Making a MAIN.DAT

[The Mole UK]

I am trying to make a new MAIN.DAT with Namida’s program LEMMAIN but on extracting it stops with Out of Memory.  Bit of a pity.  Want to fiddle with DOS.

Any ideas what to do?  Holding me up!!!

Thanks in advance,
Mole

[The Mole UK]

P.S. Machine is an i7 with 16 GB RAM.
Quite like to know why.  Is it requiring something specific, like an old OS?
Really annoying…

Failed on 11, failed on 10 (and that has minimal sw).  So perhaps is looking for 7 64 bit something like that?  Seems buggy anyway.

[namida]

LemMain doesn't require any particular OS as far as I know, but I can't make guarantees about whether the version still available retains proper support for DOS / Lemmix. Still, it's the only tool that ever served that purpose.

Once again, I encourage you to consider using a modern, supported engine instead.

[The Mole UK]

LemMain doesn't require any particular OS as far as I know, but I can't make guarantees about whether the version still available retains proper support for DOS / Lemmix. Still, it's the only tool that ever served that purpose.

Once again, I encourage you to consider using a modern, supported engine instead.

Obviously there are modern ports, but that isn’t the plan.
Is there an archive of old versions of the tool?  All I wish to do is alter the main logo.

[The Mole UK]

From what I can tell, it appears the Out of Memory issue does not matter.  Ripping the demo MAIN.DAT works.
Think Holiday was ripped okay, Xmas not all correct.   But tired and not 100% checked there.
Recompiling as Xmas comes out as garbage, you get some graphics incorrect with Standard.

So might have to give the idea up.  Just have to say 1993 and 1994 for what I am doing.  Just I had hoped the tool would just tweak the logo.

As for NeoLemmix, I don't like it.  I want to play with the DOS stuff and it has the nostalga for me and NeoLemmix has features that are not part of the original game.  Some can be tweaked, it has a buggy splash, confusing retries and the exploders stay still.  The scrolling is faster too, not a bad thing, but it doesn't feel the same as DOS does.  So, I once again, encourage people writing some tools for DOS.

...Still, it's the only tool that ever served that purpose.

Not that I can tell.

[namida]

Not that I can tell.

Well yes, we can presume DMA had their own tool for editing MAIN.DAT, and likely the developers of LemEdit had one too that they used to make CustLemm's one - but LemMain is the only publicly released tool that has ever been able to edit MAIN.DAT files. I know for sure at one point it was able to work with the files from every official DOS Lemmings game - now whether that support is fully retained in the last release and you're just using it wrong, or if it actually no longer supports old files, I can't tell you without digging into the matter deeper, which I really can't be bothered doing.

[The Mole UK]

Oh well, my little project has a 1993 logo.  Is kind of a nod to the past, so does not matter too much.  Would have looked more pro had I been able to change the logo to not have '1993'.  Then future versions would just say "Holiday Lemmings".   Also being able to change the level numbers of would have been fun too.

The tool does seem to read the data and I have a suspicion it may work even, but I get a 'Out of Memory' error and then it stops.  So this might be part of the problem.   As I do not know what the cause of this error is, I cannot try something to fix it.  I wondered if it might be the Windows version, but expect x86 OS would have less memory than x64.

If you feel like working it out, must be possible, let me know.

Thanks...

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Also converted levels for Lemmix v29 and NeoLemmix.  Although removed a bouncing snowman on one level as converted behind the background.  Think it has to be ideally against black and somewhere Lemmings do not walk ideally.

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>and you're just using it wrong
It is possible...

[namida]

Also being able to change the level numbers of would have been fun too.

Even LemMain can't do this, you'd have to hack the EXE itself which is well beyond my knowledge. This one is doable with a reasonable amount of effort in Lemmix (rather than only NeoLemmix), though.

[The Mole UK]

LEMMAIN is more a Neo product than a DOS one and I think there is where I was confused.  I wonder how well it would work with DOS if the memory error did not occur.  Don't know why though, so cannot do what it requires.  Kind of given up on building a MAIN.DAT now.  2023 will say 1993 and nod to 1993 music and 2024 will nod to 1994 and 1994 music.   I am not a programmer.  Can do some lame skills, enough to get by, change German text to English, stuff like that.  Currently building a DOSBox archive, but so much work.  Started in 2020.

Attached my levels in your formats.  Are primarily done under LemEdit/DOS, so assuming will play the same.  Four levels.
I think a couple of these are well thought out, but maybe not to a Lemspert.