Welcome to The Arena

[jackofallgeeks]

I just installed and started a game on Arena, the very first of the Elder Scrolls series by Bethesda Softworks -- the most recent game being Oblivion. I had this game, Arena, ages and ages ago. I'd nearly beaten it once, but Life happened. Now it's up for free download at Bethesda's site (and has been for quite some time) using the DOSBox emulator. I'm not sure I'll keep up with the game, I've been feeling fitful and restless in my entertainment lately, but having it and playing it again makes me very happy.

Comments

[bsgnome.livejournal.com]

What speed do you have DOSBox set to, to run Arena decently well? It's always either painfully slow or insanely fast for me. Besides that, I can't get sound (though, that's no different from when we first played anyhow).

[jackofallgeeks.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have sound. And it's pretty good sound, considering the time period we're looking at. I didn't change any options at all on Install. I just ran Install, exited without touching a thing, then ran Arena. Then the tinny midi music began.

When I say 'I started a game,' that's a little misleading. I created my character, Reindel the Spellsword from Morrowind. I haven't even picked up the ruby key yet. It was moving painfully slow, but the Arena Readme said to expect that, and to use ctrl-F12 to speed up the cycles. I'm going to play around with that until I find a good speed, and I can let you know when I do. At the same time, I imagine you could do likewise; I can't imagine it goes: painfully slow, painfully slow, painfully slow, really freaking fast!

[jackofallgeeks.livejournal.com]

In the Dosbox.conf file, I've found that setting cycles=8000 is pretty spot-on. I might drop it to 7800 or something, but it seems to run Arena fairly smoothly at a jaunty pace at that setting. Let me know what you find.