Kings Quest 5 Bug

Message

Adventurer · #1 Post by **Adventurer** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 9:02 am

I have a question for any of you who still have an old copy of Kings Quest 5.

I'm currently running windows XP Home. And when I play Kings Quest 5 it runs fine both in regular XP mode and with DOS emulation. But at the very end of the game I always get the same bug. Right after the evil wizard is defeated and the princess comes in and says something like "After all you've been though there must be a way." The game freezes up permenately. This happens both with Dos emulation and without it. Does anyone know of a way to correct this problem?

Angelus3K · #2 Post by **Angelus3K** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 9:20 am

Is that the floppy disk version? I think it must be as Broomie (a forum regular) had the same problem.

I think the only way to get around it is to use the KQ5 CD version.

#3 Post by **Erpy** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 9:26 am

Yep, I believe it happens on one of the old floppy disk versions. Don't think they ever made a patch for it.

JLM5 · #4 Post by **JLM5** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 9:39 am

I have exactly same problem with KQ5, even though I'm playing the game on my old 386-computer. Isn't there really any way to get past the bug? Does it happens always - in the other words - Is there any possibility to complete KQ5 with this version?

I have also CD-version of the KQ5, but I haven't played it because I haven't found an option to set speech to text. Actually, I'm quite poor in understanding spoken English. Is there ever been available a CD-version of KQ5 that includes an option to display speech as text (like in QFG4CD)?

Angelus3K · #5 Post by **Angelus3K** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 9:54 am

There is no option in KQ5CD to set to text unfortunatly.

I used to have the disk version of KQ5 on my old 486 back in the day.

I think the solution to the problem is to have a HIGH amount of base DOS memory free.

type "mem" in dos and it tells you how much you've got. 640K is the highest so you want as close to that as possible.

Things like sound and mouse drivers eat up that memory so ONLY load drivers you need to play the game!

#6 Post by **Erpy** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 9:55 am

Nope, that's the problem with the multimedia version of KQ5, the textboxes are completely gone. There's no way to enable them.

Angelus3K · #7 Post by **Angelus3K** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 12:43 pm

... unless they werent actually removed from the game then there may be a way to get them to appear like a hack or something... but as I said thats unless Sierra totally removed them.

adeyke · #8 Post by **adeyke** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:12 pm

They did remove all the text from the game. It's simply not in the resource files.

Peter Swinkels · #9 Post by **Peter Swinkels** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:31 pm

They did remove all the text from the game. It's simply not in the resource files.

Otherwise you could have probably hacked the game by editing its Resource.cfg file or removing the files containg the speech. I don't remember what to edit in the Resource.cfg file and I don't know if either hack would disable certain sound effects along with the speech.

Angelus3K · #10 Post by **Angelus3K** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:53 pm

I don't remember how to edit the Resource.cfg

Edit with Notepad.

I don't know if either hack would disable certain sound effects along with the speech.

Possibly but what sound effects are there in KQ5?

Adeyeke what about using KQ5 Disk resource files with KQ5 CD files?

Hmm, I guess though if the game knows they arent supposed to be there then it wouldnt use them.

Peter Swinkels · #11 Post by **Peter Swinkels** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:58 pm

Edit with Notepad.

Oops, I should have said: "I don't remember what to edit"

- BTW: any program that supports editing text files should do...

Adeyeke what about using KQ5 Disk resource files with KQ5 CD files?

I am not sure, but isn't the bug likely to be in a script which is likely contained in a resource file? In that case replacing the resource files would transfer the bug to the cd version of the game. Still, it isn't a bad idea, you might also want to try moving *.scr files and such... Although exchanging any file between the two versions could simply mess the games up...

#12 Post by **Erpy** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 5:32 pm

I think I tried that sort of thing once and I simply got a "wrong interpretor" kind of crash. I don't think it's gonna work. Those games already fuss about savegames being from the wrong version.

Angelus3K · #13 Post by **Angelus3K** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 6:43 pm

Maybe I'll try one day when I'm bored.

Hmm I think I'm free tonight!

I used to love editing the resource.cfg files in Sierra games as whenever I went round to my friends house they never had enough free base dos memory so I had to tweak the memory size for the game and the audio so it would work.

Which did work but you had to find the right balance or the game would crash if it were set too low. Which is basically the bug in KQ5 disk version the game runs out of memory.

Hmmm maybe increasing the base mem in the .cfg would fix that? Probably an actual error though rather than a real memory error...

EDIT: A quick google search has seemed to solve the crash bug in KQ5 floppy version.

Firstly patches can be downloaded from Sierra Planet and before that you can also try this advice:

Problem: The game crashes with a "out of heap" message after activating Mordack's machine in his laboratory.

Solution: Before activating the machine, turn both the speed and detail settings in the control panel to minimum.

Broomie I belive you have never seen the KQ5 ending because of this bug, maybe you could try these fixes? Or did you get the KQ5 CD version working?

#14 Post by **Erpy** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 7:11 pm

The out of heap error is another error that only occurs with the Windows version of the CD (voice) version of the game. It's not the same error as the game locking up after Cassima's line.

Angelus3K · #15 Post by **Angelus3K** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 7:19 pm

I cant understand why people would want to use the Windows version, the music in KQ5 is fantastic! The windows General Midi and Extended Midi do it no justice at all

#16 Post by **Erpy** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 7:26 pm

Because the sound drivers of the DOS version are so outdated you'd need a pure soundblaster as manufactured during those days to get sound. And since you NEED sound in the voice version, having sound driver conflicts will lock up the game at the Sierra logo.

Angelus3K · #17 Post by **Angelus3K** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 7:29 pm

Yea, I know what you mean!

At least I have my dust covered Sound Blaster 16 in my draw!