Got a little problem here. Whenever I start the game, I get nothing but a blank black screen. It just freezes everything and I cannot even go back to windows (alt-f4, ctrl-alt-del...I even gave the windows key a try!) nothing works. The only way to get out is to do a cold reboot.

I figured it out:

There is a very quick and easy fix:

Right click on qfg5.exe, go to properties -> Compatibility -> choose windows 95

For me, this does not work. I am on a Win10 x64 and I cannot get the game to run.

I have also tried the following patches from here:

- ZIP File Quest For Glory 5 Update 1.2 for Windows 64 (QFG5UP12_64) (ZIP file) [3.04 MB]
- ZIP File Quest For Glory 5 Win2K&XP Compatibility Patch (QFG5Win2k) (ZIP file) [22 KB]

no luck :-(

Hi SOURCE_OF_TRUTH :)
Can you try launching the game through https://github.com/ubipred/QFG5Patcher
It will detect and fix many compatibility issues
Let me know the result :)

Oh and it will also give some information about your crash, please post them here if the crash persists :)

Did a fresh install of QfG5 from GoG, then let your tool patch it.

No difference, the intro video still plays a bit faster than the audio and the game still crashes after character creation.
I also employed various options of your tool, including setting the option to show debug information. I fail to see any.

Mhhh, interesting.

The fact that the video plays faster than the audio could actually be a clue, but it's hard to tell what could be its root cause without at very least a faulting offset.

But QFG5Patcher should detect and raise that sort of information for unknown crashes.
Can you please take a look at the screenshot i've attached, and reproduce the problem to confirm if you are getting a similar report?
If you do, select the popup and hit CTRL+C, that will copy the information to your clipboard. Please paste it here or in a private message :)

On my side, I will try to find the time tomorrow to test on my win10 PC in order to confirm this feature didn't break on win10.
Please keep me posted :)

I am getting no popup whatsoever.

Thanks for the validation SOURCE_OF_TRUTH!

I've tested on my side using a win10 machine and confirm the crash detection is working well in QFG5Patcher.
However, I noticed some rare 'obsure' cases on win10 where: instead of triggering WerFault, it pops up a messagebox (such as when having no sound device available)
But again, although it will NOT be handled by QFG5Patcher., at least it generates a popup of some sort to provide some information
In your case, there is nothing at all and this is a first, to me at least :P

I've thought about it for a while and can't find an easy 'best way' to proceed, and there isn't much solution available to us.
The best case scenario would be for me to be able to reproduce the problem, but I am unable to.

I thought about 2 solutions that could give some clue, but it's complicated.
The first way, which I believe will NOT help since it doesn't seem to trigger Werfault:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/wer/collecting-user-mode-dumps
Then after reproducing the problem, head to %localappdata%\CrashDumps and check if there was any dump generated.
(%localappdata%\CrashDumps can be accessed through a Windows Explorer window's address bar)

The second way, much more complicated would be to
- Download win64dbg (https://x64dbg.com)
- Launch QFG5 through x32dbg.exe located under 'release\x32\'.

Note: During launch, you might hit several breakpoint, hitting 'F9' key will go pass them.
Even before reaching the main menu, you might also hit an exception 'First chance exception on [...] , ERROR_INVALID_USER_BUFFER).
If you do, just hit 'F9' 10 to 15 times to get passed them.

- 'F9' your way until the moment in the game where you have the bug (where it usually shutdown)
- If you are lucky, you will now hit an exception in the debugger instead. It would be something like: First chance exception on [...].
- IF that happens, please go to the callstack tab.
- Right-Click, then select 'Show Suspected Call Stack Frame'
- Make sure you are all the way to the top results (scroll up otherwise)
- Take a screenshot and send it my way, i'll take it from there to attempt debugging.

There is absolutely no guarantee that I will be able to understand the problem and find a solution, but as far as I know, that's the only way it can somehow be investigated. Investigating this type of problem is extremely difficult because without source code and symbols, we have no context about what is going on. :(

I will try to help, as I always support efforts to keep old games alive.

Currently very busy but I have put it on my list. I will report the details here.

Fresh GoG install of QfG5. Never started. Then downloaded the portable version of your patch again and ran it through that with default settings (I changed nothing). Onwards to the two tasks you have set for me...

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There is, as expected, no crash data. Note that that is actually a bit tricky to validate, because your patcher is running the game as admin and thus %localappdata% is not the correct place, as that will still refer to my user, not the admin-user. Anyway, nothing in any of the places were it could have been dumped.

Anyway, onto the debugger...

##################################

Note that, again, you might point users to ensure the debugger runs as admin in future instances were this level of work may be necessary. Luckily for us both, I am a software engineer :-)

Alright, since the crash is trivial to reproduce, attaching the debugger right before the crash was easy. And sure enough, I managed to extract a semi-helpful callstack of the first exception that is raised.

I have uploaded a screenshot of that, as well as a dxdiag-run from my machine to my OwnCloud-Instance.

##################################

You may download the mentioned data from here:
https://cloud.something-must-be-eaten.de/index.php/s/wh8XLoFMlB6mAkU
Password is your username on GitHub. The files will go down at the end of March.

##################################

NOTE: I will also try the very same installation procedure of QfG5 on an older Laptop I have, also Win10 x64 but a different GPU and hardware configuration in general. Maybe it is an Nvidia-only issue.

Update: As promised, I also tried the game + your patch on an older Laptop of mine (with a much older GeForce inside), which still is running an up-to-date Win10.

Everything works flawlessly there, including the intro (which, as you may remember, runs too fast on my tower PC).
No crashing, no issues whatsoever.

Leaves two realistic possibilites:
* there is some difference in the execution environment not correctly handled by GoG (DirectDraw?)
* the issue is graphics card or driver specific and only occurs on newer hardware

Thanks for the update!

I've taken a super quick look and confirm it seems to be somehow related to DirectDraw indeed.
However, I neither have the time nor the right setup to attempt a deeper investigation for the next few weeks or months.
I'll poke back this thread if I get any interesting info out of it.
Cheers

Did something ever come out of it?