VOGONS


First post, by pseudo3d

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I've got a game that's a bit long in the tooth (doesn't everybody?), early 2000s, and I've gotten both the Mac and the PC versions of it, and both have a similar problem with switching the level music on later levels (plays Level One for all levels, at least it does for the levels with Level Two). I believe it is indeed related to QuickTime (and the "QuickTime Alternative" for PC, which emulates that sort of thing). So, how do I get about debugging and actually see what makes it tick? I've got Compatibility Administrator to see if maybe I could build a patch for it, and maybe build a patch for the Mac version as well.

Reply 1 of 10, by Jorpho

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pseudo3d wrote:

I've got a game that's a bit long in the tooth

It might be helpful to, y'know, say what it is. Is this related to your previous posts?
A superior "Riven" build
[SOLVED] WingNuts: Temporal Navigator and crashing

Generally QuickTime compatibility problems come down to having the exact version of QuickTime that was shipped with the game. (If you experiment with different versions, you might want use a virtual machine, rather than risk leaving mysterious QuickTime leftovers all over your main system.)

and maybe build a patch for the Mac version as well.

Starting from the Windows version? That would be supremely unlikely.

Reply 2 of 10, by pseudo3d

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Jorpho wrote:
It might be helpful to, y'know, say what it is. Is this related to your previous posts? A superior "Riven" build [SOLVED] WingN […]
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pseudo3d wrote:

I've got a game that's a bit long in the tooth

It might be helpful to, y'know, say what it is. Is this related to your previous posts?
A superior "Riven" build
[SOLVED] WingNuts: Temporal Navigator and crashing

Generally QuickTime compatibility problems come down to having the exact version of QuickTime that was shipped with the game. (If you experiment with different versions, you might want use a virtual machine, rather than risk leaving mysterious QuickTime leftovers all over your main system.)

and maybe build a patch for the Mac version as well.

Starting from the Windows version? That would be supremely unlikely.

Yes it is WingNuts. But aside from tracking down things and creating VMs because of other incompatibilities, I wish to know why these things aren't working, and then see if I can do anything about them.

Reply 3 of 10, by collector

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I have had good luck with extracting the QuickTime files from the game's included QT installer and dropping them into the game's installed folder. The game will then use the version of QT it expects instead of what is installed on your system.

The Sierra Help Pages -- New Sierra Game Installers -- Sierra Game Patches -- New Non-Sierra Game Installers

Reply 4 of 10, by Jorpho

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pseudo3d wrote:

I wish to know why these things aren't working, and then see if I can do anything about them.

An admirable sentiment, but if you've never tried to debug a Windows application before, you might have trouble learning anything.

I am very fond of http://punkrockhacker.blogspot.ca/2014_06_01_archive.html as a practical example of how to poke at something with IDA.

Reply 5 of 10, by pseudo3d

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One clue that may help me is that there was a log describing a number of files being put into My Documents\C++\, of which it appears to be hidden on Windows. It's also been a while since I booted it up on Mac and see what I could analyze (it's CarbonLib in Mac, that old, but it requires OpenGL, which I believe doesn't work in SheepShaver). A VM that could work is PearPC, and try loading it up that way for compatibility purposes, because I know it worked on Tiger back in 2005.

EDIT: It looks like the log file actually shows elements being loaded out of a hidden folder and how it functions (draw sprites, bring up high score, etc.) Hmmm.... 😖

EDIT 2: The game came with a QT installer, how do I extract the "proper" codecs out of it while not installing it onto the rest of the system?

Reply 6 of 10, by Jorpho

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pseudo3d wrote:

One clue that may help me is that there was a log describing a number of files being put into My Documents\C++\, of which it appears to be hidden on Windows.

That is very likely leftover debug information from some earlier stage of the game's development rather than an indication of actual files being placed somewhere. At least, I've seen similar "logs" before in other applications.

A useful utility for analyzing file accesses is Process Monitor from SysInternals.

EDIT 2: The game came with a QT installer, how do I extract the "proper" codecs out of it while not installing it onto the rest of the system?

If it's a common kind of installer package, you might be able to open it with 7Zip or possibly The Unarchiver. Alternatively, you can try starting the installer and then see if it extracts things to a temporary directory before you click whatever "click here to start installing" prompt is present in the installer.

However, even if you can get the files out of the package, there's no easy way of knowing if it requires other settings like registry entries in order to function correctly.

Reply 7 of 10, by huckleberrypie

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collector wrote:

I have had good luck with extracting the QuickTime files from the game's included QT installer and dropping them into the game's installed folder. The game will then use the version of QT it expects instead of what is installed on your system.

You mean getting the game to load the QT runtimes instead of installing it system-wide?

Reply 9 of 10, by huckleberrypie

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collector wrote:

Of course.

Care to show me how, as an example?