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California Games

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
California Games
California Games cover
Developers
Epyx
Publishers
Epyx
Steam Pixel Games UK
Release dates
DOS 1988
Windows (DOSBox) September 7, 2020
Taxonomy
Themes North America
Series California Games
California Games on MobyGames
California Games on Wikipedia
California Games
Subseries of Games (Epyx)
California Games 1988
California Games II 1990
California Games (2009) 2009

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
DRM details are not known
DOS
Steam
DRM-free after installation through Steam client (notes may include more details)
Pre-packaged with DOSBox.
Windows

Essential improvements

Insufficient memory

If you receive the error "YOU NEED MORE MEMORY TO RUN CALIFORNIA GAMES!" when starting the game, especially if you're running the game from DOSBox, instead of trying to make more memory available for the program per its recommendations, try to first run LOADFIX. LOADFIX is included with DOS 5.0 or later, and is also included with DOSBox.

If LOADFIX does not resolve the problem, which is more typical of running the game on a retro PC, you do need to make more usable conventional memory available.

Cannot input player name

The game was written for the keyboard controller of the original IBM PC/XT machines, and has problems with the later IBM AT style Enhanced keyboard.

Use DOSBox

Notes With DOSBox this can be worked around by setting the emulated machine type to hercules, cga or tandy as those machine types emulate an XT style keyboard controller. Tandy is probably the best option as it will give EGA-like graphics.

Use DOSBox-X

Notes With DOSBox-X you can force the keyboard type to XT, regardless of emulated machine type, with the following settings in your DOSBox-X config file:

[keyboard]
controllertype = xt
Use CONFIG.SYS option

Notes When running the game on a real DOS PC with AT or PS/2 keyboard, add the line SWITCHES=/K to your CONFIG.SYS. This option is supported in DOS 5.0 and later, but is not supported by DOSBox.

Patch the game[1]

Notes A patch was posted on Vogons by user Pantercat which allows the game to run with a AT Enhanced keyboard.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
DOS
Windows <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1399480/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
DOS
Windows <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1399480/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Steam Cloud

Video

Graphic capability options
Graphic capability options

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
For DOSBox toggle with Alt+ Enter (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
For DOSBox use an unofficial build (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
60 FPS and 120+ FPS

Input

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
For DOSBox change the priority background value in the DOSBox configuration file.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
DOS video modes CGA, EGA, Hercules, MCGA, Tandy, PCjr

System requirements

DOS
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 2.0
Processor (CPU) Intel 8088 / 8086
System memory (RAM) 512 KB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 7
Processor (CPU)
System memory (RAM)
Hard disk drive (HDD)


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 File/folder structure within the installation folder reflects the path(s) listed for DOS game data.
  2. 2.0 2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/1399480/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (1399480) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

  1. Keyboard patch - last accessed on May 2023