First post, by Jiri
I've spent several hours testing Fable (a point and click 2D adventure game from 1996) on a modern computer and have run into problems that might interest some tech-savvy Vogons visitors.
The game is not currently for sale on any digital platform, and has a CD version that allows both DOS and Windows (it was originally intended for Windows 95) installation.
The Windows version reports an installation problem on Windows 10, but this can be quite easily circumvented by manually entering the Windows registry entry or by using an alternative installer that I found online.
Then the game can be run in Windows or the DOS version can be installed and run in DOSBox.
But the problem is that the Windows version has an annoying blinking cursor, which makes the game hard to play.
I thought I would just use some DDraw wrapper and the problem would be solved. Unfortunately, I have not succeeded with any of the wrappers I have tried.
The author of the DxWnd utility is aware of the problem and has come up with some ideas as to why it occurs, but has been unable to fix it. An interesting discussion is available here:
https://sourceforge.net/p/dxwnd/discussion/ge … ead/2a22287605/
I also tried to install the game on Windows 95 in the PCem emulator, but the cursor was flickering even there.
I don't remember encountering this problem when I ran the game natively in Windows 95 years ago, and it's not clear to me why everything fails now.
So I tried the DOS version in DOSBox and here I ran into a sound problem for a change. Sound is considerably worse than the Windows version, especially when the characters are speaking.
The game lets you select several variations of SB soundcard and GUS, but with all of them sounding equally bad, I don't notice any difference at all.
So today's gamer has a choice with this game (which has no support in ScummVM) on a modern PC:
a) the Windows version, which has a visually annoying flickering cursor
b) the DOS version in DOSBox, which has bad sound
Would anyone like to test the game and try to find a solution to at least some of these problems?
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Here's how to install the Windows version on a modern computer:
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Install the game using the installer on the CD, then paste this code into the registry:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/5p4t00g3ia0ycm … 96_reg.zip/file
You may still need to edit the registry in: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Telstar\Fable] line to change the path to the choosen game location.
Or you can just use this installer:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/b87riyydsw3gdy … b_1996.zip/file