZIP, *.RAR, *.ARJ, *.LZH, *.ACE
ZIP and ARJ and RAR, oh my! ZIP should be pretty familiar as a
file compression format to anyone who has downloaded software
off the Net or a BBS. Maybe second in popularity is
self-extracting EXE files. After that, you get into special
cases, but they are basically different compression programs that
are incompatible with each other. You need to have the
decompression program (equivalent of PKUNZIP.EXE) to get the
files out of there.
The .ARJ extension is for (surprise!) the ARJ program, and the
.A?? (.A01, .A02, etc.) extensions as well. Here's a hint for ARJ
files in particular, which may apply to other formats: if you
receive multiple archive files which are in a sequence, such as
GAME.ARJ, GAME.002, GAME.003, etc., make sure you have ALL the
files before you start complaining. Notice I left out 001 in the
example? Well, in this disguised case, GAME.001 was INSIDE
GAME.ARJ. And also, my version of ARJ didn't like the 001 type of
extension, it wanted A01. So, it turned out the only way to
guarantee stable deARJ of the game was to rename the files and
move them around so they appeared in the directory in the same
order I wanted them to be extracted.
The .RAR extension and .R?? as well are for the RAR.EXE or
UNRAR.EXE program.
The .LHA and .LZH are for the LHARC or LHE program.
The .ACE and .C?? extensions are for the WinAce program.
You should be able to find the latest versions of these programs
yourself. After all, you found the games, which is the difficult
part, how much more trouble is it to find the decompression
program? In all cases, it is always possible that the posting was
bad, or your download was bad. Try doing a "test" on the
compressed files, if possible. You should check for a virus too,
before you install or play the game the first time, just to be
sure. I don't want any of you people complaining to me that I
didn't warn you...
Note that some people try to conceal the files for pirated games
by changing the extension to something else. For instance, putting
a .ZIP file on a "free disk space" server, but changing it to
.GIF on the end. Only the download site that links to the file
will tell you what to rename it to. Or if you're really
experienced, you can fire up an editor and figure out what it's
supposed to be.
V. DOS/V games on non-DOS/V PCs
a. "This anime game doesn't work!"
Well, that's rather vague! Assuming that you don't know what the
game's system requirements are, because they are in Japanese or
you don't have a clue what they could be, you are therefore
complaining about the inability to get a game to run properly or
at all. The "properly" is handled in multiple cases below, the
"at all" is handled here.
- OK, first let's make sure you've got a ssupposedly workable copy
of the game. If it came compressed (ZIP, ARJ, RAR, whatever), use
the decompression software's "test" function to make sure that
the game's files weren't damaged. If they are, go get another
copy somehow, or let your source know there is a problem and
maybe they can locate a working copy, or ask the source to upload
one.
- Verify that you have performed any setupp steps required for the
game. A game may need to be "installed" using an INSTALL.BAT,
SETUP.BAT, INSTALL.EXE or something similar, which may further
uncompress game files and place them in another location. You may
also need to run some kind of sound or graphics setup program
(sound more likely than graphics) to inform the game of your
particular computer's configuration.
- Be sure you are invoking the correct proogram to start the game.
You may have to run one particular .BAT, .EXE, or .COM file to
start the game, and the wrong one may crash your computer. This
one requires some experience-based judgement, because the
situation can change with each game. Learn how to interpret the
contents of .BAT files to see if they are performing installation,
cleanup, or game startup tasks. Know that executable files with
the names of other executable files buried inside them are
probably calling those other files, and so are more likely to be
able to start a game.
- If you can't find an EXE, COM, or BAT fiile, then you either got
an incomplete piece of something, or it isn't even for the PC.
For example the FM-TOWNS (incompatible with PC) appears to use
.EXP for executable files instead of .EXE.
- Make sure you have all the files the gamme requires. If you get
an error message with a filename involved, check that the file is
indeed present, and the size isn't zero.
- Satisfy game requirements for memory, otther files, and
hardware. Some games may require expanded or extended memory, or
need a minimum amount of free conventional memory, or must have a
mouse or sound card before they will work. You may get an error
message, in some cases it may even stay on the screen long enough
for you to try to read it! The best remedy for this one is to
have a robust configuration for your PC that provides all the
things the game might need: lots of conventional memory, at most
2 MB of expanded memory, and whatever's left as extended memory,
plus a working sound card and mouse. Try running DOSJ to provide
text support on the off chance that the game is stopping because
that display function wasn't being supported.
- If it still doesn't work, it may not eveer work! Because you
often don't know what you're getting in this business, don't
assume that a game is meant to run on your American PC. Some fool
may have given you a PC-9801 version and not made any note of
that at all. They may have forgot to include some of the files
needed. Try asking around, and you may find that others have the
same problem with this game. KINX is a prime example: under DOSJ
the opening graphics work, but the main part of the game will
crash. Playing with how the game is started produces different
kinds of crashes. The consensus on the Net for a while was that
the copy of KINX we all got "just doesn't work". Then some bright
person tried it with DOS/V instead of DOSJ! I don't remember who
to thank, but I'm glad somebody went to the trouble of finding
this out and letting us know.
b. "This anime game doesn't display text!"
If this is a DOS-based game, then using DOSJ usually fixes the
problem. Some Japanese and Chinese DOS games will not show ANY
text on the screen if you don't have DOS/V or DOSJ to allow the
text to display properly. Others will show strange blocks or
graphic arrows, or even refuse to run at all. But not all anime
games require DOS/V or DOSJ, particularly Chinese games may have
internal text support, and so will only have a problem in this
area if some game files are missing or damaged.
c. "This anime game plays messed-up music!"
Sometimes the music provided with a particular game is rather
strange, and without knowing what it's SUPPOSED to sound like,
you may have a hard time telling the difference. For instance,
the MIDI music in ISAKU is so creepy that I felt really
uncomfortable with it on at all, so I muted my sound card while
playing! On the other hand, one version of a game played music
extremely fast, which I found annoying but not obviously wrong,
until I got another version of the game which played what turned
out to be the same music at a "normal" speed. Turns out there is
some kind of incompatibility between my sound card and that
game. If this kind of thing is happening to you, let me know
details about the game title and your sound card, and I'll keep
working on a fix for the SB32 AWE PnP or whatever I have now.
- In hint/cheat/walkthrough files that I'vve written, I made some
references to audio compatibility for sounds and music. I used to
have a Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (PAS16) sound card, and
given the proper settings for Sound Blaster emulation (8-bit
sound), it usually was automatically detected and things worked
fine. Then I upgraded to a SoundBlaster 32 AWE PnP, and most
games responded automatically to that too. But some DOS/V games
(Mobius Rod from Silky's is one) that used to play MIDI in MS-DOS
mode now play tinny PCM music when invoked with a MS-DOS shortcut.
I should try it out with MS-DOS mode to see if Windows 95 is
messing up the nice music somehow... Anyway, if you notice a
difference in how I treat sound and music compatibility in some of
my files, that's the reason.
- You may be suffering from System Exclusiive (SysEx) data placed
in the MIDI file by the author. I'm not sure if these are ignored
if your sound setup doesn't have the appropriate hardware, but a
lot of the games I've gotten recently had it. The MIDI files are
usually also compressed into a single track, which means my MIDI
editor can't read them above a certain size, so I can't even fix
them to remove the SysEx data.
- In the case of the SB 32 AWE PnP, there is a workaround of
sorts. If the music sounds strange (usually low bass piano chords
throughout), try changing the settings in Windows 95: Settings /
Control Panel / Multimedia / MIDI tab. Change 'Single instrument'
from AWE32 to OPL3. If you're using custom settings, do something
similar for all channels. It may also be damaged software drivers
(get latest from Creative).
- If you get strange piano noises and no ppercussion, make sure
you have turned the percussion channel on properly. It's very
easy to mess up the settings in Windows. In 95, it's Start /
Settings / Control Panel / Multimedia / MIDI. Beyond that, once
you get into Instrument Definitions and channel assignments, look
out for accidentally clicking on something that will turn off
channel 10 or 16 use as percussion.
- Make sure that you haven't turned on alll 16 MIDI channels. Some
pieces have one version on channels 11 to 16, and another on 1 to
10. Playing both at once may cause strange sounds. I've settled
on 1-10 with a backup setting for 11-16 in case nothing comes
out. Read a good MIDI FAQ for more about this.
d. "This anime game has messed-up graphics!"
- If you're referring to objects or "mosaiic" or shading in the
way of the female pubic region, or nothing there at all, live
with it! That's a number one newbie FAQ on the various anime
newsgroups, and I refuse to get involved with it. Same thing goes
for the male equipment. Note that some English versions of
Japanese games tout that their graphics are "uncensored". Often
that means that the blank spots or other concealment has been
removed by drawing in some version of what should be there, but
sometimes by a different artist, and possibly not done as well
as the original. "Uncensored" graphics in English H games CANNOT
be legally imported back into Japan! There is supposed to be a
software utility that can turn some mosaic concealment back into
the original image - I don't have it myself, and I'll let you
look for it yourself now that you have a clue it's out there.
- If you're referring to distateful sceness involving strange
equipment or non-humans, live with it! The Japanese are
disgracefully open-minded about sex compared to some other
societies. That still doesn't explain the fascination with
tentacles, but it's the best I can do.
- Now, if you're referring to places in thhe game where the screen
goes crazy and comes back, or the graphics appear to suddenly
jump sideways as if you shoved the screen, that's probably an
intentional part of the game. Probably trying to simulate the
main character being slapped or hit. Note the following though:
- I used to have a Tseng ET-4000/W32 videoo card, and then
upgraded to a Matrox Mystique. The Tseng had some compatibility
problems with some video effects used in some games, e.g.
"shaking screen" used in Aishim, Metal & Lace, and Koi-Hime among
others. That problem didn't occur with the Matrox Mystique.
- These games don't usually heavily stresss your graphics card in
terms of animation or movement. Often they are several years old,
and are written for "artistic appeal" rather than action
gameplay.
- Most anime games use 640*480 dimensions for graphics, and
either 16 or 256 colors. No problem for a graphics card that's
less than a few years old with at least 1 MB of memory.
- Some Windows games complain when startinng up if you have more
than 256 colors available (HiColor, 16K or more colors, more than
8 bits). Many times it doesn't matter, but sometimes it does
(e.g. Chick's Tale). Try 256 colors if graphics aren't 100%.
e. "How do I capture images from this anime game?"
- Because most game images are in strange formats, they can't be
viewed outside of the game unless you run a capture program while
playing, or have a really good image decoding program. I don't
happen to have that kind of decoding program - wish I did. So
far, the "few" (only several tens of megabytes) of images I've
got were mostly downloaded from people's web pages (and I didn't
have much choice over sitting through the wait to get them), or
in a few cases I've captured what I thought was a better
replacement (no annoying logo or text) from a game if I could
figure out exactly where it came from.
- I may mention in the cheat/hint/walkthroough file for a game
that I was or wasn't able to capture images. In full-screen DOS
sessions, some games block all the keys that you would normally
use to tell a capture TSR to go capture an image, and you
therefore can't use them. A Windows capture utility might get you
past that, and will definitely be useful for Windows games. You
should be able to find a shareware or freeware capture utility
out there on your own.
- The best format for distributing images from almost all anime
games is still GIF. For 16 or 256 colors, unless the image looks
like a real live photograph, use GIF. Otherwise, JPG at a high
quality setting will be best to do the image justice. There are
other formats (like MAG, PNG) that may be better, but are little
known or supported, so I avoid them.
- Don't ask me for images from any particuular game. Don't send me
images and ask me to identify them.
- Somebody has probably done it for you allready. The "Black
Squadron" web site (and some others) had a large collection of
ECC files and an ECC viewer called ECCVIEW. ECC is short for
ecchi, because most of them are. "Mok", or whoever did the work,
has usually converted every image and animation in a game into
ECC files, which are compressed in some strange way which I
haven't bothered to analyze. I'll let you find the files
yourself. Read the ECCVIEW documentation.
UPDATE: The Black Squadron site has been gone for a while, and I
have not been able to find a comprehensive ECC site since.
f. "How do I know if this game will work on my PC?"
Not all the Japanese games out there will run on your American
PC, even with DOS/V or DOSJ. PC-9801 might work. PC-9821 maybe
not. FM-TOWNS or TOWNS/M, forget it. Of course Windows
(MS-Windows) is good if you have Windows 3.1x or Windows 9x,
maybe NJWIN is needed for text display. Forget Macintosh unless
you already have one. And IBM-PC (with or without DOS/V) is a
no-brainer. X68/30 or X68000 is another way of saying
Macintosh. DOS/V is IBM-PC again, just use DOS/V (DOSJ). But
sometimes you don't even know the machine it was intended
for! I've got one game called ZAN3 from a CD full of PC games
that plays music with a blank screen - nothing I do ever gets
any graphics.
I've recently received two games which have PC98 emulators.
So far, I've only tried one of them. If the second one works,
I might be able to resolve ZAN3, and I'll finally see what's
so good about Inju besides the pictures. A lot of older
Japanese games were released only for the PC98 series, never
for DOS/V or Windows. Rarely, a "classic" may be converted
to Windows, but I wouldn't hold my breath... There have even
been a few "hacker" conversions, of varying stability, for
games particularly in demand by hentai. In general, unless
you know what you're doing, stick with what other people tell
you is DOS/V or Windows, or make them give you whatever
software you need to make it work.
g. non-ANSI characters in filenames
I've seen this a few times, and I'm surprised it doesn't happen
even more often in Japanese games: non-ANSI characters in
filename. Windows 95 doesn't like that, neither do some W95
utilities. The files may even be inaccessible to games running
under Windows 9x. I'm not sure if there is a workaround that
doesn't involve patching an executable to use a different name for
the offending file. Yes, I said "ANSI," not ASCII. Looks like the
programmers used double-byte characters in the filenames. I've run
into this before, but only in documentation filenames which I was
able to change. In my first encounter with the problem, for Vidoro
Drops, they were MIDI files. Because of the strange filenames, the
game played very little music. I guess I could go patch the code
where the filenames appear, but I'm too busy with other things.
VI. DOS games in Windows 9x
[9x means 95, 98, OSR 2, etc. - anything after 3.11]
[The following pertains only to Windows 9x. Anything with
"shortcut" is for Windows 9x, NOT Windows 3.x or your MS-DOS
all by itself.]
a. "What's all this about shortcut properties?"
- Know where your copy of DOSJ is. The corrrect syntax for placing
it in a MS-DOS shortcut (Windows 9x) is to put it in the "Batch
file" line under the "Program" tab. If your copy of DOSJ is in
directory "H:DOSJ", then enter the line
"H:DOSJDOSJ H:DOSJ -". This assumes that your level 1 font
files (say what? RTF"dosj"M) are in the DOSJ directory, and you
don't need level 2 fonts. Consult the DOSJ documentation. Just
remember that your MS-DOS shortcut has to be told exactly where
everything is!
- Be sure that the "Cmd line" and "Workingg" lines in the
"Program" tab of the shortcut agree, or you know why not. The
shortcut could be invoked from anywhere, so you MUST include a
working directory if the game has multiple files, or a save/load
capability! I'd do it even if the game doesn't appear to fulfill
those requirements.
- In order of desirability, under "Advanceed" in the "Program"
tab: leave them all unchecked, check "Prevent...", check
"Prevent..." and "Suggest...", and finally as a last resort
"MS-DOS mode". You will need to edit your CONFIG and AUTOEXEC
entries here as necessary to load real mode drivers for MS-DOS
mode.
If the shortcut consistently crashes or hangs, change the
settings and try again. In some cases, un-checking the "Suggest"
box will avoid the annoying "MS-DOS mode Yes/No" dialog box every
time you run the game, but the game will run much slower, e.g.
opening animation in SEX takes 20 seconds instead of 3 to
complete. Oh well... Be warned that some games just refuse to
work properly - they may require MS-DOS mode (see below), or
aren't even for a PC in the first place, or your copy is damaged.
There are other shortcut settings I haven't mentioned, which you
can try to experiment with. Often, when I write a file about a
particular game, I mention what kind of shortcut settings were
required to make it work. Then again, I may not. You get what you
paid for.
- If you try the game in a DOS session andd it works, but you
can't get a Windows 9x shortcut to work, try changing the
Properties/ Screen/ Performance/Dynamic memory allocation
checkbox. Uncheck it, and some problems that I had with batch
files to run games hanging right after PMDIBM loads went away.
This applies especially to Queen-Soft games.
- If Windows 9x hangs (even the mouse and clock stop) when you
try to start your game, then you need to do some more work on the
settings! And they said you couldn't crash Windows 95! I've done
it a lot! The problem in this case was insufficient free
conventional memory. With a little work, I got over 600K free,
and those problems should go away. Hint: remove all unecessary
real-mode drivers from CONFIG.SYS.
- If Windows 9x hangs only on the second ttime you run the game in
a session, then you're getting closer to a working shortcut! Keep
fiddling with the settings. Messed up graphics on the second run
may be a problem with the game itself though.
- Most DOS/V games will work with 1024K exxpanded and 1024K
extended. Many require 512K expanded memory, and 1024K is the
smallest available in the Windows 9x properties. The extended
memory is needed by DOSJ. Some games need expanded memory to work
at all, others just need it to be able to play sounds or music.
Experiment! The worst that "should" happen is that the game
doesn't run, or your computer reboots.
- In hint/walkthrough files that I've writtten, you'll see
references to memory used by the game, and other memory used by
DOS/V or DOSJ. DOSJ will need some extended memory. I don't
recommend using DOS/V as a first try, because you have to reboot,
and it practically takes over your computer. So, always assume
that a game needs to display Japanese text using DOSJ, and then
try once and see how it works if you don't run DOSJ. If there's
no change, then leave DOSJ out! You can then see if extended
memory is still needed. Many Chinese games, even "ports" of
Japanese games, provide their own text display routines, and so
don't need DOSJ or DOS/V at all.
b. "Do I really need to use DOS mode?"
- MS-DOS mode requires that you close (or allow to close) all
your other Windows 9x programs, and your computer is restarted in
DOS 7 instead of the Windows 9x GUI. When the game crashes or you
exit it, the computer is again restarted, and should go back to
the Windows 9x GUI. If the game crashed horribly, you may get
trapped in a vicious cycle - press "Ctrl-C" or "Ctrl-Break" a
lot, and when you get to a command prompt, either type "win" or
press the computer's restart. "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" may or may not
get you out of it too. Because of the hassle, I strongly prefer
using full-screen DOS sessions in Windows 9x to MS-DOS mode.
- If you go to MS-DOS mode instead of a fuull-screen window (looks
the same, but you could always hit Alt-Enter to shrink the window
in full-screen window mode), you have to add a DOSJ line to
CONFIG.SYS, and probably some real-mode drivers too. This gets
REALLY complicated, and while there are ways to semi-automate the
process, they involve playing with the Registry and I don't want
to even get started with that here. Search for the very helpful
file "SDAM.ZIP" which contains a big document explaining how to
do it. There is also a KernelToy package for free from Microsoft
with a DOS Configuration Wizard (doswzcfg) that does a great job,
among other useful things.
c. "How do you increase EMS? My game won't run, or complains
there is not enough EMS or expanded memory!"
- If you're running Windows 9x, just rightt-click on the
offending DOS program, Create Shortcut, then right-click on
the shortcut, Properties, then the Memory tab, then for
Expanded (EMS) memory either leave it at Auto or select a
number. 1024 is usually enough. Only in rare cases (MS-DOS
mode) will you have to tinker with CONFIG.SYS; in those cases
you should read the DOS section below.
- If you're running DOS, or there is no Exxpanded (EMS) entry,
then you have to play with EMM386.EXE or whatever
expanded/extended memory program you have, and that means
modifying CONFIG.SYS.
Assuming you have EMM386.EXE, then you want to change the line
where it is invoked in CONFIG.SYS, usually right after the
HIMEM.SYS line. The simplest thing you can have is something
like:
DEVICE=C:WINDOWSEMM386.EXE RAM
which just loads EMM386.EXE and tells it to make space in
"upper memory" (between 640K and 1 Mb) for drivers and other
things. This does nothing for Expanded memory though.
To get expanded memory support, you have to give EMM386 an
amount of expanded memory that you want, and a place to put
the 64K window that DOS needs to be able to see it (the window
copies a 64K part of expanded memory so it appears below 1 MB,
so DOS doesn't barf) - this "window" is also called the "page
frame." This means something like:
DEVICE=C:WINDOWSEMM386.EXE 2048 FRAME=E000
which would give you 2 MB (2048K) of EMS, and use from E000 to
EFFF as the page frame.
One sneaky thing you may need to do, especially for older games
and DOS/V, is put something extra on the HIMEM.SYS line:
DEVICE=C:WINDOWSHIMEM.SYS /INT15=2048
to tell HIMEM that 1984K* of EMS is supposed to be accessible
by the old INT15 memory management mechanism - this has to
be put in for those old programs, or the INT15 way will report
no EMS at all! But /INT15 actually allocates 64K less than you
specify, so /INT15=64 is rather useless! So, to get 1024K of
INT15 memory, do /INT15=1088.
If a game requires INT15 support, it may also have problems
if DOS was loaded into upper memory. Remove DOS=HIGH from
the CONFIG.SYS file and try again, but don't be surprised if
now there isn't enough conventional memory...
- There is another strange quirk which mayy affect some older
games when you have over 32 Mb of RAM in your computer. If
the code counting how much memory is available uses a
signed integer, then it may incorrectly think that your 64 Mb
of RAM means that the computer has something like -8190K free,
and will therefore refuse to run the game program! I don't
have an easy workaround for this one, except for the
ridiculous expedient of removing memory from your machine, or
possibly running enough programs in other Windows sessions to
use up enough memory to bring the free amount below 32 MB.
I've only seen this on one old American game, but I wouldn't
be surprised if it shows up elsewhere.
- If you get error messages about the verssion of DOS, you may
have to use SETVER.EXE. It's a 2 step process: first tell
SETVER what program is causing the problem, and what version
of DOS it should be told instead of 4.10.1998 or 7. Second,
install the SETVER.EXE program in CONFIG.SYS and hope it works
when you reboot. I haven't had to do this yet, but it's a
possibility.
VII. Japanese Windows games in Windows 9x
[9x means 95, 98, OSR 2, etc. - anything after 3.11]
a. "I don't have Japanese Windows!"
- Neither do I. A copy of NJWIN and the fiile WINNLS.DLL have
gotten me this far though.
- Windows games may be referred to by variious people and
companies as one of the following: Windows, Windows 3.x, Windows
95, Win95, W95 (my personal favorite), Windows 9x, Win95/3.1,
JWin, Win/J, Win/V. The last three are talking about the Japanese
version of Windows (otherwise unspecified that it is 3.x or 95).
I've seen descriptions where they insist you must have a full
installation of Japanese Windows, but I haven't gotten any of
these games to see if you can get by with just NJWIN or
WINNLS.DLL. If you can't read the language, you won't really
notice if it comes out looking ugly or drops symbols. What I have
noticed already is several games where menu items from the game
window's drop-down menus have long underlines followed by a
letter in parentheses, e.g. "______(H)". This often occurs for
buttons in dialogue boxes too. There are also some games where
the text ends inside a box, but what looks like blank spaces
continues on outside the box. Those seem to be the only problems
that not having real Japanese Windows causes.
b. "This anime game doesn't work!"
- See the items under the same heading forr DOS games.
- You may need a copy of WINNLS.DLL installled in your
/Windows/System directory.
- You may need to tinker with an .INI filee for the game.
- It may be missing files, or needs to havve a setup/install
program run to work correctly.
c. "This anime game doesn't display text!"
- Windows 3.x games from Japan will work uunder Windows 3.x US
(don't know about other international versions), except that any
Japanese text will come out yucky. Same as what you get with
browsing through Japanese Web pages when you don't have the
proper settings and/or fonts; you don't have the fonts or the
display driver to do the Japanese characters. Same thing probably
goes for Chinese as well. NJWIN will fix all that, although it is
shareware. Go look for it the same way as "dosj". Since I don't
run Windows 3.x anymore, this outdated information is all I can
do for you.
- Windows 9x users may need NJWIN or Mvieww.
VIII. Patching and Binary File Editors
a. "Why do I need to patch?"
Well, if you don't, you may need to play the game all the way
through. Several times. Avoiding all the bad endings. Or even
finding ALL 14 endings. And 14 isn't a phony number either, I'm
talking about one of the first H games I got: Isle (Ushinawareta
Rakuen).
b. "What means 'patch'?"
It's because of those situations above that I look for ways to
patch, or modify, game files to make the photoshop appear, or
otherwise bring joy to the heart of the ravenous hentai. To make
the necessary modifications, I use a "binary file editor".
c. "OK, now what means 'binary file editor'?"
In cheat files that I've written, I (should) always tell you to
use a "binary file editor." That means an editor that will allow
you to load any readable DOS file, and alter the values within it
to any of the 256 possible ASCII values (0 through 255). This is
also often called a "hex editor", because the hexadecimal
numbering system (base 16) lets you go from zero to 255 with only
2 places (00 through FF). The prefix "$" is often used to signify
hexadecimal.
A text editor or word processor (even if its a really good one!)
is NOT!!! a good substitute for a binary/hex editor. If its able
to tell you exactly which byte of a file the cursor is on, and
lets you change it to any of the 256 possible values, then it
isn't a text editor or word processor anymore.
d. "Where do I get one of these marvelous editors?"
I currently use two of the many freeware or shareware products
available that do what is required. Try going to:
http://www.shareware.com
and do a Simple Search on "edit" AND "hex" for MS-Windows(all),
and pick one of the many hex editors that are displayed. I used
to use "Disk Editor" from Norton Utilities, but it forces you to
reboot to DOS even when all you want to do is view a file. You
decide what you like; I use two because I sometimes have to do
things that only one editor of the two can handle, like block
fill or block delete. I won't say which two they are, because
they're probably old versions by now, and you should be able to
make up your own mind.
e. "What do I do with an editor?"
When a "binary file editor" or "hex editor" is needed, I often
use words like "In file FLAG5 change bytes through $E8 to the
value to turn on all the Photoshop pictures." Here's how to
interpret such cryptic instructions:
Load the file FLAG5 into your editor;
Move to location (offset/address) in the file;
Start changing values from whatever they were (although
you might not bother if it was already ) to ;
Stop after you change the contents of location $E8 to ;
Write out the revised file to disk;
Start up the game again and check that the desired change
occurred.
Note that some of these changes may require multiple things to be
done before the full effect can be seen. As always, its probably
a good idea to make a copy of the file before you change it, so
you can retrace your steps if something goes horribly wrong (like
I tell you to change byte and the file is only 1 byte long!).
One editor I use has a "backup" function that has saved me a few
times...
Don't ask me questions about your specific editor unless you are
willing to pay airfare to your location and consulting fees for
my time. :)
f. "Is there a patch to make ..a non-English game.. into English?"
In almost all cases the answer is "no." As I mentioned earlier,
English takes about twice the space of Japanese or Chinese, so
converting isn't just a matter of translation. In many cases,
there's just not enough room unless you essentially rewrite and
recompile the game. The people at Peach Princess are very
familiar with this process, and Kumiko will be very happy to
bury you on that topic if you ask.
There are only 2 cases that I know of where the answer might be
"yes." These are:
Ace of Spades,
and Virgin Girls Fighter.
These are the only two games in Japanese or Chinese that I know
of that actually had a "patch" to English. Both were done by
individuals or small groups, and released for free. And both had
only a small effect on the game. In AoS, the messages about
winning or losing at cards were patched. In VGF, the messages
about winning or losing a fight were patched. And not much else.
People have announced that they were interested in patching
other games, such as Dragon Knight 4, or Mirage 2, but little or
nothing has ever appeared. It's an incredible amount of work to
change the language in one of these games, and the people that can
do it don't need the patch themselves (because they can read both
languages already!). So don't expect to see this done for free,
and as soon as you have to charge money for it, you might as well
get the legal permission from the original authors to do it.
So, sorry to disappoint you, but there's usually no way to get
the game in English if it's only in Japanese or Chinese, unless
you convince one of few companies in the business that they'll
make money converting it. If you're sure it can be done easily or
quickly or for free, go help the team that wants to do Dragon
Knight 4, and let me know when you're done.
IX. Pete's or Pete's Site-specific questions
a. "Where are the games on your site?"
What part of "There are no games on this site" do you not
understand?
Even though Geocities has given us more disk space lately, it's
still not enough (by about 2 gigabytes) to hold all my games. Not
to mention they wouldn't want me to put them there. And I'd be a
pirate violating my own trading policy. So, rather than knock
myself out with updating the games on the site on some kind of
schedule, or paying a bazillion dollars for all the disk space
needed, everybody goes hungry. If you have all the disk space
needed, and your admin is OK with hentai, then email me.
Otherwise, go ask every blonde you see if they'll sleep with you.
I think you'll get lucky eventually...
b. "Where are the hentai pictures on your site?"
Same thing as above. Well, the relevant quote is "There are no
games on this site, or pictures from them."
With basically the same followup too.
c. "Send me ..an English-language game..!"
It doesn't matter which game it is, or how old it is. As long as
a company made the effort to translate the game into English, I
believe they should be supported, so maybe they'll keep doing it.
If you think your single copy won't make a difference, you're
probably right. But how many other people out there think the
exact same thing? Add them all up... Gee, I sound like I support
the SPA and their stormtroopers. ugh. Anyway, I don't like
threats either. And adding "please" at the end won't help. And
sending me pictures won't get on my good side either (hint: I
said I didn't need any more pictures!). Just give it up, and go
find some other way to get an English-language hentai game, like
paying for it. And if you want to trade for it, see the next
entry.
d. "I'll trade you for ..an English-language game..!"
Nice try, but still against my rules. If you're that set on
getting that particular English-language game, and you have some
non-English game that I don't have, then I suggest you try to
trade me the non-English game, and now you'll have two to offer
somebody ELSE for that English game. I just don't encourage you
to trade for English games, because you're ruining the business
for future releases.
e. "Why is there no file for ..game..?"
There are several possible answers to this one:
1. I don't have the game at all. You can figure that one
out from my list of games, I hope.
2. I do have the game, but I haven't "finished" it yet.
Until a game is "finished," meaning that I found
a photoshop patch or other way to show the
pictures, it is instead listed as "in progress."
3. I goofed up and listed the game as finished in my
list, but didn't upload a file for the game to my
site yet. I will now writhe in agony from your
scorn at my not being perfect when uploading
files.
4. I goofed up and mixed up the HTML referring to the
file, but it's really there under a different
name. I will now writhe in agony from your scorn
at my not being a perfect HTML coder while using
WordPad.
Yes, there's a bit of sarcasm in several of the above.
f. "When will you provide a file for ..game..?"
If I've got the game, the answer is "depends." Not only do I have
a large backlog of games, but I have a lot of other things I
SHOULD be doing. Just ask my wife. When somebody else offers to
take over this self-appointed job, they can have it, with all the
benefits (which are...?).
g. "What's your trading policy?"
I thought I was pretty clear in section III, paragraph e.
h. "I'm having trouble downloading ..name of game.. from your
site..."
If it's a game you're trying to download, then it's NOT my site!
There's at least one website out there that has a copy of this
FAQ posted right next to game files for downloading. But that's
not MY site, and it's not even a current version of this FAQ!
Since I can't prevent people from copying my files, all I can
do is put in language like this here, and hope people learn to
read all the information available instead of just blindly
firing off emails to other people who have no idea what they're
talking about.
X. OTHER QUESTIONS
------------------
a. "I have another question or want to know more!"
Another possible source of information is the FAQ for the
alt.binaries.anime.games newsgroup. When I last checked, it
was at http://capnsupermarket.virtualave.net/
in both text and HTML form.
XI. LEGAL
---------
This document Copyright 2002 Peter Karsanow.
This document may be freely distributed as long as attribution
to the author (Peter Karsanow) is always included, and all
modifications are communicated to the author. Any trademark or
copyright infringement in this document is unintentional, and must
be communicated to the author for rectification. No endorsement
of any particular product is intended or implied through the
mention or omission of that product in the document. The author
makes no warranty as to the suitability of the information in this
document for your purposes, although reasonable efforts have been
made to ensure correctness.
If this document is hosted on any website that does not
permit unrestricted upload and download access by the author,
then the author is not responsible for any other contents on
that website, and will not answer questions or be obligated to
resolve any problems encountered by users of said website.
Pete the Hentai Helper
hentaihelper[AT}dellepro{DOT)com
http://www.geocities.com/hentaihelper/
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