THANK YOU!

I had an Amstrad PC1512 when I was a child. Back the, I was living in a small village in the south of Spain, and had not access to many games... I always though that it was very sad that games were only 4 colours when the card was capable of 16. Now, I can say that thanks to this thread I have unlock that sad remind after 40 years 😁. I have been able to simulate in the 86Box it, and installed couple of games.

I am not supper expert so, it took me some time to figure out the rigth versions of the games to install and how to make the driver work...but finally I was able to make it work.

For example, for the Leisure Suit Larry I (16 Color) (v2.0, Int. 7.9.91) (720K) I was getting and error in the installation from the floppy (you get the error if you launch install with the pc1512.drv in the floppy), but I tried the following and it worked.

I coppied to the floppy the driver, PC1512.DRV (tx it woks great!), but only with that, you get the error.

Then, I had a look to the files, and I edited the file install.hpl

At the end of the Graphics Cards section, I added the section for the Amstrad. like

\\pc1512.drv
Amstrad PC 1512 16 Colores
\\

And saved it... then, I launched the install, and magic, it worked !!!! 😁

Will try with other games to see if the trick in the installation works.

Tx a lot againg!!!! for the driver and the post!!!!

keropi wrote on 2021-07-17, 20:54:

I am proud to present an updated PC1512 Sierra SCI interpreter 16 color driver patched by ripsaw8080 […]
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I am proud to present an updated PC1512 Sierra SCI interpreter 16 color driver patched by ripsaw8080

This update fixes 2 issues :

• 1. scrolling issue resolved so no more screen corruption: instead there are screen transitions that are better suited anyways for the slow PC1512 (additional changes were needed in the driver's dispatch routine to preserve the value of the DI register)
• 2. color issue that resulted in unreadable areas is now resolved so newer EGA games are now readable (issue was the driver inexplicably reporting support for 65535 colors instead of 16)
  this made some later EGA titles playable: KQ5, SQ4, PQ3, SQ1 remake, LSL1 remake

Here are some shots for your viewing pleasure, taken while testing this new driver on a real PC1512 and Color Monitor - things looks better in person but not that much as the monitor is a cheap one following the Amstrad tradition 🤣

So what games are actually compatible? It is safe to assume every SCI EGA game will work - but keep in mind that the PC1512 is a *slow* system even though it's a 8086 one.
AFAIK this is because of the way Amstrad implement the onboard CGA graphics and that needs plenty of waitstates or something... I am using a V30 cpu in my system and for some games like KQ5 and SQ4 there are 10-15sec loading delays...

Here is a mostly complete to my knowledge list of supported games - if multiple versions exist then the EGA one is the suitable for the new driver:

• Colonel's Bequest
• Conquest of Camelot
• Mixed Up Mother Goose
• Hoyle Book of Games 1, 2 and 3
• Codename Iceman
• King's Quest 1 SCI, KQ4 and KQ5 EGA version
• Leisure Suite Larry 1 remake EGA version, LSL3
• Police Quest 2 and 3
• Quest for Glory 1, 2 and 3
• Space Quest 1 remake, SQ3 and SQ4 EGA version

Maybe there is an omission or mistake on the list, don't hold it against me 🤣

This brings a welcome surprise to the system, thanks everyone for working on this driver!