Getting System Shock 1 running in DOSBox

First, make sure you have your System Shock 1 CD ready for use.

Step 1) Download DOSBOX from http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1 and install it somewhere, for the sake of this tutorial, we shall assume you installed it to "C:\Program Files\DOSBox"

Step 2) Place your System Shock 1 CD inside the CD Drive. From this point on it will be referred to as X:, simply replace your CD Drive letter for the "X".

Step 3) Make a folder where you want to install the game. You can change it later but for now keep the folder structure to one word e.g C:\Games\SShock. Let's use this for our tutorial.

Step 4) Start DOSBOX and type the following:

"mount C C:\Games\SShock"

Press Enter and it'll say C is mounted. Don’t worry about personal data, think of C Drive in DOSBOX as a pretend hard drive. Now type:

"mount D X:\ -t cdrom", Remember X is your CD Drive letter!

Step 5) Type:
"D:"
"CD INST"
"INITIAL"

The Setup will now be running, select your language and Press Enter and Enter again when you've read the info.

Step 6) now you will be at the Main Setup screen. Let's "Setup Sound System", Press Enter.

"Choose Music Card"Select "SoundBlaster 16" and "Auto Setup"Select "Choose Digital Card" Select "SoundBlaster 16" and "Auto Setup" again. Feel free to test both cards, you should hear SHODANS voice and a piece of game music.

Step 7) Return to the Main Setup window. You can change the Install directory if you want to but I recommend you leave it as "c:\sshock" for now. Go to "Install System Shock" and Press Enter. It'll say "copying data files to c:\sshock (or whatever directory you chose)" for a while and then it will say: "Run CDSHOCK to play System Shock Enhances CDROM. Run SSHOCK for the original 4 Meg version." We are not quite done yet though. Press Enter and you'll be back in DOS. Now, you can either type CDSHOCK or SSHOCK to play (CDSHOCK highly recommended, it's miles better then the SSHOCK version)

Step 8) Go into C:\Program Files\DOSBOX (Windows Vista or Windows 7 users will have to go to their user profile folder (C:\Users\User/Email\AppData\Local\DOSBox\) and you'll find a file called dosbox.conf (or something similar) copy it, rename it SystemShock.conf and open it in Notepad.

Step 9) Going down the list. Change

fullscreen=false to =true,
memsize=16 to =50,
keyboardlayout=none to =uk,

At the very bottom, you'll see an [autoexec] section. Put the following lines in that section:

"mount C C:\Games\SShock\SShock" (or wherever you installed it)
"C:"
"CDSHOCK"

Save the .conf file and close it if you're using Windows XP, for Vista and 7 users, I would highly recommend moving it to C:\Program Files\DOSBOX.

Step 10) Go to your desktop and copy the DOSBOX Shortcut. Call it System Shock and open its properties. In the Target window you will see.

""C:\Program Files\DOSBox\dosbox.exe"",

ADD this to the end of the line:

-conf "C:Program Files\DOSBOX\SystemShock.conf"

So the whole line should read something like this:

"C:\Program Files\DOSBox\dosbox.exe" -conf "C:Program Files\DOSBOX\SystemShock.conf"

Step 11) go to your System Shock installation in Windows Explorer and, in a new Window, open your CDROM in My Computer. Copy the ENTIRE contents of the "CDROM" folder on the CD into your System Shock installation. Overwrite everything when Windows asks you too EXCEPT FOR CYB.CFG and INTRO.RES. This serves 2 purposes: 1) you no longer need the CD to play and 2) Loading the game will be quicker. There's roughly 287MB of stuff to copy over.

Step 12) Open CDSHOCK.BAT in Notepad and change:
@echo off
D:\cdrom\cdshock.exe

To:

@echo off
C:\CDSHOCK.EXE

You can change SSHOCK.BAT too in the same vein if you want.

Step 13) That's it! Finished! You can now play System Shock 1 automatically by double clicking the Shortcut on your desktop! Have fun Hacker!

If you move the installation somewhere different, be sure to update the SystemShock.conf file! If you move to an install say "C:\Games\System Shock", you will have to use "C:\Games\SYSTEM~1" as your install path in DOSBox. Count 6 letters and put "~1" in place of any more letters.

If the game’s music is choppy, simply open up SystemShock.conf and change “cycles=auto” to something like “cycles=90000” which will help with choppy audio (but will increase the amount of CPU power needed to make the game run smoothly, find the setting that’s best for your machine. CRTL+F11/F12 will increase/decrease CPU cycles whilst the game is running so find a good number and put it in the cycles setting).