The error message indicates that your KQ6 installation is lacking said file. The error does not occur when selecting "No Speech" because said file contains lip-sync information, and when there's no speech, there's no need to lip-sync, so the file is not accessed.
After a fresh install from the original floppy disks, said file is in an archive named SYNC.EXE, which is extracted when running KQ6.BAT for the first time.

Vasyl has already developed a patch for this animation issue (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func … 551&atid=467234) but it is not in CVS yet (probably due to some side-effects)

This is great, appreciate u guys helping me out-

@NewRisingSun: I must be losing it, this is just embarrassing - though in my defence its the first sierra .bat file ive seen to do something other than just execute sierra.exe (or scidhuv.exe)

@rcblanke: Just taking a look at Vasyl's patch right now - hopefully it will be integrated into the CVS soon 😀

Just a thought - dont suppose there's any chance Vasyl may be unaware that the intro animations run perfectly in DOSBox 0.58? I feel the least i can do is make certain of this..
[note: to make intro work in .58 must disable speech]

Oh, I am perfectly aware of that. There were some significant changes in rendering introduced after 0.58, one of them broke KQ6 intro and a few other games. My patch changes rendering timings so those work properly. I don't think it introduces any artifacts but jury is still out waiting for Harekiet's final opinion on this. Meanwhite, the patch is in at least one of the popular builds -- look for ykhwong's build in CVS builds thread.

it broke tyrian and second reality at my place
(a tearing line)
haven't tried them lately. both rely on the timer a lot as well. There were some fixes there. maybe they helped.

Oops, a little problem. There was a later change that rendered my patch non-functional. In file vga_draw.cpp, line 354:

1//		VGA_DrawPart(vga.draw.parts_lines);
2		PIC_AddEvent(VGA_DrawPart,vga.draw.delay.parts/2,vga.draw.parts_lines); //Else tearline in Tyrian and second reality

After applying the patch uncomment the first line and comment the second one to get the intended patch functionality. I will update the patch on SF soon.
I've tried Tyrian and I don't see any tearing lines. IIRC, I could not reproduce this problem in the first place.

EDIT: The updated version of the patch is up.

I am very excited by the progress you are making Vasyl - KQ6 intro is a Big improvement with ur patch! (i finally worked out to set 'vsyncmode=on' in .conf file)

I also took a look at Second Reality to test ur patch - it still has rendering problems (mainly the moving smoke segment) - but frankly with the graphic intensity of 2nd Reality im not suprised.

Edit: Just noticed 2nd Reality already mentioned in ur post - and 'WoW!' Second Reality running perfectly would be progress indeed - Nice work! 😎

Checked the Second Reality, does not look that different before and after the patch for me. The smoke part definitely flickers but it does that in unpatched build as well. I am more concerned about a kind of palette glitch just before the starship (or whatever it is) scene in the beginning, but it is also unrelated. I wonder if my patch makes rendering more sensitive to host driver/hardware/monitor timings.

That palette glitch happens because it (for whatever reason) writes something
onto the screenthrough a bios/dos function, most likely some error or
info message that is not visible (and should not be).
For me it is only visible using the dynamic core and timing-related, does
not appear always.

vasyl wrote:

...I've tried Tyrian and I don't see any tearing lines...

FWIW, neither do I using Vasyl's patch, on WinXP/ATI. No tearing line in surface, overlay or openGL mode.

Regards,
Ronald

Tearing depends on some timing stuff, including host graphics
card/monitor frequency etc.

Has anyone gotten this working in Windows? I remember the Windows version of this game had better graphics during the talking parts.

Where can I download this patch? I'm having the same problem.