General remarks

Most of the Syndicate data files are compressed using RNC compressor. You can download dernc file along with some Dungeon Keeper utilities http://www.yoda.arachsys.com/dk/utilsrc.zip .

You can run dernc.exe (as well as Syndicate itself) on modern versions of Windows using DOSBox.

If you don't want to use DOSBox, compile the utilities from the source provided after adding "#define MAIN" to the top of each file. I used MinGW. Alternatively, download a compiled version here.

There is also an old syndicate level viewer and information on the graphics (sprites and map) file formats on the CityBuilder

website at http://citybuilder.sourceforge.net/.

You can put unpacked files in Syndicate DATA folder either. It doesn't make any difference for the software but it speed-ups your corrupt-and-see-the-changes activities.

Syndicate runs well under Windows XP Service Pack 2. To get sound and music working you may need to download an emulator called VDMsound (http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound/). Run "dosdrv" at your cmd prompt to start the emulation before starting syndicate.