Could KQ6 (High Res) ever be made to work with modern PCs?
 

I love how GOG released all of the old KQ games--but one thing I dislike is how every KQ Collection after 1997 has released the low res version of KQ6 (and the DOS version of KQ5). The Hi Res version of KQ6 just improves an already great game, as does the Windows version of KQ5...I'm wondering, is there any way to get them compatible with modern PCs? Especially the Hi Res version of KQ6?

It works with slightly different way in ScummVM. That is to say that ScummVM can open the assets, and allow you to play in hires mode. But some of the menus are different, and you get the color cursors instead of the B&W ones, IIRC.

BTW, every collection has the windows version of KQ6, but just no installation options (GOG added the windows installation back, but unless you have an early version of windows its very difficult to actually use natively).

Actually the windows version of KQ5 is slightly inferior to the DOS version... Black and White cursors instead of color, & it was buggier... There are no extras.

If you have a copy of Windows 3.1, you can install it into your DOSbox games directory and run it using DOSbox. Then you can install the Windows version of KQ6 and play it as if you actually had a PC from 1992!

It's actually pretty cool. Far better in my opinion than using ScummVM to do it, as the menus and cursors are all in their original Windows forms (ScummVM imports the DOS cursors for some reason).

Well, the menus/inventory, etc are hires in KQ6 in ScummVM...

Just the save and restore menus are different, switching into ScummVM menu system, rather than the classic Sierra save menus.

But ya the cursors are the in color and low res rather than the black and white cursors from the windows version.

Note menu bar is definitely the hires graphics (you'll get hires as far as the inventory and the control menus as well).
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/ki...ScummvmKQ6.jpg


Here is an example of the window's cursor for the old coins;
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__...orenhanced.jpg

You get this not so Sierra save/restore screen overlay though;

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/ki...cummvmsave.jpg

You can toggle between the cursors in the scummvm.ini file.

Can you get ScummVM to emulate the APPLE 2 colors when playing the Apple II sierra games?

Orange instead of Violet skies on Kerona in Space Quest 1 for example?

Or does it always just load the PC color palette?

No, but you can set the game colours to Amiga which are a little different. Not exactly the same as the Apple II though.

Too bad, part of the nostalgia in the Apple II is the different palette! LOL.

It would be fun to be able to mess around be ablet o load all the various pallete choices from the various computers the games were released on back then, just to compare the differences!

I'm sure once the Apple II interpreter is properly integrated they'll offer the Apple II palette as well. Right now the sound doesn't even work right for the Apple II versions.

Download the latest daily beta build, the music works great! actually.

Keep in mind that the windows KQ6 (high res) is still highly a work in progress at ScummVM. Once the game is fully implemented it will have the original menus, cursors, etc.

Actually from what I've seen, the save/restore screen overlay replaces the original save/restore screens from the original even in the dos version of the game. It replaces the original menus in all the VGA games, Sierra, and other companies as well, as far as I know?

Outside of the save/restore all the correct menus exist in the hi res or lo res versions depending on which version you are loading into ScumVM.

There's also a setting for the original Save/Restore GUI's in the scummvm.ini file. Not all the ScummVM games use its GUI, though.

Hmm, I looked it up and couldn't find it. However, you CAN access the original Save/Load GUI for most (LucasArts, at least--haven't checked it with Sierra) games by pressing Alt-F5 (versus just F5 to bring up the ScummVM menu).

You can do it. I've done it. I made my own custom build of ScummVM and set the option in the source, though. I was pretty sure this was also customizable in the scummvm.ini file though.

Either way - give it time. SCI is still very "wip". Once games are actually playable then (if it follows the same progress as other large engines), they'll go back and take care of smaller things like menus.

The later version of the SCI engines are a work in progress, but KQ6 is not (nor are any other pre-SCI2 games). The changes made were intentional, and as MI said can be disabled in the .ini file.

ScummVM uses its own save/restore menu in most games at this point, not just SCI ones. I think it's done on an engine-by-engine basis. Oddly, much earlier in development the SCI games were using the original Sierra menus, but it was changed at some point in the development process. I'm not really sure why -- I'd prefer the original menus, but it's not a huge deal.

The reason the developers switched to primarily using the scumm GUI is probably because its fancier and has bells and whistles such as noting when (date an time) the save was made and an in-game screenshot showing where it was was saved. Also it doesn't have the save limits of the original iirc (you could only make about 20 saves in the Sierra system)

It Scumm GUi is a nice feature, technically superior, and has its advantages, just some might prefer to run things as close to original as possible.

You can also customize the ScummVM GUI scheme so you can make it look like whatever you want. So in theory, you could make any ScummVM supported game look like a Sierra game! lol

Upping this, as Anakin's new thread on the same topic should be merged into it.

As per GuruGuru's thread policy;