It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
avatar
Red_Avatar: With "authentic" I meant "the way most people would have played it" although it's obviously a personal experience. In the case of King's Quest III, this is PC speaker, no mouse and EGA graphics instead of PcJr, mouse and Amiga graphics. I mean, not one of your default settings are possible on a standard IBM PC with that version of the game so it's a bit silly to then argue with me about what "authentic"' means. It obviously does not mean the default settings you have now.

Actually you can have EGA + PC Speaker by just setting the correct configuration options in the ScummVM GUI (as stated before). It's true that you can't disable the mouse support (yet). And of course ScummVM does not feature the "IBM PC" settings as default (and we never claimed we did that btw.).
avatar
Red_Avatar: For me, an avid collector, I need to be sure that the game I play is the game is what it would have been like on old hardware. Currently, ScummVM doesn't fit that bill, I'm sorry. You can hardly deny that, either.

So I guess you're still using a CRT too, since it definitely looks different on LCDs...
avatar
Red_Avatar: Don't forget you replaced the save menu for many games, replaced certain game elements with your own (like the "game paused" feature in LucasArts games),

The "game paused" thingy is GUI (as the save menu) anyway, and yes we only offer the "classic" GUI theme for a old-look-a-like (not look-the-same).
avatar
Red_Avatar: remove copy protection (which, for some, is part of the experience), etc.

You should really start to read the documentation of the software you use:
" --copy-protection Enable copy protection in SCUMM games, when
ScummVM disables it by default."
avatar
Red_Avatar: However, for those who just want to play an old game and don't want to get into DOS or fiddle with protection wheels, it's a better option, of course - but I never said it wasn't.

Of course DOSBox takes away all the nice memory etc. fiddling too, so DOSBox isn't the perfect way to achieve "what it would be like on old hardware" either... (I'm not saying DOSBox is bad, but it definitely isn't 100% accurate either even apart from all the DOS handling differences..., after all it uses software emulation of hardware (so possibly accuracy losses etc.).
avatar
Red_Avatar: "the way most people would have played it"

Most people? I'd wager that wouldn't actually be the PC version, but the Amiga version.
avatar
Red_Avatar: PC speaker, no mouse and EGA graphics instead of PcJr, mouse and Amiga graphics

The graphics are in the game data files. In the PC version, you have EGA graphics. In the Amiga version, you have "Amiga graphics".
You've never actually looked at ScummVM, have you?
avatar
Red_Avatar: I mean, not one of your default settings are possible on a standard IBM PC with that version of the game

Where changing those default settings is just 2 mouse clicks away (and far easier than configuring DosBox), that's quite moot.
avatar
Red_Avatar: For me, an avid collector, I need to be sure that the game I play is the game is what it would have been like on old hardware. Currently, ScummVM doesn't fit that bill, I'm sorry.

That depends on the hardware in question.
avatar
Red_Avatar: You can hardly deny that, either. Don't forget you replaced the save menu for many games

Some games (were there's no good way to hook into the pure saving process). In most games, the regular save menu lives happily in parallel with the new one. In yet other games, the saving is done completely in the game scripts and the new save menu is disabled.
We do want to provide saves that are exchangeable slot-wise and through architecture barriers.
avatar
Red_Avatar: remove copy protection

Only in cases where sold versions existed with executables that bypassed those protections as well, so that people with these versions can still play them.
And, in fact, for Monkey Island 2, for example, ScummVM actually readds the difficulty selection that some sold versions ripped out by very hackishly bypassing the copy protection. Now tell me, which programm grants you the full experience there?
Dear lord, this seems like "let's ignore his point" hour. Come on guys, it's not that hard to see what I mean - no need to be dicks about it. It all boils down to this: do you honestly believe ScummVM offers a more (or equal) authentic experience compared to DOSBox? Because to me it's obvious it doesn't and that was the whole point.
avatar
Red_Avatar: Come on guys, it's not that hard to see what I mean

True. It's not hard to see what you mean. It's just bull. :)
avatar
Red_Avatar: It all boils down to this: do you honestly believe ScummVM offers a more (or equal) authentic experience compared to DOSBox?

Given that it provides far more choices, mimicking the "authentic experience" of far more, far diverse system, I'd give that a big fscking resounding "yes".
avatar
Red_Avatar: Because to me it's obvious it doesn't

And that's where you're wrong. And that's my point.
Post edited February 07, 2010 by DrMcCoy
Well I guess I'll rest my case then - some people just prefer to be blind.
avatar
Red_Avatar: Dear lord, this seems like "let's ignore his point" hour. Come on guys, it's not that hard to see what I mean - no need to be dicks about it. It all boils down to this: do you honestly believe ScummVM offers a more (or equal) authentic experience compared to DOSBox? Because to me it's obvious it doesn't and that was the whole point.

Actually I know what you want to say, but what you claim of ScummVM along they way is just plainly wrong sometimes (i.e. the copy protection stuff...., PC Speaker output etc.).
Anyway it's your freedom to think DOSBox gives a more "authentic" experience for you. But it's definitely not O.K. to make baseless claims about ScummVM along the way....
avatar
Red_Avatar: Well I guess I'll rest my case then - some people just prefer to be blind.

You know what? I whole-heartedly agree. :)
I don't get it. So the thread starter said he wants ScummVM to be featured as the default emulator on some of GOG's games, probably because DOSBox is so much difficult... Actually GOG's releases offer a shorcut for all its dosbox-based releases. Just click the shortcut and you're in the game, if it's that hard for you -.-
Also, I'm not getting into this DOSBox vs ScummVM fight. One thing is for sure, I'm not just gonna install another software on my machine just because it supports a couple of games. DOSBox is a universal emulator, not intended just for games. So I can run most DOS games with it, and not worry about people secretly fixing "bugs", such as adding a cursor and mouse-support in some arcade game, because they thought it's better that way,, if these people will actually live that long to emulate it. :p
Post edited February 07, 2010 by TotalAnarchy
avatar
TotalAnarchy: DOSBox is a universal emulator

Actually, that's not quite true either. ScummVM supports the Amiga, AtariST, Mac, FMTowns, Sega, ... versions of the games it supports (if it doesn't use a different engine), DosBox does not.
I.e. the games supported by ScummVM is not a completely contained subset of games DosBox supports.
avatar
LordHoto: just plainly wrong sometimes (i.e. the copy protection stuff...., PC Speaker output etc.).
Anyway it's your freedom to think DOSBox gives a more "authentic" experience for you. But it's definitely not O.K. to make baseless claims about ScummVM along the way....

I admit I didn't know some of these things - glad to see it's possible even if some of it is pretty well hidden. Enabling copy protection is some obscure command burred at the bottom of the readme file. Heck, I CHECKED the readme file and the copy protection chapter said, and I quote:
"There is no way for us to tell the
difference between legitimate and pirated data files, so for the games
where we know that a cracked version of the original interpreter was
sold at some point, ScummVM will always have to bypass the copy
protection."
Which made it sound as if it was not possible to disable it since it says 'ALWAYS'. Don't blame me for a poorly sorted readme file.
In any case, you can't avoid changing some things if you use your own engine. Emulation vs a proper engine will always be a battle of authenticity vs ease of use/improvements. I don't get why you so strongly defend the authenticity when you already have the improvements and ease of use sorted. Be proud you achieved that instead of trying to claim all "medals" because you won't.
Post edited February 07, 2010 by Red_Avatar
avatar
Red_Avatar: Well I guess I'll rest my case then - some people just prefer to be blind.
as a friend of Qbix, I believe Dosbox is superior 100%
avatar
Red_Avatar: In any case, you can't avoid changing some things if you use your own engine. Emulation vs a proper engine will always be a battle of authenticity vs ease of use/improvements. I don't get why you so strongly defend the authenticity when you already have the improvements and ease of use sorted. Be proud you achieved that instead of trying to claim all "medals" because you won't.

Actually I'm not saying anything against your "authenticity" reasoning. It is true that we have some things in ScummVM done differently than the original (i.e. the GUI in SCUMM games). But I think it is not fair to say "but they take a lot more liberties with their games, altering the music, adding or changing elements, etc." even though that is not really true. It is indeed correct that we sometimes do allow features of other platform ports to work with platform ports, where it wasn't available in the original (the AGI mouse cursor for example, which existed on the AMIGA port, but not on the DOS port. And IIRC we do allow the DOS games to use an AMIGA style palette too, but I'm not quite sure about this right now, but this would then be definitely configurable by the "Render mode" setting).
avatar
Red_Avatar: Enabling copy protection is some obscure command burred at the bottom of the readme file.

This is simply not true. The section covering all the command line options is a) right in the middle of the README file. And even the first part of the chapter "Running ScummVM" b) easily accessible via --help from command line.
avatar
Red_Avatar: Which made it sound as if it was not possible to disable it since it says 'ALWAYS'. Don't blame me for a poorly sorted readme file.

Indeed true that this sounds a bit misleading, I guess it would be better say that it will always disable the copy protection "by default" in those cases.
Anyway I blame you for not reading all of it carefully ;-P (just kidding, but honestly some other documentations out there aren't the holy grail either...)
Post edited February 07, 2010 by LordHoto
avatar
Red_Avatar: Which made it sound as if it was not possible to disable it since it says 'ALWAYS'.

Yeah, the context there is automatic detection (which can still be overridden manually). Maybe that's not clear enough in the readme.
avatar
Red_Avatar: In any case, you can't avoid changing some things if you use your own engine.

Eeeeeh, that statement is a bit too...absolute for my tastes. Whatever.
avatar
Red_Avatar: Emulation vs a proper engine will always be a battle of authenticity vs ease of use/improvements.

Might be a bit off-topic, but don't forget performance. Emulation is very expensive.
And still, emulation is not the nirvana of authenticity either: DosBox will never give you the experience of sitting behind an old-style CRT, in front of an old keyboard; emulating hardware with analog parts is never completely authentic.
In my personal opinion you should always have the best possible version of a classic game and if this means the Amiga or FMTowns versions then so be it. Amiga emulation has been mentioned before because of this very reason. Once you go back to around 1992 games were always superior on the Amiga both with graphics and sound and usually joystick/pad support. I realize there are people like Red_Avatar who want the original game in it's original form but I would suspect most would prefer the better looking and sounding version.
Post edited February 07, 2010 by Delixe
avatar
Delixe: but I would suspect most would prefer the better looking and sounding version.

That's debatable.
Most NEW users would prefer the better looking and sounding version.
The older users who have played the game before? Hard to say.
Preference can be a funny thing.
As long as the options are there to enable/disable functionality then that's fine.
/Staying out off the whole authenticity argument. :)