[Frogacuda]

So, my friend got the Space Quest Collection today and I borrowed it to poke around with it (I already have the 1997 one so I didn't buy this)

Man, is this some slipshod crap. I was bummed to hear the crummy PC bleeper music in SQ2 instead of the tandy 3-voice, and even more pissed to find that all the later games were using adlib music instead of the excellent roland/GM soundtracks. And not including the original is just lazy and stupid.

Sooo... I took it upon myself to fix it. It's not horribly involved, and I'm sure many of you figured this stuff out on your own, but for the unmotivated, I made a patch. You are all free to enjoy it. It adds support for SQ1 to the launcher, changes the sound to General MIDI music where it sounds good and MT-32 where that's much better, launches 1 and 2 in Tandy mode for better music, and upgrades DOSbox to a newer experimental build with MT-32 support.

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...7&d=1159751667

[Stain]

Originally Posted by Frogacuda

So, my friend got the Space Quest Collection today and I borrowed it to poke around with it (I already have the 1997 one so I didn't buy this)

Man, is this some slipshod crap. I was bummed to hear the crummy PC bleeper music in SQ2 instead of the tandy 3-voice, and even more pissed to find that all the later games were using adlib music instead of the excellent roland/GM soundtracks. And not including the original is just lazy and stupid.

Sooo... I took it upon myself to fix it. It's not horribly involved, and I'm sure many of you figured this stuff out on your own, but for the unmotivated, I made a patch. You are all free to enjoy it. It adds support for SQ1 to the launcher, changes the sound to General MIDI music where it sounds good and MT-32 where that's much better, launches 1 and 2 in Tandy mode for better music, and upgrades DOSbox to a newer experimental build with MT-32 support.

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...7&d=1159751667

Thank-you Frogacuda. I am new to DOSBox and I am waiting for the compilations to arrive in Canada. I have downloaded your patch and will use it to play these games when they arrive. Tandy 3 voice was they way I played all the old games in the first place anyway. Playing music with one voice seems like a step back from the original versions I played!

Cheers mate,
Stain

[QFG]

How does one go about changing the DosBOX parameters for the other Sierra games (other than Space Quest)?

*edit* - The difference between whatever Sierra/Vivendi had for SQ1VGA sound and this new patch is literally night/day. It's unbelievable!

[Frogacuda]

Originally Posted by QFG

How does one go about changing the DosBOX parameters for the other Sierra games (other than Space Quest)?

*edit* - The difference between whatever Sierra/Vivendi had for SQ1VGA sound and this new patch is literally night/day. It's unbelievable!

If you want to change the parameters globally, just edit dosbox.conf. If you want to change something specific to one particular game, you have to trick the launcher a bit. Look at the SierraLauncher.ini in my patch to see how it's done. You have to add a quote mark after the exe and then use command line parameters. You can use this in conjunction with a seperate .conf file, as I did for SQ6 and SQ3

Also, to anyone who downloaded it before, I updated it a bit to use an after-market General MIDI/Sound Blaster driver for SQ1VGA that runs a bit better than the sometimes choppy MT-32 emulation and still sounds very good. I tried the same for SQ3, but the tradeoff was too great, so I left it in MT-32 mode.

[Stain]

Originally Posted by Frogacuda

Also, to anyone who downloaded it before, I updated it a bit to use an after-market General MIDI/Sound Blaster driver for SQ1VGA that runs a bit better than the sometimes choppy MT-32 emulation and still sounds very good. I tried the same for SQ3, but the tradeoff was too great, so I left it in MT-32 mode.

My SQ Collection arrived today and I used your patch immediately. It worked great, thanks!

FYI I did have a copy of the original SQ1 (EGA) and I tried to use it with your launcher and it did not work. The batch file to run the game in my version was named SQ1.BAT instead of SQ.BAT. I had to make the change to the SierraLauncher.INI so it would run the game. Once I did that it worked great as well.

Cheers!

[Dasilva]

Could we focus on the topic at hand, instead of long-winded posts about this guy & the moderation staff.

[fov]

Originally Posted by Dasilva

Could we focus on the topic at hand, instead of long-winded posts about this guy & the moderation staff.

Hey! You're talking like a moderator!

Those posts have been moved to Forum Feedback. Let's get back to bashing having a mature discussion about the Sierra compilations.

[Dasilva]

Originally Posted by fov

Hey! You're talking like a moderator!

Someones got to do it.

[Frogacuda]

Originally Posted by Stain

My SQ Collection arrived today and I used your patch immediately. It worked great, thanks!

FYI I did have a copy of the original SQ1 (EGA) and I tried to use it with your launcher and it did not work. The batch file to run the game in my version was named SQ1.BAT instead of SQ.BAT. I had to make the change to the SierraLauncher.INI so it would run the game. Once I did that it worked great as well.

Cheers!

Someone informed me that I forgot to put all the MT32 stuff in the zip so the sound in SQ3 is jacked. So you might want to give it one more downlod before you get to SQ3, heh.

Soooo... I made a stripped down version of this patch, minus the new DOSbox and MT-32 emulation and all that. Just new configs for the games and DOSbox, and a pubic domain genmidi driver for SQ1VGA. I submitted it to Vivendi, and their oh so caring support staff informed me that they don't accept suggestions for improvements from end users.

[Stain]

Originally Posted by Frogacuda

Someone informed me that I forgot to put all the MT32 stuff in the zip so the sound in SQ3 is jacked. So you might want to give it one more downlod before you get to SQ3, heh..

That explains why I did not really think too much of the music in SQ3. I had changed it back to Adlib music (having never heard the MT32 music before, I thought that was just the way it was). I'll give the updated patch a try, thanks.

Originally Posted by Frogacuda

Soooo... I made a stripped down version of this patch, minus the new DOSbox and MT-32 emulation and all that. Just new configs for the games and DOSbox, and a pubic domain genmidi driver for SQ1VGA. I submitted it to Vivendi, and their oh so caring support staff informed me that they don't accept suggestions for improvements from end users.

You'd think they would at least put the info as a sticky in their support forums.

I really bought the SQ games to financially support the idea of making new ones, but the half-assed approach by Vivendi really worries me that I may not want to see their take on a new game. I hate supporting a half-assed product, but I realize this is the closed we have come to getting Vivendi to wake up and make a SQ7 adventure game.

I also bought the King's Quest collection, and I will be mucking around with that launcher as well. I refuse to buy the LSL collection since LSL6 is not the talkie version (also LSL7 is not included, but I have that anyway). I just bought LSL6 (talkie version) off of eBay and I have added it to the launcher as well.

Cheers.

[QFG]

Just to note: that attachment is no longer valid...

[Spikey]

Thanks to Fov for moving the posts, appreciate it, my comments were offtopic and kinda stupid in patches.

Anyway. On a serious note, you know what's a much better idea than these 'patches' for running the games with a sound option? Putting the old install.exe files up for download, that let you configure graphics/sound/etc. I know people find the resource.cfg method annoying, or I'd just say do that- but really, I don't see that Vivendi would have problems with people distributing the old install files.

From there, you could have someone making a DOSBox launcher for the game CD, which doesn't force any options, but just runs the executables, after an individual has run the install.exe program and selected whatever sound device they have, or graphics display, etc.

Thoughts?

Regards,
- Spike

[Frogacuda]

Originally Posted by QFG

Just to note: that attachment is no longer valid...

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...9&d=1160007201

Changed when I updated the file (even though it didn't for previous updates).

Originally Posted by Stain

I really bought the SQ games to financially support the idea of making new ones, but the half-assed approach by Vivendi really worries me that I may not want to see their take on a new game.

3 words: Magna Cum Laude.

Space Quest is dead. I love them more than anyone, but we'll never see a new one worth seeing.

[Spikey]

'Cept, the SQ7 fangame project of course

- Spike

[Stain]

Is there a 'talkie' version of Police Quest 4? Is that the one that is included on the PQ Collection?

[fov]

Originally Posted by Spikey

I know people find the resource.cfg method annoying, or I'd just say do that- but really, I don't see that Vivendi would have problems with people distributing the old install files.

Somebody should ask them first. Considering Vivendi's stance on abandonware (and their reaction to a fan or two who have tried to offer creative support for these compilations on Vivendi's own forums), I sort of doubt that they would be okay with something like that.

Stain, yes there is a talkie version, but I don't know if it's included in the new collection.

[Spikey]

Uh, I don't see how an installer is abandonware, man. It's not a graphic or anything like that. Technically, it's copyrighted, but since they didn't include it in the new compilations, you could argue they don't intend to use it..

Anyway.I can't see the ESA or Vivendi being on my ass for distributing install.exe files.

- Spike

[fov]

Why don't you ask them if it's okay, then?

[Stain]

Originally Posted by fov

Stain, yes there is a talkie version, but I don't know if it's included in the new collection.

BTW Fov, I'll answer my own question... I picked up the Police Quest Collection today and PQ4: Open Season IS the talkie version. Thanks!

Cheers,
Stain

[fov]

Good to know, thanks!

I didn't even realize there was a non-talkie version of PQ4 until I picked it up on floppies in a thrift store a few years ago. I grew up with a Mac, and usually the talkies weren't talkies on Mac, but Police Quest: Open Season was. I didn't know it existed any other way.

Having played it with voices and then trying the floppy version without voices was sort of surreal. I could hear them in my head. It made me understand why people are so passionate about getting the talkie versions of some of these games.