i am having an old copy beneath the steel sky of this game in a cd and i have played it using dosbox and yesterday i have downloaded this version from the GOG and found that it has a speech associated with the game and do not need dosbox to run the game, I would like to know if this game is real dos or made to look like dos game by recompiling . My old version has no speech in it .
Thanks

It is still a DOS game, just using ScummVM to run.

This is not totally correct:
The GOG version utilizes the ScummVM interpreter, therefore it is NOT a DOS game anymore but runs natively on Windows!

@bobgeo: The CD version should contain full speech.
In order for speech and sound effects to work with DOS (or DOSBox), you have to setup your (virtual) soundcard correctly with the Setup/Install program included with the game, otherwise you will hear nothing or only (Adlib) music.

Well it's still the same game code - exactly the same as if you download it from somewhere else (e.g. from ScummVM's site). So technically it's correct as it's still the exact same "DOS game" you can get anywhere else. It's possible to get any version of BASS to run with ScummVM - you just have to set it up.

The only difference being that any version downloaded once it was released for free would have the copy protection removed, whereas I assume the (original) CD version still has that annoying LINK copyright thing in it.

I think the version on GOG comes with ScummVM bundled with it and possibly a link created to make it easier to run (don't rightly know now since I can't remember where I grabbed it from and I have other games running on ScummVM). However it's still the same game code - GOG hasn't had to change anything in that regard.

As for speech - if you have the CD then you should have the speech version, so as triock said it must be your DOSBox settings. Unless you somehow have the floppy version on a CD (!?).

No: ScummVM provides a reimplementation of the engine, it doesn't use the original executable at all, only the data files. It's not a virtual machine like DOSBox. That's why you don't have the protection in games with ScummVM: it's not that it has been stripped from the original executable like using a crack, it's simply not reimplemented in the new engine (because there's no point in adding stupid DRM).

It's true that ScummVM uses the original engine, as it provides a general framework where people can port existing engines, they're not completely remade from scratch, but it's not the same code and the ScummVM version is in no way the DOS version.

I guess I should have said "same game data files".

OK now that does make it sound like it technically isn't a DOS game any more - so I concede to your point on that count. ScummVM doesn't emulate DOS at all - it's a Windows executable.

However, just to be just a little bit more pedantic, I don't agree that this means "it is in no way the DOS version" - the ScummVM "version" shares the same data files (actually you can grab them from the DOS version). Sure, the "engine" is a native Windows application - but the components that make it "the game" are from the DOS version (though you could have grabbed from another version if you did it yourself manually).


On the DRM count, I'm actually pretty certain that they did change the data files of the DOS version to remove the DRM from BASS. If you run an older (DOS floppy or CD version that had the DRM in it) in ScummVM, I'm pretty sure it will still be there. I'm going on memories from years ago when I first ran my old Amiga version through ScummVM, so I'm happy to be corrected if this is wrong somehow, but I'm pretty sure they didn't have specific "DRM" code in the engine itself.

Well, the point was that bobgeo was asking if it was the DOS version or another one because of sound issues. ScummVM handles the sound, it doesn't have to be configured to use an Adlib or Soundblaster card with specific IRQs and such. Saying that it's the same DOS game is like saying the Amiga version released at the time was the DOS version...

It only uses data files from the DOS game, i.e. the graphics, the sounds/musics and the scripts that handle interactions, but nothing from the technical side. All the technical stuff is handled by ScummVM and doesn't use the DOS executable (you don't even need to have it in the game's directory). The data files are indeed for the DOS version as it's the main version available. It could also be the Amiga version (not sure they're handled by ScummVM, depends of the games) or other ports (not sure the game was released on other systems). Their origin doesn't matter at all, they're just assets.

Not sure about the protection, I was thinking mainly of Lucasfilm games (which don't have the protection because it would need to recreate the code that handles it and it's pretty irrelevant these days). But I doubt that it would be handled in the game's scripts, it's usually done by the engine. But I don't know for BaSS specifically.

You're probably right about that with respect to Lucasfilm games - they used this annoying code-wheel if I'm not mistaken, and always at the beginning (or at least close to it). Since it changed the interface for the DRM segment, I'd be surprised if this wasn't specifically handled by specific DRM-code - so it was likely removed or bypassed in the game engine itself.

But as far as BASS is concerned, I'm pretty sure that would have been in the data files, as it just used the LINC interface to ask a question (which was to locate a word in the manual - so no code wheel or other freaky device).

No: As abelthorne already explained, it is not the same game CODE. The original executable with the code is not even used at all for the ScummVM version.
What is the same, are the game DATA files, but these are platform independant and also used e.g.for the Amiga version.

If you want to semantically debate, if the data itself IS the "Dos version" (although, I am not sure, if the Amiga version was first):
The main point here related to the original question: ScummVM runs natively under Windows and you are not required to do additional hardware (or VM) setups like under DOS. As, I already wrote, it probably has nothing to do with Dosbox settings, but with the hardware settings of the game itself. You have to change these using the Setup program while running Dosbox.