ScummVM Appreciation Thread

[atec123]

Ok.... so I decided to try ScummVM.

Installed it on my deskytop with arch linux... it was in the repos so it was really easy to get.  Decided to test some games.  I put in my KQV cd, and selected add game.  selected the game cd directory as the game directory, and pressed start.

I was shocked.... it worked!  That's right.  no installation, no special configuration... no drive mounting... no installing windows 3.1 in dosbox.... KQV worked... and better than ever.

I then did the same for all the other games except for KQ7.

They all worked right away and beautifully.

ScummVM manages the saved games better... you have 99 saved game slots for each game and they come with a screenshot and timestamp.  you can load a saved game from the menu without even starting the game so it's a bit faster.  it can run windowed or full screen.

The best part... it takes like.... 15 seconds to set up... it's cross platform, works on windows, mac, and linux/bsd/wii/ps3 even I think....
It's amazing.

everyone who doesn't own the whole series on gog should use scummvm.  just buy the 7/8 pack on gog.  7/8 will not work on scummvm.

I am serious... This works so well... I won't be using dosbox or windows 3.1 anymore. (though I will keep my windows 3.1 install for playing myst )

who else loves scummvm?

[kindofdoon]

This is good to know.

ScummVM manages the saved games better... you have 99 saved game slots for each game and they come with a screenshot and timestamp.  you can load a saved game from the menu without even starting the game so it's a bit faster.  it can run windowed or full screen.

That would have been mighty helpful when playing KQV! I had quite the technical issues with saving in that game.

[liggy002]

I'm running Discworld on this and it works nicely as well.  It seems to be quite a nifty little program.  All hail Scumm!

[MusicallyInspired]

SCI support (versions SCI0 to SCI1.1 anyway) was recently finalised into ScummVM a couple months ago. It also supports the Windows version of KQ6. So no mucking around with the Windows installation to get those nice hi-res dialogue portraits!

SCI versions above SCI1.1 are in the works so eventually games like SQ6, KQ7, GK1, GK2, Phantasmagoria, Lighthouse, LSL6 hi-res, LSL7, Torin's Passage, PQ4, QFG4, et all will be fully supported.

[Eike]

At the beginning of the school year I tested scuum out. Very awesome program!

[Lambonius]

I've been raving about ScummVM here and elsewhere forever.  Glad to see you're getting a kick out of it, atec.  

[atec123]

SCI versions above SCI1.1 are in the works so eventually games like SQ6, KQ7, GK1, GK2, Phantasmagoria, Lighthouse, LSL6 hi-res, LSL7, Torin's Passage, PQ4, QFG4, et all will be fully supported.

GREAT news!  ATM, the only way to run my version of KQ7 is dosbox/windows 3.1 so that will be a lot better/easier.

[Centaur444]

If you haven't yet, I believe you can download and play Beneath a Steel Sky and Flight of the Amazon Queen on ScummVM for free.  Beneath is a pretty well known, awesome adventure game, and I found Flight of the Amazon Queen to be extremely enjoyable as well.  A true hidden gem.

[kindofdoon]

I think Beneath a Steel Sky is also free on GOG.

[Enchantermon]

Oh wow, so it is. I didn't know there were any free games on GOG, aside from the giveaways and such.

[kindofdoon]

Yeah, there's another freebie as well from the same developer, but I don't think it's as good or well-known. Still cool though.

[MusicallyInspired]

Beneath a Steel Sky, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Lure of the Temptress, Drascula The Vampire Strikes Back, and Teen Agent are all free and supported by ScummVM.

[crayauchtin]

OMG, I freaking LOVE ScummVM! I have been replaying the QfG series all week!!

[Enchantermon]

So I decided to try the King's Quest games in ScummVM to see if they'll record better than in DOSBox and they do, however I have one problem: on my widescreen laptop, the games are stretched to widescreen instead of displaying in fullscreen with black bars on the sides like they do in DOSBox. In the graphics options, if I check just the aspect ratio box, I get the right fullscreen aspect but the game plays in a window (which I dislike). If I also check the fullscreen box, then the game covers the entire screen, but it again stretches the game to match the widescreen ratio. So is there any way to get ScummVM to play the games in full screen without matching the widescreen ratio?

(Posted on: November 03, 2010, 10:29:54 PM)

I should add that someone asked this on the ScummVM forums and was answered with what boils down to "Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't; it's not fixable right now," which I'm not completely satisfied with. Since there's at least one ScummVM aficionado here, I figured I'd ask anyway.

[MusicallyInspired]

It's supposed to work properly. According to the ScummVM devs, the only reason it doesn't work properly if the settings are set correctly is if the graphics drivers aren't installed properly or something like that (something outside of ScummVM).

[Enchantermon]

My graphics drivers are installed properly as far as I can tell, though for some reason I can't change any of the scaling options in the NVidia Control Panel; they keep switching back whenever I hit Apply.

[Lambonius]

It's supposed to work properly. According to the ScummVM devs, the only reason it doesn't work properly if the settings are set correctly is if the graphics drivers aren't installed properly or something like that (something outside of ScummVM).

What MI said.  It's always worked correctly for me on my widescreen iMac.  One thing that might help would be to adjust the scaler from the default setting to something like 3x.  If that doesn't help then yeah, try messing around with your computer's actual graphics settings.

(Posted on: November 03, 2010, 11:33:52 PM)

My graphics drivers are installed properly as far as I can tell, though for some reason I can't change any of the scaling options in the NVidia Control Panel; they keep switching back whenever I hit Apply.

Hmm...that's odd.  Does changing around the scalers in ScummVM help at all? On my widescreen iMac, I always keep it set to 3x with aspect ratio correction and fullscreen checked.

[Enchantermon]

Hmm...that's odd.  Does changing around the scalers in ScummVM help at all? On my widescreen iMac, I always keep it set to 3x with aspect ratio correction and fullscreen checked.

Nope. In fact, some make the graphics even worse: everything becomes blurry.

[MusicallyInspired]

My graphics drivers are installed properly as far as I can tell, though for some reason I can't change any of the scaling options in the NVidia Control Panel; they keep switching back whenever I hit Apply.

I think that constitutes a driver problem...

[Enchantermon]

Maybe. I'll keep playing with it, but I know I have the latest Windows 7 driver available.

(Posted on: November 04, 2010, 12:13:30 AM)

Hah.
I finally got it to work after reinstalling my driver in a rather complicated fashion. Honestly, it seemed pretty needlessly complicated, but since it works, I'm not complaining. I found this method here. After I did all of that, I was able to turn off scaling and use aspect ratio, fullscreen and a 3x scaler to get King's Quest back where I wanted it.
Thanks for your help guys!

(Posted on: November 04, 2010, 11:47:55 AM)

Okay, so now I'm looking for a way to disable the mouse cursor for AGI games that originally didn't have a mouse. I found a post about that from a couple years ago, but the file it told me to edit no longer had the values in it that I was supposed to change. Any thoughts?