(re: Playing old games on new systems)
There are downloadable binaries of FreeSCI, but as most of the developers are mostly UNIX people there seems to be more problems with the Win32 ports, mostly audio issues. It is also no very clear how to set it up. You have to put a config file in a folder named “.freesci” in your home directory, which does not mean much to a Windows user. The Home directory equates to your user folder under the “Documents and Settings” folder.
For AGI games, NAGI has a downloadable Binary for Win32 and is very easy to use. NAGI works perfectly. It also gives three voice MIDI output and even limited mouse support.
http://www.agidev.com/projects/nagi/
Pre-compiled binaries of DOSBoxare are available for most platforms. DOSBox is under constant development and is always getting better. It is a generic DOS computer emulator that can run many of the old DOS games, including most of the old Sierra DOS games. This is an wonderful project that has great promise.
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/
But what is probably what is the most exciting development Sierra gaming is the development of new patches for the infamous speed bugs. ERROR 52 has been fixed! QfG4 can now be played from start to finish with out resorting to imperfect solutions, such as slowdown utilities or downloaded save games. NewRisingSun has manage to decompiled the scripts from the game resource files to fix the code just like Sierra used to do. These patches are script level patches. So far there are fixes for:
Conquests of the Longbow
Hoyle Book of Games 3
King’s Quest 1 SCI Remake
Leisure Suit Larry 3
Leisure Suit Larry 5 (English & German versions)
Quest for Glory 4 beta (CD version only)
Police Quest 2 (version 1.002.011 only)
Police Quest 3
Space Quest 1 Remake
Space Quest 4 CD Version
Space Quest 5
Space Quest 6
Get them here: