I speedrun the DosBox version of this game (my world record time is 23:10) and I have been getting a crash after killing the minotaur and exiting the catacombs, right as the winged ones carry Alexander away, every single time I do a run. To circumvent this in a run, I actually have to save before beating the minotaur, exit out the game completely, restart and restore the save (takes about 30 seconds). It's a real pain and I could save so much time if I can get this crash fixed somehow.

I've tried these things to no avail:

-Running in SCUMMVM (it's actually slower overall due to not having this weird fast walking glitch on certain screens that the DosBox version does have. It's still faster right now for me to use the DosBox version with a save reset than to use the SCUMMVM version, funny enough)
-increasing the memsize to an obscene amount (256)
-running in text only vs speech only (makes no difference)
-various other config file changes that are too many to name or remember at this point!

Things I cannot alter:
-running the game at a lower amount of cycles (I run this on max for speed reasons, anything else is significantly slower)
-running the game in anything but lowest detail and max speed (for speed reasons)
-running the SCUMMVM version (missing several glitches that are much faster)

Current computer specs:
-Windows 10
-Intel Core i7-4770 CPU @3.40GHz
-64 bit OS, x64
-NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti
-16GB RAM

I really want to get this fixed, so I'll probably email GOG directly as well, but I thought I'd ask here to you wonderful people! I'm planning on submitting a run of this game to this gigantic event called Summer Games Done Quick to showcase this amazing game and run, but with the current save/reset part it's less than ideal for a marathon showcase.

Thanks in advance for any help! If you need any other information, just let me know and I'll add it.

What does exactly happen in ScummVM?
Actual crash as in application terminates?
Or an error message?

Please post a screenshot. And it would be helpful, in case you could also upload your saved game.
Will look into it.

I also do not understand what you mean when you write "Dosbox version" vs. "ScummVM version".

If it's an "oops" error (the type of error message with the text, "Oops! You tried something we we're expecting"), it's usually related to system speed, and can usually be worked around by adjusting the detail to minimum in the game settings. It's hard to tell from the phrasing of things you say you "cannot alter" whether you've tried this or not. Are you saying it's already at the minimum?

I agree with m_kiewitz that it's unclear what you mean by DOSBox vs ScummVM versions; DOSBox and ScummVM are just different tools running the same version of the game. Assuming you know this already. Are you just saying you want to avoid using ScummVM to run the game?

I understand you're doing a speed run, but you may have to settle for a fixed lower cycle setting, like 4000. Reason being that these games were not designed for fast systems, therefore there may truly be no "fix".

So, when I mean the SCUMMVM vs. DosBox "versions" I mean running the version I downloaded from GOG in either SCUMMVM or DosBox. The game has this crash in DosBox where it does not in SCUMMVM.

I do not get any error message when the game crashes.

I have a video of the crash. You can see it on my twitch channel (my username is JakiJo07). This forum won't let me post links, but the video is in my "Highlights" and it's the very first one titled "Documented crash in KQVI". The url would be twitch dot tv slash jakijo07 slash v slash 117106655

This video is from the game start up to the crash. I always reopen the game fresh when I start a new run. The actual crash happens at 15:36 in this video. You can see that the screen simply goes black. That's the window the game runs in completely closing. No error message, no nothing, just closes out. I can confirm I didn't hit any keyboard shortcuts to cause the window to close or anything like that, all I was doing was mashing enter, left and right click.

Since the forced save/close/reset is routed into the speedrun I'm doing already (bc of the crash), I wouldn't run it at lower cycles since it simply would still be slower even accounting for the time it takes to do the save/reset.

I will totally understand if this is just an inevitable part of the game when run at fast speeds, but I figure I'd still try to find a fix if one exists since the benefit of 30+ seconds to save is so great.

Thanks for all your replies!

Does it happen as well when you set Dosbox to use less cycles?

It seems a new room should be loaded in. I guess the screen being black might be okay, Sierra possibly transitioned to black screen and then to next room afterwards. the next room simply does not load.

It's really weird though that your screen just turns black. Normally script errors would kick you out w/ a message.
May even be a Dosbox issue on top.

At least it's good news to me, that it works in ScummVM :p

The black screen you see in the video is only from using OBS to stream. IRL what I see is the game just closing out completely. No black screen, no error message, nothing, just closes the entire window completely.

Yes, it works very well in SCUMMVM for casual play, and decently well in DosBox. The only issues come from when you play through the entire game in one sitting with no saves, restores, quitting and restarting, etc, which is not the normal user of this game!

I suppose that's why a crash of this sort hadn't been found/patched before. Nobody plays the game in the way I do.

Oh I see.
A DOS game shouldn't be able to close the window in any case, so I guess something really bad happens that DosBox doesn't like and/or it's some DosBox bug.

Can you try another DosBox version? That could help.

You have no access to an old PC, where you could play it under real DOS? I wonder if a crash happens under real DOS. I'm not sure if that would help, but I guess I could add a debug command to disable ScummVM's SCI speed throttler.
The transitions are also played with a slight delay, so that players are actually able to see the different transitions. That could also be changed. But as I said - no idea if it would be allowed for "official" speed-runs.