Ancient DOS Games Episode 103 - Quest for Glory is online!

Yup, today's game is the first DOS game that's been gifted to me by a fan since starting Ancient DOS Games! I have received some other games as a response to the show, but in one case it was a Windows game, in another case it was the license holder of the Catacomb series giving me most of the Catacomb games to help promote that they finally had them up for sale again, and once it was me being given Reaping the Dungeon before having a link up for it as required by the author, so that was more just getting the game early since it's technically free now anyways. :P

Well, there's that, plus Clint and I exchange games on our birthday too. ;)

Though, because today's game was gifted, I was kinda hoping I would like it better than I did. I mean don't get me wrong, they're interesting games, I just couldn't really get into them because of their quirks. Maybe I'm just spoiled by modern games or something. ^_^;

Never been able to get far in quest for glory games either. There's just too many annoyances when you play. Better just watch some longplay's on youtube 😀

ScummVM implements SCI0 and 1 now, it's more reliable than DOSBox for these games, and AFAIK it fixes all the CPU speed related timing bugs.

A couple of things :

You say to stick to the keyboard when playing with the original version. I advocate using both keyboard and mouse. The mouse is extremely useful in this game and later 16-color Sierra SCI games because you can point at a graphic and right click and the equivalent of "look at [object]" is done. Cuts down on the typing.

The best sound devices for these games are a Roland MT-32 for the 16-color version and a Roland General MIDI/GS for the 256-color version. While the Roland MT-32 to work in DOSBox can be complicated, these games usually sound very decent using the default Windows MIDI synthesizer (which uses Roland's patches).

One thing which is very attractive about this series is that you can import your character into the sequel, and again and again and again, throughout the whole series. So if you spend lots of time building your character in the first game, the second game will be much easier in the beginning.

Combat in the early Quest for Glories was pretty much hit the attack button at the right time. I think that blocking and parrying in either version or its sequel is useless.

Different characters can unlock different areas of the game. Only the Thief character can enter the Thieves Guild or burgle houses in the town, only the Mage can play the Mage Maze.

Great Hierophant wrote:

You say to stick to the keyboard when playing with the original version. I advocate using both keyboard and mouse. The mouse is extremely useful in this game and later 16-color Sierra SCI games because you can point at a graphic and right click and the equivalent of "look at [object]" is done. Cuts down on the typing.

Half the time I tried to do that I either got no message at all, making me think my mouse was broken and a quarter of the time I just got a message saying I wasn't cliking anywhere important. Eventually I just gave up on trying to make the mouse do anything useful. :/

Great Hierophant wrote:

The best sound devices for these games are a Roland MT-32 for the 16-color version and a Roland General MIDI/GS for the 256-color version. While the Roland MT-32 to work in DOSBox can be complicated, these games usually sound very decent using the default Windows MIDI synthesizer (which uses Roland's patches).

Legally getting MT-32 support working the way it normally would in DOSBox is difficult for the average person, plus there is no default Windows MIDI synthesizer. Everyone's sound hardware is going to sound completely different. DirectX does provide its own MIDI rendering system but I'm not sure how to toggle it in DOSBox, if it's even possible, and if it is, if it would record properly during video recording or not.

That said, even the Adlib music in both the original and the remake are extremely well done, all things considered.

Great Hierophant wrote:

One thing which is very attractive about this series is that you can import your character into the sequel, and again and again and again, throughout the whole series. So if you spend lots of time building your character in the first game, the second game will be much easier in the beginning.

I knew there was something I forgot to mention... *quickly goes to add this to the additional information section*

MT-32 is tricky to get running with DOSBox, but with any modern version of Windows, it's really easy to get very decent General MIDI music. DOSBox's MIDI interface uses the Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth by default. No SVN or custom DOSBox builds required. Microsoft licensed the Roland GS patcheswhich were contained in the original Roland SCC-1 and Sound Canvases Sierra's musicians used. Because DOSBox is not generating the sound, it will have to be recorded, synced and mixed into DOSBox's video captures.

In the config file, just make sure the midi parameters are set to mpu401=intelligent and mididevice=default and select General MIDI in the game's install program.

Well, as you've probably noticed, I tend to just tell people to "choose whichever sounds best on your system". Recording the MIDI separately is dangerous if the framerate skips a beat because while DOSBox's recording won't pick that up in the gameplay, an external recording device WILL pick it up in the MIDI output. x_x;

That's the main reason why I stick with what DOSBox can handle and record on its own. Also, MIDI just sounds bad on my current system. Much better on my previous system but that one's Windows 98 and nowhere near as powerful. :P

Gemini000 wrote:

Well, as you've probably noticed, I tend to just tell people to "choose whichever sounds best on your system". Recording the MIDI separately is dangerous if the framerate skips a beat because while DOSBox's recording won't pick that up in the gameplay, an external recording device WILL pick it up in the MIDI output. x_x;

That's the main reason why I stick with what DOSBox can handle and record on its own. Also, MIDI just sounds bad on my current system. Much better on my previous system but that one's Windows 98 and nowhere near as powerful. 😜

I haven't experimented with recording on DOSBox but have you considered trying out a soundfont setup for games that use General MIDI music? From what I have tried they can sound pretty good, especially if you go with the SGM soundfont. I would suggest the current version of the MT-32 emulator since it sounds pretty darn close to the original thing from what I have heard but I am not sure how you feel about obtaining the ROM files that are needed.

SpooferJahk wrote:

I haven't experimented with recording on DOSBox but have you considered trying out a soundfont setup for games that use General MIDI music? From what I have tried they can sound pretty good, especially if you go with the SGM soundfont. I would suggest the current version of the MT-32 emulator since it sounds pretty darn close to the original thing from what I have heard but I am not sure how you feel about obtaining the ROM files that are needed.

Soundfonts aren't an option. I don't have a SoundBlaster card in this thing. x_x;

And yeah, MT-32 emulation has legal hurdles due to the copyright state of the sample data and my lack of owning an MT-32 sound card. :P

Despite any of that though, the only way to ensure that General MIDI music and video sync up when recording gameplay from DOSBox is to use an external recording application to grab BOTH. I don't have the HD space or the CPU power to handle this well though, so, I make due with what I've got. Which isn't to say I can't do this, as I've recorded things other than DOS games for my filler videos, I just can't record them at the same level of quality.

Gemini000 wrote:

Soundfonts aren't an option. I don't have a SoundBlaster card in this thing. x_x;

The BassMIDI Windows Driver helped me get over my "damn, I miss my sound blaster live/awe32" pains.

At least with the standard build of DOSBox, you will NOT have in-sync audio, if you record the audio external, like with Audacity for example. I played around this for quite some time and found no solution.

So now I just use Bandicam to capture the Desktop, running DOSBox in window mode. It can record two sound devices, like the Windows sounds + microphone or What U hear + microphone and either mix it together or have it saved as two separate audio files.

For Adlib / Sound Blaster the built-in capture feature of DOSBox works very well though. The video has to be resized to fix the aspect ratio, but otherwise it's of perfect quality. It makes the whole capturing process much easier and also avoids getting emails such as "I purchased this game and it doesn't sound as good as yours, what do I need to do?".

Still wish someone would work out AWE support for DOSBox, so I could rehear the few games that only support AWE and not Roland/GM/GUS.

For some reason quest for glory (the name) made me think of this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiXaT_1I-vw

EDIT: Have you ever though of making an ADG thread at the GOG.com forums?

kolano wrote:

Still wish someone would work out AWE support for DOSBox, so I could rehear the few games that only support AWE and not Roland/GM/GUS.

Hmm are there many games like that?

Any examples of such games?

I always like to bring up Eradicator and Magic Carpet II as examples, and Final Fantasy VII is a mild example.

leileilol wrote:

I always like to bring up Eradicator and Magic Carpet II as examples, and Final Fantasy VII is a mild example.

But FF7 is a Win95 game... (I know it has AWE support, but DOSBox support wouldn't help much with it! 😉)

Dinotopia is another. The only General Midi driver it provides is for AWE. It seems to use the Miles sound system though, so perhaps one can swap in alternate drivers.

Not that worried about Magic Carpet, it provides support for GM and GUS sound. Eradicator's AWE support is something I'd like to hear.

kolano wrote:

Dinotopia is another. The only General Midi driver it provides is for AWE. It seems to use the Miles sound system though, so perhaps one can swap in alternate drivers.

Not that worried about Magic Carpet, it provides support for GM and GUS sound. Eradicator's AWE support is something I'd like to hear.

From Moby Games

Release

This game had very limited release, as the company went out of business and game went out of print almost immediately upon it's release, making this an extremely rare and hard-to-find game.

I really don't think getting AWE support into DOSBOX is going to be a priority if this is one of the few games that needs it and it really is as rare as MG says it is.

sliderider wrote:

I really don't think getting AWE support into DOSBOX is going to be a priority if this is one of the few games that needs it and it really is as rare as MG says it is.

I see plenty of copies of Eradicator available on Amazon and Ebay.

He's talking about Dinotopia I think, but anyway.
Eradicator on the AWE cards is kinda cool, nothing too special IMHO.
I'd love to have AWE support on DOSBox, more so for its MIDI capabilities, but its not such a huge deal.
System Shock sounds amazing on the AWE cards, very distinctive electronic sound!