SHP Forums

(Originally posted on Tue Oct 03, 2006 4:02 pm)

.. classic games like King's Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest & Leisure Suit Larry - figured I'd make a forum specific for issues with those games that Collector (the All Knowing) might be able to help with! Smile

I have also made him moderator of this forum since Collector's Sierra Help Page is hosted here.

So I am willing to approve any new users these games might bring, so long as they don't have questionable links in their profile and they tell me they're here for support on Sierra games.

Ooh, what are these strange new powers and what are all of these new interesting buttons I now see? Seriously though, I'm going to be forced to get these new games, even though they don't offer me anything new. I already have all of these games in one form or another.

The support questions are already starting to pour into the VU forums and I don't know how they have them setup. Apparently they did things in a rather bizarre way with a "Game Launcher." I don't know how they have things setup to use the dosbox.conf, which has caused problems with people who have upgraded DOSBox. It appears that DOSBox .65 fixes some severe graphics problems, but causes audio issues that .65 should not cause.

If I can get some information on what the default install locations are, I could come up with some Windows shortcuts to play the game with DOSBox .65. All people would have to do is install .65 and download my shortcuts.

For King's Quest (only one installed thus far), it is a launcher... with the default location of:

"C:\Program Files\Sierra\King's Quest Collection(TM)\SierraLauncher.exe"

DOSBox from launcher is here:
C:\Program Files\Sierra\King's Quest Collection(TM)\DOSBox-0.63

And the Config file looks like:

[sdl]
# fullscreen -- Start DOSBox directly in fullscreen.
# fulldouble -- Use double buffering in fullscreen.
# fullfixed -- Don't resize the screen when in fullscreen.
# fullresolution -- What resolution to use for fullscreen, use together with fullfixed.
# output -- What to use for output: surface,overlay,opengl,openglnb,ddraw.
# hwscale -- Extra scaling of window if the output device supports hardware scaling.
# autolock -- Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen.
# sensitiviy -- Mouse sensitivity.
# waitonerror -- Wait before closing the console if DOSBox has an error.
# priority -- Priority levels for DOSBox: lower,normal,higher,highest.
# Second entry behind the comma is for when DOSBox is not focused/minimized.
# mapperfile -- File used to load/save the key/event mappings from.

fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullfixed=false
fullresolution=1024x768
output=surface
hwscale=1.00
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper.txt

[DOSBox]
# language -- Select another language file.
# memsize -- Amount of memory DOSBox has in megabytes.
# machine -- The type of machine tries to emulate:hercules,cga,tandy,vga.
# captures -- Directory where things like wave,midi,screenshot get captured.

language=
machine=vga
captures=capture
memsize=32

[render]
# frameskip -- How many frames DOSBox skips before drawing one.
# aspect -- Do aspect correction.
# scaler -- Scaler used to enlarge/enhance low resolution modes.
# Supported are none,normal2x,advmame2x,advmame3x,advinterp2x,interp2x,tv2x.

frameskip=0
aspect=false
scaler=normal2x

[cpu]
# core -- CPU Core used in emulation: simple,normal,full,dynamic.
# cycles -- Amount of instructions DOSBox tries to emulate each millisecond.
# Setting this higher than your machine can handle is bad!
# cycleup -- Amount of cycles to increase/decrease with keycombo.
# cycledown Setting it lower than 100 will be a percentage.

core=dynamic
cycles=6000
cycleup=500
cycledown=20

[mixer]
# nosound -- Enable silent mode, sound is still emulated though.
# rate -- Mixer sample rate, setting any devices higher than this will
# probably lower their sound quality.
# blocksize -- Mixer block size, larger blocks might help sound stuttering
# but sound will also be more lagged.
# prebuffer -- How many milliseconds of data to keep on top of the blocksize.

nosound=false
rate=22050
blocksize=2048
prebuffer=10

[midi]
# mpu401 -- Enable MPU-401 Emulation.
# intelligent -- Operate in Intelligent mode.
# device -- Device that will receive the MIDI data from MPU-401.
# This can be default,alsa,oss,win32,coreaudio,none.
# config -- Special configuration options for the device.

mpu401=true
intelligent=true
device=default
config=

[sblaster]
# type -- Type of sblaster to emulate:none,sb1,sb2,sbpro1,sbpro2,sb16.
# base,irq,dma,hdma -- The IO/IRQ/DMA/High DMA address of the soundblaster.
# mixer -- Allow the soundblaster mixer to modify the DOSBox mixer.
# oplmode -- Type of OPL emulation: auto,cms,opl2,dualopl2,opl3.
# On auto the mode is determined by sblaster type.
# oplrate -- Sample rate of OPL music emulation.

type=sb16
base=220
irq=7
dma=1
hdma=5
mixer=true
oplmode=auto
oplrate=22050

[gus]
# gus -- Enable the Gravis Ultrasound emulation.
# base,irq1,irq2,dma1,dma2 -- The IO/IRQ/DMA addresses of the
# Gravis Ultrasound. (Same IRQ's and DMA's are OK.)
# rate -- Sample rate of Ultrasound emulation.
# ultradir -- Path to Ultrasound directory. In this directory
# there should be a MIDI directory that contains
# the patch files for GUS playback. Patch sets used
# with Timidity should work fine.

gus=true
rate=22050
base=240
irq1=5
irq2=5
dma1=3
dma2=3
ultradir=C:\ULTRASND

[speaker]
# pcspeaker -- Enable PC-Speaker emulation.
# pcrate -- Sample rate of the PC-Speaker sound generation.
# tandyrate -- Sample rate of the Tandy 3-Voice generation.
# Tandysound emulation is present if machine is set to tandy.
# disney -- Enable Disney Sound Source emulation.

pcspeaker=true
pcrate=22050
tandyrate=22050
disney=true

[bios]
# Nothing to setup yet!


[dos]
# xms -- Enable XMS support.
# ems -- Enable EMS support.

xms=true
ems=true

[modem]
# modem -- Enable virtual modem emulation.
# comport -- COM Port modem is connected to.
# listenport -- TCP Port the modem listens on for incoming connections.

modem=false
comport=2
listenport=23

[directserial]
# directserial -- Enable serial passthrough support.
# comport -- COM Port inside DOSBox.
# realport -- COM Port on the Host.
# defaultbps -- Default BPS.
# parity -- Parity of the packets. This can be N, E or O.
# bytesize -- Size of each packet. This can be 5 or 8.
# stopbit -- The number of stopbits. This can be 1 or 2.

directserial=false
comport=1
realport=COM1
defaultbps=1200
parity=N
bytesize=8
stopbit=1

[ipx]
# ipx -- Enable ipx over UDP/IP emulation.

ipx=false

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.

I need to know the paths to the games themselves.

C:\Program Files\Sierra\King's Quest Collection(TM)\kq1sci

C:\Program Files\Sierra\King's Quest Collection(TM)\kq2

C:\Program Files\Sierra\King's Quest Collection(TM)\kq3

C:\Program Files\Sierra\King's Quest Collection(TM)\kq4

C:\Program Files\Sierra\King's Quest Collection(TM)\kq5

C:\Program Files\Sierra\King's Quest Collection(TM)\kq6

C:\Program Files\Sierra\King's Quest Collection(TM)\kq7

OK, I'll put up some shortcuts on the Help Pages and post some instructions here. For the AGI games I have some Sarien executables that I hacked in game specific icons for each AGI game. These can replace the original executables to run the games natively in Windows.

Ye can probably guess as much... but for Space Quest...

C:\Program Files\Sierra\Space Quest Collection(TM)

With the games in...

sq1vga, sq2, sq3, sq4, sq5, and sq6

Can you tell me if KQ7 comes with the DOS version? Look for SIERRA.EXE in the folder. There is still the nasty firecracker speed bug. If the DOS version is included, it can be played in DOSBox to overcome it.

Here is the first attempt. First install DOSBox .65 to the default location "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.65" and then unzip this to your KQ4 folder. Just double click the King's Quest 4 shortcut to play i in DOSBox .65.

If you want better music, install the MUNT driver and change the RESOURCE.CFG to soundDrv=MT32.DRV (you will also need to tell Windows to use this driver for your MIDI)

Collector wrote:Can you tell me if KQ7 comes with the DOS version? Look for SIERRA.EXE in the folder. There is still the nasty firecracker speed bug. If the DOS version is included, it can be played in DOSBox to overcome it.

SIERRAW.EXE not SIERRA.EXE

Is the version file there?

Version file reads:
1.4

Good Lord! They couldn't even include version 2??!! I sure hope that if VU releases any more that they don't use this same company to prepare them.

Collector wrote:Good Lord! They couldn't even include version 2??!! I sure hope that if VU releases any more that they don't use this same company to prepare them.

What are some of the differences/issues between 1.4 & 2.0?

Version 2 was shipped with the 2nd collection. It had a few bug fixes and it runs in XP without any fussing. It also came with a DOS version. They must have altered the installer to do the tweaking to get 1.4 to run in XP.