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First post, by ante1234and

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hi!

i purchased secret agent by apogee sofware on gog.
i have little problem getting it to work on my retro pc with win98se.
i first installed the game on my modern pc running win10, then i burned everyrthing on a cd to my win98 pc.
the dos file that launches the game is starting but the there seems to be some graphics error and glitches when the title screen shows up, the sound is not working correct either.
any suggestions what i can do?
i really want to play the game on my retro pc because i prefer playing the games on real hardware instead of emulating it.
any help is thankfull

Reply 1 of 18, by Jorpho

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For starters, when you "burned everything", are you sure you didn't miss any files?

Are you trying to run the game directly from the CD, or did you copy the files to the hard drive of your retro PC? If you copied the files, did you clear the Read Only attribute from the files on the hard drive?

Also, please try to include more details when you make a post like this. You were already told this in your other thread. It is distinctly possible that your retro PC is too fast for this game.

Reply 3 of 18, by vkcpolice

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try downloading the shareware version and see if it shows the same sort of errors. try copying the game over to your retro build again. if you have a usb floppy drive copy the game to this each episode can easy fit onto a 1.44mb floppy.
try shutting down and running under dos mode
also dont run it direct from a cd this will most likely encounter errors as the game has no way to write to the disc

Reply 4 of 18, by ante1234and

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how do i install that patch? i downloaded it before but never figured out how to install it.

i need some instructions how to do it.
i got the shareware version to work by installing the v1.0a patch and it worked but not with the full version somehow.
i used a pci graphics card on another pc and it worked, may i have to update the graphics card driver? i have a nvidia tnt2 card

Reply 5 of 18, by Jorpho

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ante1234and wrote on 2021-06-26, 10:37:

how do i install that patch? i downloaded it before but never figured out how to install it.

i need some instructions how to do it.

The instructions are already there. Did you read them?

Copy the following script and save it as a plain text file. Then get my patching utility and open the text file with it. Follow the instructions to patch the games' executables.

If you do not understand these instructions then you will have to explain what you do not understand.

Reply 7 of 18, by Jorpho

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ante1234and wrote on 2021-07-02, 18:57:

which one is the script file?

There is no script file!

Copy the following script and save it as a plain text file.

What exactly do you think these words mean?

Reply 10 of 18, by darry

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ante1234and wrote on 2021-07-03, 16:28:
there is a patch for the registered version that can be downloaded. "registered v1.0 to 1.0a" patch something like that. how do […]
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there is a patch for the registered version that can be downloaded.
"registered v1.0 to 1.0a" patch
something like that.
how do i install that patch?

First, you download the zip file from here, for example, https://archive.org/details/SecretAgentRegist … ftwareInstaller .

Then, you follow the instruction in the text file included in the zip file .

EDIT: On reading the previous posts, I think I may have misunderstood your question, as you seem to have already installed that 1.0a patch previously according to one of your previous posts .

Reply 11 of 18, by K1n9_Duk3

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ante1234and wrote on 2021-07-03, 16:28:

"registered v1.0 to 1.0a" patch [...] how do i install that patch?

You don't. The GOG version of Secret Agent is version 1.0a, so of course the 1.0 to 1.0a patch won't work. That patch wouldn't fix sound or graphics glitches anyway, all it does is prevent the date from being set back to the 1900's.

You still haven't actually told or shown us what the graphics errors and glitches you mentioned actually look like. That would be a good place to start.

As I mentioned earlier, I made a patch that fixes a graphics glitch that may pop up on certain graphics cards. If the Apogee screen and the title screen consist entirely of vertical lines/bars that stretch from the top of the screen all the way to the bottom of the screen, then that patch can fix that problem. If the screen is messed up in a different way, then my patch is probably not going to fix that.

Reply 12 of 18, by ante1234and

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i tried installing the patch but when it is finished it says it can not be run under dos mode.

however, i didn't really understand how to install that other patch.
should i copy everything and save it as a text file in the game directory where the game is installed?

Reply 13 of 18, by K1n9_Duk3

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I'm not sure which patch(es) you're talking about here. Be more specific.

Also: If a program tells you that it can't be run under DOS mode, the first thing to try should be running it under Windows.

Reply 14 of 18, by ante1234and

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K1n9_Duk3 wrote on 2021-07-08, 20:46:

I'm not sure which patch(es) you're talking about here. Be more specific.

Also: If a program tells you that it can't be run under DOS mode, the first thing to try should be running it under Windows.

i mean that patch that you told me to download which was supposed to be saved as a script file.
i think i did something wrong with it.
should all text in that patch be copied, and then save as a text file?
i did that using notepad, i copied everything into a new notepad file

Reply 15 of 18, by K1n9_Duk3

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K1n9_Duk3's Patching Utility is a 32-bit Windows program (commonly referred to as Win32). You need to run it on a 32-bit or a 64-bit version of Windows. I have only tested it on Windows XP (32-bit) and Windows 10 (64-bit), but I think it's gonna work on any version of Windows XP and up. It may also work on Windows NT, 95, 98, ME or 2000 if you have Unicode support installed on that system (I haven't tested this myself). Linux users might also get it to work through WINE.

You should run the patching utility on a (semi-)modern PC to patch the executables and then copy the patched files over to your DOS PC.

The correct procedure is:

  • copy the patching utility (KDPU.EXE) onto your Windows PC
  • copy the patch script into Notepad
  • save the patch script as a plain text file
  • open that file in KDPU
  • point KDPU to the executables and, once it is done patching each file, save that file (don't overwrite the original files unless you have backups!)
  • copy the patched files onto your DOS system along with all the other game files
  • run the patched executables to play the game

The original executables for Secret Agent are compressed with LZEXE. KDPU will automatically decompress them and save the patched files in uncompressed form. You should be able to tell the originals and the patched ones apart by looking at their file size.

Reply 16 of 18, by ante1234and

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K1n9_Duk3 wrote on 2021-07-09, 20:41:
K1n9_Duk3's Patching Utility is a 32-bit Windows program (commonly referred to as Win32). You need to run it on a 32-bit or a 64 […]
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K1n9_Duk3's Patching Utility is a 32-bit Windows program (commonly referred to as Win32). You need to run it on a 32-bit or a 64-bit version of Windows. I have only tested it on Windows XP (32-bit) and Windows 10 (64-bit), but I think it's gonna work on any version of Windows XP and up. It may also work on Windows NT, 95, 98, ME or 2000 if you have Unicode support installed on that system (I haven't tested this myself). Linux users might also get it to work through WINE.

You should run the patching utility on a (semi-)modern PC to patch the executables and then copy the patched files over to your DOS PC.

The correct procedure is:

  • copy the patching utility (KDPU.EXE) onto your Windows PC
  • copy the patch script into Notepad
  • save the patch script as a plain text file
  • open that file in KDPU
  • point KDPU to the executables and, once it is done patching each file, save that file (don't overwrite the original files unless you have backups!)
  • copy the patched files onto your DOS system along with all the other game files
  • run the patched executables to play the game

The original executables for Secret Agent are compressed with LZEXE. KDPU will automatically decompress them and save the patched files in uncompressed form. You should be able to tell the originals and the patched ones apart by looking at their file size.

ok, i should try it and see if it works.

Reply 18 of 18, by ante1234and

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which file should i choose?
is it the one called "sam1.exe" ?

btw, i got the game running by rightclicking and removing each read only box for each file.
the game worked for a few minutes but then the graphics got all messed up.
can this patch really work? the one that i using with notepad.