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Question for Collector admin about KQ6, please help!

Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 6:36 pm
by taiyedbrodel
Hey there,

Thanks for moderating and keeping this thing in existence, just awesome. I'm having a unique problem with my KQ6 CD version for Windows...

I'm using Windows 7 and I have the CD-rom version of KQ6 (1992-1993). I used the "King's Quest VI Installer" to run it and no problems there. BUT I'm not receiving the full effects of what I see as "the enhanced version". The dialogue portraits and icons are higher quality compared to when I run it through Dos-box, but I'm noticing two significant problems: 1) The portrait coloring is weird, Alexander almost looks pink...though I know for sure it's the updated version of the portraits. The rest of the general environment besides the dialogue boxes looks just fine coloring and quality wise. 2) Audio. I was hoping to unlock the amazing "enhanced" audio as I found in this youtube clip of some guy that uploaded "the enhanced version" as a walkthrough on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77hc59lQEZU

The music is noticeably higher quality, almost like real instrumentation verses the sort of MIDI sound that I'm getting on mine. I have installed the Scumm and everything else I think. How do I make the portraits and audio like that of that youtube video??

Thanks your help, I've spent an hour and a half trying to figure this out with no luck!

Re: Question for Collector admin about KQ6, please help!

Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 9:12 pm
by Collector
A couple of things about that video. First, he is playing it in Windows 3.1 installed in DOSBox, so this might explain why you are noticing differences in coloring.

As to the music, it sounds like he is using a Roland Sound Canvas. What either ScummVM or DOSBox can use is mostly limited to what is installed on the system. The default device on mist systems is the MS GS Wavetable Synth, which sounds like crap. You might be able to buy an old SC-55 for a little more than $100, but I have not priced them in a while. A newer module might be upwards to around $500. There used to be an emulator called Virtual Sound Canvas, but it fell short of the real thing and I have heard of issues trying to install it on modern Windows.

A Sound Font capable sound cards with a decent SoundFont can make a world of difference. You can also try using FluidSynth, a software synthesizer that uses SoundFonts.

https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/fluid ... /SoundFont

I believe that ScummVM has this built-in, but you still have to supply the SoundFont to be used and specify it in the configuration. I have not tried to do much with this since my sound card can use SoundFonts directly.

One other route Would be to try Munt.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/munt/

Again ScummVM has this built in, but you have to supply the ROMs required to make it work. You would need to track these down yourself as they cannot be legally distributed. You would also need to set ScummVM to use MT-32 music. Note that it is easier to setup the sound in DOSBox, but you would be limited to the DOS version of the game unless you go through the trouble of installing Win3x in it.