Great Hierophant wrote:

That so-called "alternative palette" seen in the SQ3 screenshot is really designed for the composite video mode.

yeah, and it's botched at that; whatever trick they're using (bypassing bios and setting the registers directly?) it doesn't work correctly on newer video cards. In composite mode you should see 640x200x2 graphics on an RGB monitor with SQ1 and probably all other AGI games, but the system I captured those on didn't switch to that mode correctly so those striped 320x200x4 graphics are created. At the time I captured those shots I thought it was a legit palette choice (some sierra games do offer different dithering options) but now I'd suggest it as innaccurate and I'll submit a correction to have them removed. I think all of the SCI0 games I've tested used the high intensity white/red/cyan palette.

Interestingly at the time I played SQ1 I used the composite mode even though I had an RGB monitor; I thought the black and white graphics were easier to see than the 4 color graphics.

I don't know what you mean by that last sentence. SCI0 games except early KQ4 use Mode 5 (not 4), which on a CGA results in Light Cyan/Light Red/White.

The sentence "That so-called "alternative palette" seen in the SQ3 screenshot is really designed for the composite video mode" was supposed to be in referrence to the SQ1 screenshot SirGraham referrenced five posts previously. My mistake.

To summarize all that we know about the Color Graphics Adapter graphics modes, I present the following summary:

The six true RGB CGA 320 Graphics Mode palettes:

Mode 4 - Color Burst Bit is Set/On
L. Cyan/L. Magenta/L. White - Default
Cyan/Magenta/White - Intensity bit Reset/Off

L. Red/ L. Green/Yellow - Palette bit Reset/Off
Red/Green/Brown - Palette + Intensity bit Reset/Off

Black Background & Border - Default (16 Colors Available)

Mode 5 - Color Burst Bit is Reset/Off
L. Cyan/L. Red/L. White - Default
Cyan/Red/White - Intensity bit Reset/Off

Black Background & Border - Default (16 Colors Available)

The one true RGB 640 CGA Mode:

Mode 6 - Color Burst Bit is Reset/Off (or Set/On, no difference)

L. White Foreground - Default (16 Colors Available)

Black Background & Border - Always

For Composite Monitors we have 4 true Graphics Modes

Mode 4 - Composite Color bit Reset/On
Color - 16 Colors Available

Mode 5 - Composite Color bit Set/Off
Monochrome - 16 Shades of Gray Available

Mode 6 - Composite Color bit Set/Off
Monochrome - 16 Shades of Gray Available

Undefined Mode [6] - Composite Color bit Reset/On
Color - 16 Colors Available

yeah, and it's botched at that; whatever trick they're using (bypassing bios and setting the registers directly?) it doesn't work correctly on newer video cards. In composite mode you should see 640x200x2 graphics on an RGB monitor with SQ1 and probably all other AGI games, but the system I captured those on didn't switch to that mode correctly so those striped 320x200x4 graphics are created. At the time I captured those shots I thought it was a legit palette choice (some sierra games do offer different dithering options) but now I'd suggest it as innaccurate and I'll submit a correction to have them removed. I think all of the SCI0 games I've tested used the high intensity white/red/cyan palette.

Interestingly at the time I played SQ1 I used the composite mode even though I had an RGB monitor; I thought the black and white graphics were easier to see than the 4 color graphics.

All SCI0 games offer two CGA options:
CGA with RGB Monitor - 2 Colors
CGA with RGB Monitor - 4 Colors

Using the VGA adapter: The first option offers the Mode 6 Default, the second option the Mode 4 Default.

Using the CGA adapter: The first option offers Color Composite Mode 6 (not optimized), the second option the Mode 5 Default.

All AGI Games offer two CGA options, toggled with Ctrl-R
CGA with RGB Monitor - red/green/brown + blue background
CGA with Color Composite Monitor - 16 composite colors

AGI booters used Mode 6 for their composite color, but I am not sure if they continued to use this Mode or Mode 4 for the AGI DOS versions. It is impossible to tell with DOSBox because of how treats color composite mode (presuming it to be a function of the mode rather than the mode and display device.)

Great Hierophant wrote:

All SCI0 games offer two CGA options:
CGA with RGB Monitor - 2 Colors
CGA with RGB Monitor - 4 Colors

not all; I have several which did not include the 4 color option. Of course, you could simply copy the driver from another game which had it and the results were fine, but some games didn't ship with it on the disks.

Using the CGA adapter: The first option offers Color Composite Mode 6 (not optimized), the second option the Mode 5 Default.

both modes displayed in black and white on a composite monitor, no color. actually I thought it looked pretty good, really.

AGI booters used Mode 6 for their composite color, but I am not sure if they continued to use this Mode or Mode 4 for the AGI DOS versions. It is impossible to tell with DOSBox because of how treats color composite mode (presuming it to be a function of the mode rather than the mode and display device.)

all the agi dos versions I tested also used mode 6, I'd imagine that's consistent throughout.

Great Hierophant wrote:

It is impossible to tell with DOSBox because of how treats color composite mode (presuming it to be a function of the mode rather than the mode and display device.)

Really ?
Please don't make assumptions you don't know a thing about.

DOSBox it's composite mode detection goes by register bits and can only be activated when the machine is in cga mode(display device).

A few games showed up in a weird composite mode in 0.63 but I changed the bits DOSBox uses to detect composite mode and now they work fine as well. This has nothing to do with the set videomode.
(a set videomode command is nothing more than programming certain values to registers....... a game can do those things themself as well If don't like using interrupt 10 for some reason.)

Great Hierophant wrote:

AGI booters used Mode 6 for their composite color, but I am not sure if they continued to use this Mode or Mode 4 for the AGI DOS versions

AGI's composite mode is neither mode 4 nor mode 6. It's a custom video mode, which looks like mode 6 on an RGB monitor.
If a game uses a 320x240 mode, starting off in mode 0x13 and then changing some registers, it's not accurate either to say that the game uses mode 0x13 when in fact it uses a custom video mode.

Qbix wrote:

a set videomode command is nothing more than programming certain values to registers....... a game can do those things themself as well If don't like using interrupt 10 for some reason.

Exactly. California Games sets the 16-color composite mode entirely without using the BIOS, which means it will stay in text mode on a VGA.

By the way Servo, since my emails apparently REALLY don't get through to you: thank you very much for your PCjr assistance. 😀

Qbix wrote:

California Games sets the 16-color composite mode entirely without using the BIOS, which means it will stay in text mode on a VGA.

I remember seeing this on a few old games on my 286, which had an EGA card. It would be obvious that the game was supposed to be graphical, but it would be running in text mode instead (resulting in nearly unintelligible garbage).

I could be wrong, but I seem to remember that either my EGA card or the Paradise SVGA card I got later had a TSR or something that helped those games work properly. I could be wrong though - it's equally likely that I just chose a more appropriate video mode in the game for my hardware (and moved on to some other game for the ones that I couldn't get working).

It must be admitted that the SCI0 games, which have a native resolution of 320x200x16, don't look very good if you set the game the "2-Color CGA" mode and connect the CGA card to a composite monitor. Even if the game does support the color composite mode, it isn't very sharp looking. Details get lost in a colorful blur. If I only had a CGA card at the time, I would probably have picked the 4-Color CGA RGB mode or even the 2-Color CGA RGB black and white mode.

As I recall, the IBM PC BIOS, when setting up Mode 6 sets bit 2 of port 3d8, which turns off the CGA's color composite signal. Thus, if the program uses Int 10 to set Mode 6, the graphics should be in Black and White regardless of the type of monitor used unless and until the program resets bit 2. But if the program sets up a similar screen mode manually by writing to the CGA registers, then there is no default for the color composite bit and I assume that most programs would reset the bit for some color on a composite monitor rather than deny the user all color. I assume that Spellhold (if that is the right name) game is a noticeable exception because of the amount of text and high resolution graphics.

Now that you mention it, it would make a sort of sense that AGI games use a custom composite mode or set up their mode manually. On VGA adapters, the graphics would appear in the 320x200 mode, regardless of whether the game was a booter or DOS installable.

It must be admitted that the SCI0 games, which have a native resolution of 320x200x16, don't look very good if you set the game the "2-Color CGA" mode and connect the CGA card to a composite monitor. Even if the game does support the color composite mode, it isn't very sharp looking. Details get lost in a colorful blur.

Huh? SCI0 games don't support composite mode. If you get a "colorful blur" with the CGA320M.DRV, it's because your TV has no color killer circuit.

But if the program sets up a similar screen mode manually by writing to the CGA registers, then there is no default for the color composite bit and I assume that most programs would reset the bit for some color on a composite monitor rather than deny the user all color.

🙄 What "similiar screen mode"? Why is there no "default"? You can't set up any screen mode without writing to port 3d8, and if you do that, you always either set or reset the composite bit.

Huh? SCI0 games don't support composite mode. If you get a "colorful blur" with the CGA320M.DRV, it's because your TV has no color killer circuit.

Sorry, I was using an older CVS, which seemed to mandate color composite for Mode 6. The new CVS shows pure B&W Mode 6 (or something very similar) for SCI0 games in DOSBox.

What "similiar screen mode"? Why is there no "default"? You can't set up any screen mode without writing to port 3d8, and if you do that, you always either set or reset the composite bit.

The IBM PC BIOS resets bit 2 in Modes 1, 3 and 4 (composite color on) and sets bit 2 in Modes 0, 2, 5 and 6 (composite color off.)

Without reprogramming the MC6845 CRTC, you will only get 200 lines and and either 320 or 640 pixels using graphics modes or 40x25 and 80x25 in text modes. Not a lot of variety, so most "custom modes" will look very similar to an official IBM PC Mode. I also note that it is rather dangerous to reprogram the CRTC if you don't know what you are doing because the CGA monitor is a fixed frequency device. Only two companies ever showed such ambition.

Testing SQ3 for this issue reminded me of something I always wanted to know - why did Sierra bother to record samples for this game (like when Roger's saying "Where am I?" in the intro), but never released it with a driver that actually enables the game to play them? If I'm not mistaken, the original floppy version came without an SB driver at all, and the copy in the SQ collection comes with an SB driver that doesn't sound really different from the Adlib driver. Anyone knows why Sierra did this?

Kippesoep wrote:

Ctrl-C can either be handled by the game itself (SQ3, Countdown) or by DOS and passed on to the game (LucasArts games). My guess is DOSBox doesn't handle Ctrl-C natively.

To quit a LucasArts game, use Alt-X.

Right, if you boot a real MS-DOS under DOSBox, Ctrl-C will always work. By the way, Alt-X can be used only with newer LucasArts games, so it's no help for Manaic and Zak.

NewRisingSun wrote:

SCI0 games, (except for KQ4) use the L. Cyan/Pink/White palette. That so-called "alternative palette" seen in the SQ3 screenshot is really designed for the composite video mode.

I don't know what you mean by that last sentence. SCI0 games except early KQ4 use Mode 5 (not 4), which on a CGA results in Light Cyan/Light Red/White.

Why do you both say that KQ4's 4-color CGA mode is different? I checked it on DOSBox with machine=cga and machine=vga, and like the other SCI0 games, the only color that was changed from cga to vga was red to pink, and the other colors remained the same (white,black,cyan). It was the same under MESS. Here are pictures (left one is machine=cga):

Servo wrote:

Interestingly at the time I played SQ1 I used the composite mode even though I had an RGB monitor; I thought the black and white graphics were easier to see than the 4 color graphics.

You and other people on this thread say that the AGI composite mode is displayed in b&w on CGA RGB monitors and the white/cyan/pink palette seen in your (now removed) SQ1 moby shot is what you get on VGAs, and MESS seems to approve it, but I find it very weird, because I played most AGI games on an RGB CGA, and I'm almost sure they weren't b&w. I also asked two of my friends and they also seem pretty sure they were in color. I am sure of one thing - we never used Ctrl-R to switch to the Red/Green/Brown/Blue palette. So, is my memory misleading me or there's another option? Oh, and NAGI shows this palette also.

Incidentally, I saw that you didn't remove your Maniac Mansion screenshot, so does that mean this game does use the white/cyan/pink/black palette or you just didn't get to it yet? (btw, I don't think you should've deleted the SQ1 shot, I think you should've just rename it to "composite mode on VGAs" or something)

NewRisingSun wrote:

Huh? SCI0 games don't support composite mode. If you get a "colorful blur" with the CGA320M.DRV, it's because your TV has no color killer circuit.

I was also confused (until he explained it) by what Great Hierophant said, that SCI0 games have a 2-color CGA driver intended for composite mode. As far as I know, SCI0 games have two 2-color CGA drivers - CGA320M.DRV ("preffered") and CGA320BW.DRV, and using either of them will result in a b&w display on any monitor, be it VGA, CGA, or composite. According to MESS, the 4-color CGA driver (CGA320C.DRV) results in a b&w palette under composite monitors, and it looks a little different than the 2-color driver's palette, but I don't know if that's correct.
Interestingly, KQ5 EGA has two more CGA drivers beside the other two, CGA320B.DRV, which produces a red/green/brown/blue palette similar to AGI games, and CGA320F.DRV, which produces a blue & white palette (this one is the only driver that looks different on CGAs and VGAs (except for CGA320C.DRV, of course), at least according to DOSBox; see here)

Great Hierophant wrote:

Sorry, I was using an older CVS, which seemed to mandate color composite for Mode 6. The new CVS shows pure B&W Mode 6 (or something very similar) for SCI0 games in DOSBox.

Yes, this problem was discussed in page 6 of this very thread 😀

I sometimes wonder why we have spent so much time delving into the inner mysteries of one of the most primitive PC graphics cards ever made, but I can only blame myself, because I started this topic two months ago.

The KQ5 screenshots are very interesting looking, but I can explain the difference in the 2-Color screenshots. The CGA card cannot select the background color, only the foreground color. The background and border colors will always be black in the 640 RGB mode. The VGA card may be able to change the background color in the 640x200x2 mode, or the background color change may be a side effect of improper CGA-backwards compatibility.

I was also confused (until he explained it) by what Great Hierophant said, that SCI0 games have a 2-color CGA driver intended for composite mode. As far as I know, SCI0 games have two 2-color CGA drivers - CGA320M.DRV ("preffered") and CGA320BW.DRV, and using either of them will result in a b&w display on any monitor, be it VGA, CGA, or composite. According to MESS, the 4-color CGA driver (CGA320C.DRV) results in a b&w palette under composite monitors, and it looks a little different than the 2-color driver's palette, but I don't know if that's correct.

I can explain this as well. The SCI0 games use Mode 5 (or something very like it) in their 4 Color CGA Modes, which appears as cyan/red/white + background color on an RGB monitor and in four shades of gray on a composite monitor. The SCI0 games use Mode 6 (again or something very like it) in their 2 Color CGA Modes. That will show in color (usually white) on black on an RGB monitor and white (or another color depending on the phosphors) on black on a composite monitor.

I am sure of one thing - we never used Ctrl-R to switch to the Red/Green/Brown/Blue palette. So, is my memory misleading me or there's another option? Oh, and NAGI shows this palette also.

The palette you mention is correct on a true IBM CGA. What it is on some "compatible" clone is another story. The only other option is a command-line switch to change from RGB CGA to Composite CGA. I don't know what an AGI game would look like initially on a CGA card connected to an RGB monitor, but I would guess that it would be 640x200x2. I don't believe its possible for a game using an IBM CGA card to detect which type of display device it is connected to and switch the mode accordingly without user input.

SirGraham wrote:

Testing SQ3 for this issue reminded me of something I always wanted to know - why did Sierra bother to record samples for this game (like when Roger's saying "Where am I?" in the intro), but never released it with a driver that actually enables the game to play them?

Well, Sierra was targeting a lot of platforms at once with AGI and SCI, so presumably they were doing it for one of the other platforms. For example, AGI games actually have three-voice music and a noice channel for their audio (designed for PCjr and Tandy), but on the PC version you just get the first voice of the music out of the PC speaker.

why did Sierra bother to record samples for this game (like when Roger's saying "Where am I?" in the intro), but never released it with a driver that actually enables the game to play them? If I'm not mistaken, the original floppy version came without an SB driver at all, and the copy in the SQ collection comes with an SB driver that doesn't sound really different from the Adlib driver. Anyone knows why Sierra did this?

Where do people get this crap that Sierra didn't ship SQ3 with a driver with sample playback functionality? It routinely pops up on message boards and on ill-informed websites. Sierra did ship version 1.0P with a "Tandy 1000 SL/TL" driver, which can play back digital samples, and Sierra did ship the original floppy version 1.018 with a SNDBLAST.DRV on its 3.5" diskette.
Sierra's Collection releases are not relevant because they're crap anyway --- their setup programs routinely install some of the games incorrectly, leading to all sorts of freaky error messages (i.e. "can't find robot resource 410" in SQ6, swamp lockup in KQ6CD), and they replaced SNDBLAST.DRV files with ADL.DRV files, and other crazy stuff. Ignore them. Get a real floppy-disk release.

Why do you both say that KQ4's 4-color CGA mode is different?

Early KQ4 versions (1.000.111, SCI version < 0.300) display the green-red-brown palette with a blue background, at least on a VGA card.

I also asked two of my friends and they also seem pretty sure they were in color. I am sure of one thing - we never used Ctrl-R to switch to the Red/Green/Brown/Blue palette. So, is my memory misleading me or there's another option?

You can also get the brown palette witht he -r command line option. If you didn't do that either, you either didn't use a CGA but maybe a Tandy/Jr (which uses the same kind of RGB monitor that the CGA uses), or your memory is betraying you. AGI games boot up in composite 640x200 mode, which appears in B&W on a CGA with RGB monitor, period. That's what the AGI reference card says as well.

For example, AGI games actually have three-voice music and a noice channel for their audio (designed for PCjr and Tandy), but on the PC version you just get the first voice of the music out of the PC speaker.

The PC "version" IS the Tandy/PCjr "version" physically and electronically; you insert the exact same disk into different computers.

Sierra's Collection releases are not relevant because they're crap anyway --- their setup programs routinely install some of the games incorrectly, leading to all sorts of freaky error messages (i.e. "can't find robot resource 410" in SQ6, swamp lockup in KQ6CD), and they replaced SNDBLAST.DRV files with ADL.DRV files, and other crazy stuff. Ignore them. Get a real floppy-disk release.

Personally, I find most Collection re-releases, whether by Sierra or anyone else to be pretty crappy. Electronic documentation, no copy-protection cracks, needless clutter, terrible install programs and problems, missing features and high prices. I would wholeheartedly support buying original floppy disks, but the ugly problem of disk failure and bit rot almost makes it not worth it.

Where do people get this crap that Sierra didn't ship SQ3 with a driver with sample playback functionality? It routinely pops up on message boards and on ill-informed websites. Sierra did ship version 1.0P with a "Tandy 1000 SL/TL" driver, which can play back digital samples, and Sierra did ship the original floppy version 1.018 with a SNDBLAST.DRV on its 3.5" diskette.

I find it interesting that they released a Soundblaster supported version of a game released in 1988, a full year or so before the first Soundblaster was ever released.

SirGraham wrote:

You and other people on this thread say that the AGI composite mode is displayed in b&w on CGA RGB monitors and the white/cyan/pink palette seen in your (now removed) SQ1 moby shot is what you get on VGAs, and MESS seems to approve it, but I find it very weird, because I played most AGI games on an RGB CGA, and I'm almost sure they weren't b&w. I also asked two of my friends and they also seem pretty sure they were in color. I am sure of one thing - we never used Ctrl-R to switch to the Red/Green/Brown/Blue palette. So, is my memory misleading me or there's another option? Oh, and NAGI shows this palette also.

I can't remember for sure what mode the game started in at the time; I may have had to press ctrl-r to switch to composite mode. When I test now it always starts up in composite mode.

SirGraham wrote:

Incidentally, I saw that you didn't remove your Maniac Mansion screenshot, so does that mean this game does use the white/cyan/pink/black palette or you just didn't get to it yet? (btw, I don't think you should've deleted the SQ1 shot, I think you should've just rename it to "composite mode on VGAs" or something)

The Maniac Mansion screenshot should be accurate; it really does use the white/cyan/pink/palette on a CGA card. I didn't think keeping the "CGA on VGA" shots around was worthwhile as it's not really accurate, just caused by a VGA card not being fully CGA compatible. If some newer SVGA card corrupted a VGA game's graphics, I wouldn't really want screenshots of that, and so on...

SirGraham wrote:

Interestingly, KQ5 EGA has two more CGA drivers beside the other two, CGA320B.DRV, which produces a red/green/brown/blue palette similar to AGI games, and CGA320F.DRV, which produces a blue & white palette (this one is the only driver that looks different on CGAs and VGAs (except for CGA320C.DRV, of course), at least according to DOSBox; see here)

That's interesting, I've never seen a copy of KQ5 that came with CGA drivers; I've seen that 640x200 blue driver before, it doesn't seem useful though I wondered if it was intended for display on laptops with monochrome lcd displays. (the blue could display as a nice grey instead. still strange though, why not just use grey?).

The Maniac Mansion screenshot should be accurate; it really does use the white/cyan/pink/palette on a CGA card. I didn't think keeping the "CGA on VGA" shots around was worthwhile as it's not really accurate, just caused by a VGA card not being fully CGA compatible. If some newer SVGA card corrupted a VGA game's graphics, I wouldn't really want screenshots of that, and so on...

Some work has been done on MobyGames to show proper screenshots, and more will be needed. Most often this is the fault of capture program, using god-knows-what as a video device or simple ignorance.

That's interesting, I've never seen a copy of KQ5 that came with CGA drivers; I've seen that 640x200 blue driver before, it doesn't seem useful though I wondered if it was intended for display on laptops with monochrome lcd displays. (the blue could display as a nice grey instead. still strange though, why not just use grey?).

Perhaps the blue has better contrast than the gray on some LCD panels, but if the panel is monochrome, (like on the IBM PC Convertible) then it wouldn't matter at all. It probably wasn't meant to be used on a real CGA, especially if the game has a 4-color CGA mode, as the blue on black would make it difficult to make out important details.

the ugly problem of disk failure and bit rot almost makes it not worth it.

Maybe I'm a good at handling disks, because every single one of my original game disks still works perfectly --- even my Ultima II PC disks from 1983 or so. Almost all eBay items I buy have perfectly working disks as well, so I think the problem is overrated.
But it's true that some people seem to handle their possessions badly; just looking at those greasy disk labels in some pictures makes me wonder what exactly they do with their stuff.

I find it interesting that they released a Soundblaster supported version of a game released in 1988, a full year or so before the first Soundblaster was ever released.

SQ3 was released on March 24th 1989, version 1.018 in April 1990. The Sound Blaster was released in November 1989. Version 1.018 fixes a lot of other stuff, not just adding Sound Blaster support. Version 1.0P's samples were probably originally intended for the Tandy DAC chip, as I wrote.

That's interesting, I've never seen a copy of KQ5 that came with CGA drivers

It didn't; I have the original 16-color version disks. Whoever put it on some "Abandonware" site probably just put in whatever driver he could find; I've seen such a messy version of "Jones in the Fast Lane" as well.

Here's a suggestion: let's limit ourselves to discussing observable results of original-release games on original hardware, i.e. not "I remember the DPS (Death Pirates Society) release of the collection version looking different on my GeForce card..."

NewRisingSun wrote:

why did Sierra bother to record samples for this game (like when Roger's saying "Where am I?" in the intro), but never released it with a driver that actually enables the game to play them? If I'm not mistaken, the original floppy version came without an SB driver at all, and the copy in the SQ collection comes with an SB driver that doesn't sound really different from the Adlib driver. Anyone knows why Sierra did this?

Where do people get this crap that Sierra didn't ship SQ3 with a driver with sample playback functionality? It routinely pops up on message boards and on ill-informed websites. Sierra did ship version 1.0P with a "Tandy 1000 SL/TL" driver, which can play back digital samples, and Sierra did ship the original floppy version 1.018 with a SNDBLAST.DRV on its 3.5" diskette.
Sierra's Collection releases are not relevant because they're crap anyway --- their setup programs routinely install some of the games incorrectly, leading to all sorts of freaky error messages (i.e. "can't find robot resource 410" in SQ6, swamp lockup in KQ6CD), and they replaced SNDBLAST.DRV files with ADL.DRV files, and other crazy stuff. Ignore them. Get a real floppy-disk release.

I got my copy of SQ3 in a pack containing the EGA remake of SQ1 along with the original versions of SQ1-3, which I mail-ordered from Sierra back when they used to do that. My memory may be faulty, but I believe the disks looked like they weren't modified from the original release versions (remember, this was before they started doing their Collections series). Anyways, my point is that they did NOT include a driver that played back the speech on my Sound Blaster; there was only an Adlib driver (or maybe an Adlib/Soundblaster driver that only used the OPL chip).

I later tried a driver from - I think - QfG2 on a whim and was surprised to hear the "where am I?" in the intro. However, I haven't since been able to get this working. Has someone written a FAQ or thread on this that you can point me to?

What would be really nice is to be able to play SQ3 on my MT-32 for the music and DOSBox emulated Soundblaster for the digitized effects/speech. Unfortunately, not even QfG2 (a later SCI0 game) includes a Soundblaster+MT-32 driver I don't think.

NewRisingSun wrote:

Whoever put it on some "Abandonware" site probably just put in whatever driver he could find; I've seen such a messy version of "Jones in the Fast Lane" as well.

Do you know what video drivers the original 16 color version of Jones in the Fast Lane came with? I don't have my original disks anymore, but I thought I remember coming with quite a few; the version I have now has tons of drivers, which didn't strike me as odd but now I'm wondering if I have the messy version you're referring to.

For SQ3, I don't think running MT-32 music with Sound Blaster sounds would be a great idea; majority of the sampled sounds are from the MT-32 version so the MT-32 actually sounds better for sound effects! There's some exceptions like the "where am i" speech, but otherwise not really worth the effort.