Just downloaded and installed. The graphics on this game are way worse than I recall and I used to play this game all the time. Does anyone have any idea how to increase the graphic quality of this game? Thanks!

Most probably you played windows version while here we only have DOS version. Look here to see the differences.

Sadly, you won't be able to upgrade it and it's not GOG fault - Windows version does not work properly on most modern PCs (I have a boxed version and can't run it on Win7) so only DOS version is available.

I never knew there were different versions Windows/DOS. I've always played the Dos version so didn't notice anything different. God, those Windows screenshots look AMAZING.

The gog version actually *does* include the windows version on the cd image it uses. It's a 16-bit windows app so it wont run natively on modern windows systems, but you can run it using windows 3.x inside dosbox (if you can find some old windows 3.x disks you had from 20 years ago). It'll also likely work in wine.

You can reconstruct a proper bin/cue image will all of the stuff provided by gog:

Start with the colonize.gog file in installpath/MPS/COLONIZE/ , this is the actual cd image.

copy this somewhere else and rename it to colonize.bin

You'll want to grab the soundtrack from the extras for the game as the windows version uses cd audio for its music. To be consistent with my other images, I renamed each track to colonize[tracknumber+1].mp3, e.g. "Sid Meier's Colonization Soundtrack - Track 1.mp3" became "colonize02.mp3" (the data part of the image is track 1

Now you need to construct a value cue file using the track names. For me, it looks like the following:

FILE "colonize.bin" BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "colonize02.mp3" MP3
TRACK 02 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize03.mp3" MP3
TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize04.mp3" MP3
TRACK 04 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize05.mp3" MP3
TRACK 05 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize06.mp3" MP3
TRACK 06 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize07.mp3" MP3
TRACK 07 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize08.mp3" MP3
TRACK 08 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize09.mp3" MP3
TRACK 09 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize10.mp3" MP3
TRACK 10 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize11.mp3" MP3
TRACK 11 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize12.mp3" MP3
TRACK 12 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize13.mp3" MP3
TRACK 13 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize14.mp3" MP3
TRACK 14 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize15.mp3" MP3
TRACK 15 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize16.mp3" MP3
TRACK 16 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize17.mp3" MP3
TRACK 17 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize18.mp3" MP3
TRACK 18 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize19.mp3" MP3
TRACK 19 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize20.mp3" MP3
TRACK 20 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize21.mp3" MP3
TRACK 21 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize22.mp3" MP3
TRACK 22 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize23.mp3" MP3
TRACK 23 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize24.mp3" MP3
TRACK 24 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize25.mp3" MP3
TRACK 25 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize26.mp3" MP3
TRACK 26 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "colonize27.mp3" MP3
TRACK 27 AUDIO
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:02:00

I'm not sure virtualbox supports audio tracks for cd images; there are a few possible options to make it work though:

* Try burning an actual CD from the bin/cue image and see if that works in virtualbox
* Transfer the bin/cue image to the win98 vm and use a tool to mount the disc image inside of the vm. Whatever you use will have to support win98, and you may need to convert the audio tracks into wav or raw audio, using more space. This vogons thread has some people discussing a few options.

How are you burning your CD? I'm using PowerISO, I point it to my colonize.bin file, it loads it up (along with the music track info which I assume it's getting from the associated .cue file), but when I burn it, it only burns the data part of the image.

I've never used PowerISO, but it looks like what you have may be correct, have you tried verifying the cd doesn't have correct audio from the non-vm side of things?.

I also did some looking around for virtualbox, and it looks like the "enable passthrough" checkbox in the vm's settings for the cd drive needs to be checked for cd audio to function.

The DOS version is much prettier than the Windows one.

No

I always preferred it as well. I couldnt stand the fisherman in the Windows version...

I guess it depends on what version was "your" version. I grew up playing the DOS version so that's the one I love with all my heart -including the graphics.

The windows version also "fixed" the custom house. A few other innocuous changes that had a big impact to game play. Not to mention notoriously buggy. Bill Gates ruins everything!