King's Quest 8: Mask of Eternity
XP/Vista/7/8 (32 and 64 bit) Compatibility Steps
(GOG.com version only)

Step 1

Install Zeckensecks Glide Wrapper (http://www.zeckensack.de/glide/)

Step 2

Create a text file (from Notepad) with following text and name it starttxt

KING'S QUEST
MASK of ETERNITY
Install
Play
Sierra Utilities
Cancel
The King's Quest: Mask of Eternity CD was not found.
Please check your CD drive and restart the game.
Allocating Textures. Please wait...
Please wait
Microsoft Direct Draw
You must be running in 256 color mode or higher.
You can change the color depth from the control panel display icon.

Save it to location of KQ78 installation in the KQ8 Directory

Step 3

Open "Options.cs" (found in KQ8 directory) in a text-editor (Notepad) and changing line 8 to read "assignGModeName Glide"

Step 3

Launch King's Quest 8: Mask of Eternity

Step 4

Go to Options->Graphics

Step 5

Change the settings to reflect the following:

Graphics Mode->3Dfx
Graphics Resolution->800x600
Dynamic Lighting->Off
Connor Shadows->Off
Monster Shadows->Off
Character Shadows->Off
Object Shadows->Off

Step 6

Go to Options Menu->Main Menu->New

Enjoy!

NOTE:

If this works, you can try changing the following options in Step 5 to see if you can improve the graphics.

Dynamic Lighting
Connor Shadows
Monster Shadows
Character Shadows
Object Shadows

Ok, I tried all this....I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or what. I've got Windows 8 on my PC, and I went thru all of these steps. If you can help at all, would be greatly appreciated.

What is happening when you try to run MoE?

Hi Fosterinn. I have followed your instruction, and can now play KQ8.
But I was wondering, why do you suggest to put all the 5 graphics options to "OFF"?
I am playing with these options "ON" without a problem. But I have only played 15 minutes so far.

Thanks.

The reason why is because some systems can not handle the graphics with the the options turn to on because of the type of graphics card that they have.

I am still unable to get this to work with my machine. The screen goes black, the splash screen appears, the screen goes black again, and then my desktop reappears. There is no exit messages or error messages. I do not see a log anywhere either. I've tried a variety of capability settings (Now running as Windows 95, 640 x 480, Disable visual themes, Disable desktop composition, Disable high DPI settings, Run as Administrator). I've tried both Zeckensecks Glide Wrapper and dgVoodoo2. Am I doing something wrong with the glide wrappers? There is not much on the guide on how to use them. Do I put in something in the command line for the game exe or something?

Machine:
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x86-64
Motherboard: MSI BigBang XPower II
Processor: Intel i7-3930K
RAM: G.SKILL Sniper PC3 12800 (4 x 8 GB)
RAM: XFX Radeon HD 7950
Primary Drive: Intel 330 240 GB
Game Drive: WD Black 1TB
Monitor: Shimian QH270 (Resolution: 2560 x 1440)

Did you try to do the steps exactly as outlined above without changing any other settings?

Yes, I even tried reinstalling and starting from scratch no success though.

Do you have currently have the compatibilty settings set to off, and text file in KQ8 default directory called starttxt? What does your options.cs file say?

When I attempt to run it, the game will load up, allow me to select "New Game" and difficulty. Then it will load the game files, load Kingdom of Daventry....and then promptly crashes. I can go no further

I went thru and completed the steps required, but nothing.

Do you have the Lightning and Shadows turned to off?

yup, everything is set to off.

KQSound::setSpeechVol 0.93
KQSound::setSfxVol 0.87
KQSound::setMusicVol 0.87
setShadowMask 1
useDynamicLighting 0
set Options::Captions true
notStartingHelp 0
assignGModeName Glide
setBrightness 49
set800mode 0

What type of video card do you have?