Ripper and XP

Steve's XP Legacy Games Corner - Ripper in DOSBox

By Steve Metzler (Last updated: 22nd June, 2013)

I get so many requests from people that want to run Ripper in modern versions of Windows, that I decided to post the solution here once and for all. It's a tricky one to get running. Thanks to Robert Gault and InlandAZ over at GameBoomers for supplying the final pieces to the puzzle.

Note: since I don't own a copy of Ripper, I can't try any of this out. It kind of goes against the ethos behind Steve's XP Legacy Games Corner to post advice that I can't verify myself, but there you go. So if you discover any errors in this set-up, please e-mail about them so I can make the appropriate corrections.

I originally thought that you needed a VESA driver that worked in DOSBox to run Ripper, but this turns out not to be the case. In fact, the 1.03 patch below enables you to run Ripper without VESA support.

As a prerequisite, you'll need to have DOSBox v0.70 or later installed and configured, with:

cycles=max

Just check out our DOSBox FAQ if you don't know how to do that. Then do the following:

In Windows Explorer, create a new folder: C:\Ripper
Copy the entire contents of the INSTALL folder from the Ripper CD#1 to that new folder on your hard drive
Apply the following two patches:

http://www.justadventure.com/thejave/html/Games/GamesR/Ripper/rip103.exe
http://www.justadventure.com/thejave/html/Games/GamesR/Ripper/rip105.exe
Now start up DOSBox, navigate to C:\Ripper, and execute the following to set up the game's runtime parameters:

setupv.bat

(choose the DOSBox defaults of IRQ7 and DMA1. Also set the CDROM speed to the highest value and the video to FULL)

Then to run Ripper (make sure you are still in DOSBox) and execute:

ripper.exe /v /v3

That's it :-) Just for the record, the various VESA-related parameters are:

/V force 480 line mode
/V1 disable support for VESA 2.0
/V2 disable use of protected mode bank switching code
/V3 disable both

So we're actually running it in 480-line mode without VESA support, and it was the 1.03 patch that enabled us to do this.

Update: reader Sandy informs me that using: ripper.exe /v /v3 to run the game crashed their machine, but that just running: ripperv.exe works perfectly. So you should try that if the above solution doesn't work for you.

See also the metzomagic.com Help! page for links to additional help in getting games to run.