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DOSBox Patch for the new LSL Collection (2006)

Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 6:19 pm
by Collector
From the README:

DOSBox Patch for
the Leisure Suit Larry Collection (2006)

This installer is provided free with no guarantee, what so ever. It merely provides some Windows shortcuts, config files and icons to allow the new Sierra Quest Collections released by VU to run in the latest version of DOSBox. It also includes various updates and patches. DOSBox 0.72 and ScummVM 0.12.0 can be downloaded and installed from this installer.
DOSBox Patch for the Leisure Suit Larry Collection
Image

New Release Notes
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New for this release: This version of the patch removes the need for the Leisure Suit Larry Collection to be installed in its default location. This should help users of non US versions of the collection and anyone who wants to install the games anywhere else. You must have DOSBox installed in:
  • %ProgramFiles%\DOSBox
If you do not, allow the updater to download and install ScummVM for you. DOSBox can be upgraded by installing any future versions of DOSBox into this same location after uninstalling or simply moving the old one. The latest DOSBox can be found at:

Even though the original AGI version of Leisure Suit Larry and Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail were not included with the collection, I have included shortcuts for them. If you are Lucy enough to own either of them you can have them added to the collection at the time of running this updater.


To add the original AGI version of LSL1, simply copy the game files to the same folder as this updater before you run it and the installer will add the game to the collection. I am also including a ScummVM shortcut for it. ScummVM (http://www.scummvm.org) supports the Sierra AGI games with improvements over the old Sarien, such as the ability to switch to full screen and uses the PC colors by default instead of the garish Amiga colors. To use this shortcut you must have ScummVM installed in:
  • %ProgramFiles%\ScummVM
If you do not, allow the updater to download and install ScummVM for you.


I have included patches and a shortcut for Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love For Sail!. If you own the game, just insert the LSL7 CD in your drive before you run this updater to add LSL7 to the collection.

Misc: you will also find high rez game icons that I made from cover scans.



Leisure Suit Larry Collection(TM) DOSBox Patch Notes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While we are happy that Vivendi Games re-released these wonderful old Sierra classics for us, they were less than perfect releases. Most of the games were set to be run in DOSBox, the open source project to emulate an older PC with DOS.
This was reasonable approach, as it addresses hardware and Operating System incompatibilities, to recreate the environment that the games were designed to run in, thereby bypassing many of the common problems such as timer bugs, sound issues, missing APIs, etc. It also "future proofs" the games against newer versions of Windows ®. However, they shipped it with the older DOSBox 0.63, instead of the much improved 0.65 available at the time. Now several later versions of DOSBox have been released.

Starting with Windows Vista, some versions (64 bit) will no longer be able to run 16 bit programs. The next version of Windows after Vista will only be 64 bit. This means that the Windows versions of most of the Sierra games will soon no longer run in natively Windows. Many that upgrade to Vista will find that their Sierra Windows games won't work.

This patch will preconfigure both game and DOSBox settings to what should be optimal settings for most users. The DOSBox settings can be modified by editing the dosbox.conf in each game's respective folder. While the game settings can also be changed by editing the RESOURCE.CFG file in each game's folder, Sierra originally provided a small program, INSTALL.EXE, with their games that allowed the user to easily configure the game for the PC's hardware. This program and its associated files were removed by the company that prepared the new collections. This patch restores these missing files. Selecting different hardware for each game can now be done by simply running INSTALL.EXE from each game's folder.

Also included are the wonderful timer patches created by NewRisingSun ( http://geocities.com/belzorash/ ). These patches fix problems that have plagued Sierra gamers for years. These speed bugs were only getting worse as computers got faster.


Closing Notes
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Problems, bugs or suggestions can be reported in the Leisure Suit Larry message board

For help with other Sierra games, see The Sierra Help Pages:
Use of this patch comes with no guarantee, explicit or implied whatsoever. Use at your own risk.