"AlienCross" for SMAC at The Underdogs.org: Corrupt memory or corrupt .zip?

hamster

This is probably more suitable for Tech rather than the Games forum... but it is a good game for gamers to note for download... anyway... feel free to move...

Last night I downloaded a 105Mb (110,311,052 bytes) file "aliencross.zip" addon for Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. This download is legal and is available for download at the UnderDogs website. A very good website for older classic games.

Aliencross, as I said, is basically a big addon. I was really looking forward to this. The .zip contains 76 rar files however parts 26,31,39,59 were declared corrupt. I tried pkzipfix on this but it doesn't accept the .zip. I also tried an old zip extracter too.

The download on my ISDN took me 5 hours (20Mb/hour) so it's possible it got corrupted (due to my memory) and the file is possibly ok....

Can someone with a fat connection try downloading this 105Mb file and check if they can successfully extract all 76 .rar parts? The link is http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=4135

If it's ok, let me know and I'll try again... this is good for online gaming too.

The site itself is class.. http://www.the-underdogs.org/

KdjaCL

Did you try WIN RAR???
It has an option to repair files.

Cool site doubt its legal tho some games on it that not abandonware or even close ,best to remove link and ask Mods if its ok to post.


kdjac

hamster

Yep, I use winrar3 by default. I also tried winzip8 and their dos variants. The repair option recreated the file but the same files are corrupt. But it could be just my PC's memory. Can anyone try?

Btw, this is what the UnderDogs say about it's site:

Note: This page is designed as a summary of what Home of the Underdogs is, and what it aims to be. For more information on its history, please go to the site history page.
Home of the Underdogs is a non-profit site dedicated to the preservation and promotion of underrated PC games (and a few non-PC games) of all ages: good games that deserve a second chance after dismal sales or critical reviews that we feel are unwarranted. By nature, our criteria for choosing games to be honored here are subjective. However, we believe that our collective experience (many of us started gaming in late 1970s) allows us to be confident of our choices: we've played many of the best and worst games ever made. Therefore, we believe that our "Top Dog" tag signifies a truly remarkable classic, while at the other end of the spectrum our "Real Dog" tag signifies marginal underdogs we think you really should avoid (most of them are here only because a number of visitors pleaded us for them, anyway [EG]).

Although the site is non-profit in that we will never charge anyone for anything, we do need to pay hefty server costs every month to ensure decent download and access speeds. To that end, we unfortunately need to place banners on the site to cover these costs. These banners are mostly pay-per-impression, so you don't need to click on them (although we'd appreciate any clicks as they lead to higher payout rates and better ad campaigns). We are sorry for this inconvenience, and we thank you for your support.

Home of the Underdogs, while not an abandonware site per se (since our aim is to pay tribute to all underdogs, both new and old), supports the abandonware idea. We believe that providing games that have been abandoned by their publishers, while technically illegal, is a valuable service to the gaming community because these games are in danger of disappearing into obscurity, and their copyright holders no longer derive any revenues from them. For more information on our stance on abandonware, please read this section of our FAQ.

One of the larger goals behind Home of the Underdogs is to make it a friendly and dynamic community of classic game collectors, oldies lovers, game designers, and anyone else interested in the history of PC computer games; to be a place for sharing nostalgia, ideas, and information on underrated games. To this end, everyone is welcome to interact with the site via the "Community" subsection in the left-hand menu bar, where you can sign our Guestbook, join in various discussions in our Forum, or contribute to the site.

We also belong to the group of "die-hard" gamers who long for the golden days of PC gaming, when games were more original and fun to play than today's hordes of mundane, "me-too" titles marketed by businessmen who abhors risking the corporate purse strings on innovative but unproven titles. We long for the days when designers were treated as "artistes" of their medium, entrepreneurial pioneers who worked without the fears of not meeting a Christmas deadline or making games that aren't compatible with 3D cards. We hope that games featured on this site will help inspired a new generation of game designers to reach back into the past and rediscover what great games are truly made of. To that end, we are honored to host the Scratchware Manifesto, a statement of purpose written by several designers who are dismayed with the state of today's gaming industry. We encourage everyone to read it and spread the word around

Home of The Underdogs, as with most other websites, is always under construction-- there are enough underdogs for us to honor to keep us distract us from our day jobs for quite some time [EG], not to mention exciting features we haven't yet implemented. Visit often

Naar

I have the .zip, it's fine.

hamster

Thanks Naar... you were able to extract all files. Looks like my memory is at fault. Thanks for that!

btw anyone get Getright or Net Vampire or GoZilla working with their download links (after putting the "letters") ? ... even with the referrer information provided in their faq... the download links are never picked by the download manager. Although the forums mention they do work.

eyerer

i downloaded 3 games off that site and not one of them worked
also couldn't use a download manager with it
this adds up to me never going there again, crap site

hamster

Hi eyerer,

A lot of the games and books there are just that mostly "classic" which means a lot of them will need dos support but many will work under Win XP/2K.

You could try to use Dos box (if it's a dos game):
http://dosbox.zophar.net

I got my original Ultima Underworld working again with this and fast too on a lowly P3-800. I imagine a P4-3.06Ghz could do a lot more.

Well, what titles failed? I might try next weekend. As for the download manager problem, visit UnderDogs's forum as the question is asked a lot... but as I said myself I haven't had any luck myself (could be my version of Getright (4.xx) you may need v5.02 or what not...

hamster

Oh just noticed that Dos box has moved and last updated on the 22nd August. Great to see the guys still updating it.

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1

eyerer

i tried sensible soccer 97/8 and it didn't work (DOS problem as you mentioned)
actua soccer 3, "no cd"
and some other game, sega football game maybe, corrupted file

over 30MB of useless downloading, no more shall be done

Naar

I find VDMSound works very well in getting older games running, since many of the problems you have are sound-related. I was able to run Wasteland with it, for example.