Need help with running QfG4 (CD version w/ speech) on DosBox

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ArsExMalum
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Need help with running QfG4 (CD version w/ speech) on DosBox

#1 Post by ArsExMalum » Sat Apr 19, 2008 2:56 pm

First off, to assuage any doubts, I own the QfG anthology CD
(which I had my parents buy me about eleven years ago). Moreso, my brother used to own the floppy version, and I still have the manual and the HERO Magazine that came along with it.

Now, in anticipation of QfG2VGA I want to make sure that I have the whole series installed and working smoothly.

Remembering the fierce Error 52, I downloaded NewRisingSun's (I hope I got the name right) fixpack and followed the instructions. Running the game on XP was fine, up until the stamina glitch kicked in, so I gave a shot at DosBox. There was a plethora of new problems. The gameplay was fine, if a little too slow, and the stamina did not run out when crossing the rope bridge or stumbling into the swamp. However, there was no music, and the text-boxes appeared and disappeared as quick as you can blink. The speech, needless to say, was missing.

I googled this problem and changed the music variable in the CFG file to General MIDI. That solved the music issue, however the text-boxes still disappear faster than I can read them, and dear John Rhys Davies' voice (as well as the others', for that matter) is still missing.

Any idea what might be the problem, and how to fix it?

Kloreep
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#2 Post by Kloreep » Sat Apr 19, 2008 3:41 pm

The problems are one and the same - the game cannot find the voice pack, and that is why the screens flash by.

You could just mount the CD in DOSBox under the same letter you installed the game from, in which case it should be able to find and play the voices off CD. However, I'd recommend copying to the hard drive so that it's faster and doesn't have to fire up your disc drive; it only takes up another 100 megabytes or so.

To do that, copy resource.aud and resource.sfx off the CD and into your QFG4 folder, if you haven't already done so. Then see Erpy's post here for how to edit your resource.cfg file. (There are several lines directing the game to look for patch, sound, and voice files, that need to be edited to point to QFG4's folder rather than CD, at least if you want to run everything off your HD. Giving them the path ".\" like Erpy instructs should tell it to look in its own directory.)

Lambonius
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#3 Post by Lambonius » Sat Apr 19, 2008 5:20 pm

Many people have this problem at first when running Sierra's CD-talkie games.  Kloreep's instructions will solve your sound problems.

As for game speed, Dosbox by default emulates a fairly slow CPU speed, but you can increase this any time by simply pressing ctrl-F12 while at the Dosbox prompt.  If you are using a front-end with Dosbox to run your games, find the setting for CPU cycles, and increase it.  The number of cycles will vary with each computer, but generally around 7000 cycles should more than run a game like QFG4 at normal speed.  Be careful though, if you increase the cycles too much, the SCI timing bugs will pop back up, even WITH NewRisingSun's patches.

R.A.B.I.D.
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#4 Post by R.A.B.I.D. » Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:26 pm

It's also worth noting that if the text screens are flashing by, but you don't really want the voice pack to play anyway, you can simply turn off "Audio" in the options menu, and the screens will then go back to normal.

I suspect that with Audio turned on, the game detects the "end" of the audio file and automatically goes to the next text block. If no audio files are present, it simply assumes that they're 0 seconds long, thus the speedy presentation.

MusicallyInspired
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#5 Post by MusicallyInspired » Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:56 pm

You'll probably lose all the sound effects as well, though, won't you? I think it'd be good to get it working perfectly with speech and then turn the option of just in case.

R.A.B.I.D.
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#6 Post by R.A.B.I.D. » Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:48 am

All the other sounds remain (doors shutting, spells, etc.). That button just nixes the voice pack.

I only mentioned it because it's an alternate solution to the same problem. Someone may have installed the game but subsequently lost their disc (or had it damaged), something along those lines, or are otherwise unable to configure the speech properly (not being very comfortable with computers comes to mind... for some people, exploring a CD instead of auto-playing it can be intimidating).

You're right, though, there's no reason NOT to install the voice pack if you are able to do so.

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