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So, I think we all got an email about making games playable on current computers. I’ve been thinking about this a bit lately. There are projects out there to allow you to play the games on current computers. I’d like to know if anyone has had any success with them.
A few are: Sarien (for AGI games), FreeSCI, AGI for Java (platform independant). I haven’t tried any of these. Most are still in alpha testing and don’t have downloadable binaries. But, having used SCUMMVM for a while, these look to be a great resource.
So, if anyone knows anything about compiling these or has them running, please let us know. I’m going to look into it more tonight. -
(re: FreeSCI) So, a few posts down I linked to some modern interpreters for Sierra games. After much searching, I found an old version of Sarien that I’ll try out. But, this message is about FreeSCI.
I’ve only just started toying with it. As long as you read the documentation, you should be okay. It’s not an install & go program, but it’s worth it. I tweaked my settings a little bit and took this screenshot:Maybe it’s not obvious to look at, but when you compare this to the original look (lots of dithering in the trees and water), it’s incredible. If anyone has questions, I’ll try to field them. I can’t promise anything though.
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(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 6Get them here:
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(re: Playing old games on new systems) Have you tried
Link: MESS(http://www.mess.org)
(Multi Emulator Super System) at all? It’s an emulator for running old systems on modern hardware, everything from the PDP-1 to the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer and more. You just have to find the machine ROMs in question, including the BIOS, to be able to fully emulate the machine in question.My particular interest in MESS is the Tandy 1000HX emulation and I wondered if it would adequately emulate the ubiquitous Tandy 3-voice sound. I still have my old Tandy 1000HX , circa 1987, and the original Tandy versions of many games, including Sierra’s King’s Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, and LSL 1, 2, 3 among some other Sierra greats, but the onboard color of my 1000HX had finally bit the dust about a decade ago and was not worth the cost to repair it. So I didn’t have a way to play those Sierra originals anymore, until MESS came along that is.
I downloaded and installed MESS, which is based on the same code that MAME is built upon, if you’ve ever experimented with that. Anyway, I download the Tandy ROMs, since that was easier than dumping the ones from my machine and, with the crapped out video, I didn’t want to risk bad dumps in any case. I made disk image files of all the original 360K 5.25″ and 720K 3.5″ diskettes and now I can play the original games just as if they were in my Tandy machine, including the 3-voice sound. It’s excellent!
You might want to give it a shot.
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(re: re: Playing old games on new systems) Collector – I just found and started playing with NAGI before I read your post! 🙂 It looks good, I wish there were some graphics filters though. FreeSCI is a bit of a pain to get going in Windows, but it looks like it’ll be worth it. Oh, and when you use Firebird/-fox as your primary browser, you get used to tinkering to make things work…even if you aren’t a developer. 🙂
DD – I’ve always loved the idea of MESS. It would be great to have just two emulators (MESS and MAME) on my machine rather than ten. Unfortunately, at this point there’s just too little there for me. It’s a huge project and when it’s done it should defeat all other emulators. 😉 But right now, I’ll just keep a menu for all my emulators. Too bad they couldn’t just rustle up the creators of all the best emulators.
Thanks to both of you for the tips. Happy gaming! -
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(re: Playing old games on new systems)
Today you can enjoy AGI games even on the mobiles!
Check this link: http://opentrap.narod.ru I wonder will any publisher be interested in that…
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