Warnings
- The macOS (OS X) version of this game needs a fix to work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later (see API for details).
- This game originally is PC-DOS and PC-WIN-9x (Win 95/98/ME) and therefore has compatibility issues on modern Windows, requires applying 3rd party fixes to launch either in DOS or WIN mode - DOSBox or DirectX wrappers (ddraw, dsound, dplay). Official and/or unofficial workarounds are covered by this article.
- While game (Windows version) is 32-bit, first and few later editions comes with 16-bit installer, lead to them incompatibles with modern 64-bit Windows, but official and un-official workarounds available.
Theme Hospital is a building game developed by Bullfrog Productions and published by Electronic Arts in 1997 for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows compatible PCs in which players design and operate a privately owned hospital with the goal of curing patients of fictitious comical ailments.
The game is the thematic successor to Theme Park, also produced by Bullfrog, and the second instalment in their Theme series, and part of their Designer Series. The game is noted for its humour, and contains numerous references to pop culture.
Peter Molyneux and James Leach came up with the idea of creating a Theme game based on a hospital, but Molyneux was not directly involved in development due to his work on Dungeon Keeper. Designers originally planned to include four distinct gameplay modes corresponding to historical time periods, but this was dropped due to time pressures on the team. Multiplayer support with up to four players was added in a patch. The game received a generally positive reception, with reviewers praising the graphics and humour in particular. Theme Hospital was a commercial success, selling over 4 million copies worldwide, and was ported to the PlayStation in 1998. A Sega Saturn version was in development, but cancelled.
The game was re-released on GOG.com in 2012 and Origin in 2014, and the PlayStation version was released on the PlayStation Network in Europe in 2008, Japan in 2009, and North America in 2010. The community-made open-source reimplementation CorsixTH improves the game in major aspect to fix bugs and make it natively compatible with modern OS versions.
General information
- GOG.com Community Discussions
- GOG.com Support Page
Availability
- Free demo versions are available from Archive.org: pre-release, final.
- Digital editions currently on sale (EA Origin and GOG) comes pre-bundled with DOSBox or DOSBox for Mac
- Original native Windows version are not available digitally
Version Differences
Retail releases
- Later re-release by Sold-Out Soft publisher come with — out of date by time of release — 16-bit installer and autorun, which ones also strictly requires specific versions of Windows Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. Official 'WinVista x64 compatible' labeled installer was released later on their support website (among few else games and general specific ones), solving all CD issues.
Few first editions as usual for games that era come with two executables to launch in DOS or WIN mode: hospital.exe
and winmain.exe
. Some later editions come with only WIN exe. Noticeable differences are no known.
Some editions use 16-bit installer, but WIN executable are 32-bit.
There is also community provided un-official installer, do the same as updated Sold-Out Soft one do - copy HOSP folder from CD.
Digital releases
Both GOG and EA Origin releases come pre-bundled with DOSBox and labeled as Windows, additionally GOG bundled with DOSBox for Mac. Both releases omitted original native WIN executable winmain.exe
, but include retail patch.
Essential improvements
- CorsixTH is a community-made open-source reimplementation of Theme Hospital. It features native modern OS compatibility, high resolution support, zooming, improved game logic, option to remove destroyed rooms for a fee, unlimited saving, custom content support and more.
Patches
- Official patch from Patches-Scrolls
- Implement difficulty options (each level get additional files for specific difficulty arguments) of Easy (Practice), Medium (Doctor), Hard (Consultant) and additional option to multiplayer connectivity (IPX IP LAN support up to 4 players besides direct 1to1 LAN multiplayer)
Using ImageCFG to fix mouse lag
- Sets the CPU affinity to 3 instead of 1, though you may need to fiddle with this number.
Modify exe CPU affinity[citation needed]
|
- Download ImageCFG
- Extract
imagecfg.exe to the installation folder.
- Go into the installation folder and execute each in order:
imagecfg -u WINMAIN.EXE
imagecfg -a 0x4 WINMAIN.EXE
|
Game data
Configuration file(s) location
Save game data location
- Edit
HOSPITAL.CFG
after where it says INSTALL PATH=
to the installation folder, making sure to put a trailing backslash (\
) at the end of the folder name. This tells the game where to save the save files.
Video
Input
Audio
Audio feature |
State |
Notes |
Separate volume controls |
|
|
Surround sound |
|
|
Subtitles |
|
Announcer voice lines are not subtitled; otherwise, all speech is text-based. |
Closed captions |
|
|
Mute on focus lost |
|
For DOSBox change the priority background value in the DOSBox configuration file. |
Royalty free audio |
|
|
Localizations
- All Retail editions come as MULTI6 with full localization.
Language |
UI |
Audio |
Sub |
Notes |
English |
|
|
|
|
Simplified Chinese |
|
|
|
Retail only, local PRC region. |
French |
|
|
|
Bundled with English version, including GOG and Origin. |
German |
|
|
|
Bundled with English version, including GOG and Origin. |
Italian |
|
|
|
Bundled with English version, including GOG and Origin. |
Japanese |
|
|
|
Local Retail release only. |
Polish |
|
|
|
Fan translation, download |
Russian |
|
|
|
Local Retail release (female) and few unofficial translations, download one (male variant) |
Spanish |
|
|
|
Bundled with English version, including GOG and Origin. |
Swedish |
|
|
|
Bundled with English version, including GOG and Origin. |
Network
Multiplayer types
Connection types
Other information
API
Technical specs |
Supported |
Notes |
DOS video modes |
SVGA |
|
Executable |
32-bit |
64-bit |
Notes |
Windows |
|
|
Some Retail editions use 16-bit installer, game are 32-bit; CorsixTH allows the game to run with 64-bit support. |
macOS (OS X) | |
|
Official 32-bit bundled with DOSBox for Mac; CorsixTH allows the game to run with 64-bit support, thus allowing the game to run on macOS 10.15 and later. |
Linux | |
|
DOSBox or CorsixTH allows the game to run with 32/64-bit support. |
System requirements
DOS |
|
Minimum |
Operating system (OS) |
6.2 |
Processor (CPU) |
66 MHz |
System memory (RAM) |
8 MB |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
20 MB |
Video card (GPU) |
SVGA |
Windows |
|
Minimum |
Operating system (OS) |
95 |
Processor (CPU) |
Intel Pentium |
System memory (RAM) |
16 MB |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
|
Video card (GPU) |
SVGA |
macOS (OS X) |
|
Minimum |
Operating system (OS) |
10.6.8 or later |
Processor (CPU) |
Intel Core Duo 2 GHz+ |
System memory (RAM) |
1 GB |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
200 MB |
Video card (GPU) |
64 MB of VRAM |
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below
%PROGRAMFILES%
, %PROGRAMDATA%
, or %WINDIR%
might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore
on Windows Vista and later (more details).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 File/folder structure within the installation folder reflects the path(s) listed for DOS game data. For the GOG.com release, file changes in DOSBox are redirected to
<path-to-game>/cloud_saves/
even if GOG Galaxy is not used (this folder contains all redirected files, so some files in the cloud_saves
folder might be temporary files or other files that do not contain saves or settings).
References