Realms of the Haunting, UK to US patch, and audio issues \ VOGONS

Realms of the Haunting, UK to US patch, and audio issues

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First post, by DustyShinigami

Posted on 2025-12-29, 20:37

DustyShinigami Offline

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Has anyone managed to get the UK/European version of Realms of the Haunting working correctly with the UK to US patch? I installed this patch, which makes the game look better, and has additional options, such as higher resolutions and customisable controls, but at a price, it seems. Prior to the patch, I was getting music playing from my sound canvas. After the update though, there doesn't appear to be any music at all. Initially, whenever I tried to configure the Sound Blaster from the game's installer, I tried using Sound Blaster Pro with IRQ 5 and 7 and DMA 1 and 3, but the audio test never worked. No sound would play, I'd hear a pop, or it would just fail. In the end, I discovered that the regular Sound Blaster worked. Despite picking that though, with the patch installed, there's no music, and as soon as I interact with something, I get a load of weird noise playing. For a game made by Gremlin, it actually sounds like a load of Gremlins talking in the machine. 🤣 Exiting the game, it actually lists a load of... - sound interfaces...? Modules...? - that have tried to load and failed. I would need to take some pics the next time I'm on.

I didn't discover that I needed to use a regular Sound Blaster prior to installing the patch, so I'm not sure if the same issue triggers without it. But it's a shame if the patch introduces sound issues. So I was wondering if anyone else has encountered what I've described and if they managed to find a workaround?

Thanks

OS: Windows 98 SE
CPU: Slot 1 Pentium III Coppermine 933MHz (SL448)
RAM: Kingston 256MB 133MHz
GPU: Nvidia 16MB Riva TNT/128MB Geforce 4 Ti 4200
Motherboard: ABit AB-BE6-II Intel 440BX
Sound Card: Sound Blaster Live Value CT4670

Reply 1 of 5, by DustyShinigami

Posted on 2025-12-30, 00:11

DustyShinigami Offline

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Okay, if anyone runs into this problem in future, including myself, it looks like you have to copy the patch files in a specific way. Others also reported speech being garbled and static-like after installing it.

https://www.gog.com/forum/realms_of_the_haunt … s_version/page3

https://www.gog.com/forum/realms_of_the_haunt … _after_us_patch

Reply 2 of 5, by DustyShinigami

Posted on 2025-12-30, 00:48

DustyShinigami Offline

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Still no luck. Tried copying the files into each folder in turn, and even ran the installer to re-configure the audio devices again, but the music and speech still don't work right. 🙁

Reply 3 of 5, by darkenedroom

Posted on 2025-12-30, 04:05

darkenedroom Offline

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This is a bit of a guess on my part so I may very well be wrong as I don't have this game but:

The '\Realms of the Haunting\DATA\' folder may well hold a copy of the files on the installation cd or disks. GOG sometimes has a DATA folder for this reason.

So normally a patch wouldn't change these files. So I would just try applying the patch files to folders under the '\Realms of the Haunting\ROTH\' folder and a new '\Realms of the Haunting\ROTH\GDV folder would be created by the patch.

And then reconfigure the sound devices again.

LIke I said, no idea if this'll work but might be worth a try?

https://www.tales-from-darkenedroom.com/ - Retro PC gaming on Windows 10, technical aspects, flight sims and space sims a speciality

Reply 4 of 5, by DustyShinigami

Posted on 2025-12-30, 11:52

DustyShinigami Offline

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darkenedroom wrote on 2025-12-30, 04:05:
This is a bit of a guess on my part so I may very well be wrong as I don't have this game but: […]
Show full quote

This is a bit of a guess on my part so I may very well be wrong as I don't have this game but:

The '\Realms of the Haunting\DATA\' folder may well hold a copy of the files on the installation cd or disks. GOG sometimes has a DATA folder for this reason.

So normally a patch wouldn't change these files. So I would just try applying the patch files to folders under the '\Realms of the Haunting\ROTH\' folder and a new '\Realms of the Haunting\ROTH\GDV folder would be created by the patch.

And then reconfigure the sound devices again.

LIke I said, no idea if this'll work but might be worth a try?

Hmm. It's possible. After all, the GOG version runs from the hard drive, so it would make sense the CD and all its data is bundled with the game and mounted via DOSBox. That certainly complicates things for me trying to run it natively. ^^; Although I'm not using the physical CD, but an image that's mounted.

Ah-haa. That gives me an idea though. That means I could extract the contents of the CDs, replace the files with those of the patch and re-create the images. 😀

But what you suggested is what I tried already - just copying/pasting them where the game is installed and re-configuring the audio devices.

Reply 5 of 5, by DustyShinigami

Posted on 2025-12-31, 00:01

DustyShinigami Offline

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Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1805
Joined: 2024-10-10, 18:52
Location: UK

Looks like adding the patch files to the contents of the CDs and re-creating the images did the trick! 😁 A very weird way of adding a patch to a game, I must admit. Doesn't help that there's no documentation/readme. The beginning of the game looks and sounds as though it runs correctly, though I won't know with 100% certainty until I play through the entire game.

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