Hi, I remember when I bought PQ4 back in the early 90s, I could pick between VGA and SVGA. The GoG version seems to be only the VGA version which look horrible compared to the SVGA. Is there anyway to play with SVGA please?

First, let me tell you taht there is no REAL SVGA version. It's true you could use VESA drivers which would allow you to choose 640x480 resolution BUT only mouse-pointer and inventory items would get real SVGA-icons.

Graphics and Animations and even text, if I remember correctly, would be horribly upscaled and pixelated.

Like I always suggest in Gabriel Knight threads: Use VGA and use a nice filter with DOSBox (I suggest 2xSAI but a lot of others like HQ2x better).

How can I do that? I am a complete Dosbox newbie and all I do to start Pq4 is to click the icon...

There's a file called DOSBOX.CONF (or similar .CONF-file). Just open that in a text editor and find the line that says "SCALER=".

Usually, this is set to NONE. Now, set it to SCALER=2xSAI or any other filter you want to try (there are several options mentioned in the CONF-file).

That's it.

Well I found the dosboxPQ4cd cfg in the police quest 4 folder and found scaler, it was set to "normal2x"

Anyway i changed it to 2xSAI but its still that big VGA graphics only bit smoother.

Actually, it's TWICE as smooth! ;-)

But, yes, that's essentially as good as it gets. Trust me, using SVGA (by choosing VESA) will not make the game nicer. It will only make make the mouse cursor and the inventory icons nicer the rest of the graphics will still be good old VGA - albeit even more pixelized.
And DOSBox doesn't filter if it's not VGA.

Yuck. 2x or 3x for me. Those filters that change the art so dramatically are a mistake 99% of the time.

I especially don't see the reason to use those filters on 2D games like this. It's not like the pixels were any less chunky back then. And we're not dealing with console/arcade games where a screen's scanlines changed your perception.

i just found out about these filters, tried different ones on pq1, and 2d or not 2d, i liked it and i have decided to let the hq2x for the game.

would it not be an idea to create a lil how to about this on a main forum or so?