Roberta Williams Anthology

Message

scoopman · #1 Post by **scoopman** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 11:25 pm

Is there a way to play RW Anthology on "newer" pcs? I have this great new lappy and after downloading Tierra's great versions of KQ1 & 2 I was inspired to play my old games. But, I couldn't successfully load them and I'm not real computer savvy. Anyone throw some help my way?

Thanks

Scott

techie775 · #2 Post by **techie775** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 12:19 am

Well let's see. First we'd need to know what operating system your using to really help you out. Xp has a option when you click on an exe file and then properties what would allow to choose an operating system that will allow the game to run. I think it's a tab called combatility. It's got your choice of running it in win 95 ,98 2000 or xp. It works some of the time. They also have this fix on the web for sierra games with timer problems from 1988-1993 it's called scifix. It's somewhere on this forum.

scoopman · #3 Post by **scoopman** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 12:47 am

Thanks for the reply. I'm using XP Home

Peter Swinkels · #4 Post by **Peter Swinkels** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 2:16 pm

If your soundcard doesn't work in your DOS games which is likely to be the case with NT based operating systems such as Windows NT 3 , Windows NT 4, Windows 2000 and Windows XP Home/Professional then you might interested in downloading vdmsound at http://www.ece.mcgill.ca/~vromas/vdmsound/ .

I hope this helps you.

Pidgeot · #5 Post by **Pidgeot** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 2:31 pm

For the Windows games, you'll need to run them in 256 color mode, and KQ5 will also need 640x480. Those things can be set by right-clicking the shortcut and changing the compatability settings.

You might want to also set KQ5 to run as in Windows 95, and deactivate visual themes (the same for any other game that won't work after setting the above).

Or, you can choose to play the DOS versions. Either VDMSound (see above post) or DOSBox will work there.

Oilers99 · #6 Post by **Oilers99** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 8:32 pm

Eh, it would be nice to play all those King's Quest games, but I really hate technical difficulties.

Snarky · #7 Post by **Snarky** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 12:25 pm

With XP's compatibility settings, DOSBox, VDMSound, and fan-made patches, it's much easier to get most classic adventure games running today than it was five years ago. And in many cases they run more easily and better now than they ever did when they were published.

Who remembers bootdisks with experimental versions of config.sys and autoexec.bat? Who remembers trying desperately to clear up enough enough conventional RAM to get a game to run, and having to choose between mouse support or sound? Who remembers figuring all this out yourself -- with only a read.me file as documentation -- because it was an age before the Internet?

#8 Post by **Erpy** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 12:39 pm

I do. I used to know exactly what lines of config.sys and autoexec.bat to leave out because all they did was take additional conventional memory. Loading all lines in upper memory tended to do the trick most of the time.

For all its buginess, QFG4 really was a relief in that area because it used real mode which only looked at the total memory.

Pidgeot · #9 Post by **Pidgeot** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 12:56 pm

Same as Erpy, save for the QFG4 part - I've never played that.

Jontas · #10 Post by **Jontas** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 6:55 pm

Snarky wrote:Who remembers bootdisks with experimental versions of config.sys and autoexec.bat? Who remembers trying desperately to clear up enough enough conventional RAM to get a game to run, and having to choose between mouse support or sound? Who remembers figuring all this out yourself -- with only a read.me file as documentation -- because it was an age before the Internet?

Dear Lord, I do! I also knew every single line in those files and exactly what it did. Anyway I also recomend the DOSBox, you can play alot of games very smoothly with that program.

DOSBox, a x86 emulator with DOS
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net

Gronagor · #11 Post by **Gronagor** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 7:55 pm

Strange enough... I miss the old DOS days.