So in the Minimum System Requirements section for Zork: Grand Inquisitor, it mentions needing specific graphics card types like so:

Graphics:
ATI / NVIDIA graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended)

The original game on DVD did not specify a particular graphics card type, and Zork Nemesis here on GOG doesn't either - it only mentions compatibility with DirectX 7. My system has an Intel HD Graphics 4400 card - nothing special, but I've been able to play Zork Nemesis and Myst: Exile just fine. Does the brand of the graphics card matter here so much, or is it the compatibility with DirectX 7 that's key?

Thanks for any info.

I am not really sure what you are after for an answer, but I'll try to address two possible answers.

1. I have played ZGI on many different hardware configurations and have not found any that ZGI will not run on so far. It should run just fine using the Intel HD Graphics 4400 card as well

2. Now, if it is the DVD movies you are referring to, that is another story. DVD movies will only play using a specific driver (I do not recall the name as it is about 10 years since I looked into it), but it is discontinued. To my knowledge there is no fix for this. My last play-through using the new DVD distribution from GOG however, did reveal a clue about future support in the ScummVM status window:
"WARNING: The hires videos of the DVD version of ZGI aren't supported yet, using lowres!"
The DVD videos are found at the following path: {GOG Games folder}\Zork Grand Inquisitor\eng_mpeg

The problem with the DVD movies in ScummVM didn't have anything to do with the graphics card. The movies use an audio codec that wasn't supported in ScummVM 2.0.0, which appears to be the version GOG bundles with the game.

The good news is that it works with more recent versions of ScummVM. There was a semi-working audio decoder for quite a while, but it was horribly out of sync with the video. I don't know if the solution I came up with was the correct one, but no one was able to suggest anything better. Another problem was that the audio was much softer than the rest of the game, so ScummVM increaes the volume. This was all done by ear, and probably doesn't match the original, but is hopefully good enough. Again, no one has suggested any better method.

Point is, it works but you need at least ScummVM 2.1.0. (I think. For some reason, it looks like it was never added to the NEWS file.)

Some other things that have been fixed in Zork Grand Inquisitor since ScummVM 2.0.0, though some won't appear until 2.2.0 which will hopefully be released within a couple of weeks or so:

- The screen would go black when trying to grab the lantern early in the game. This appears to have been a bug in the game's scripts, and would only (?) happen if you were looking at the cigar box earlier in the game while waiting for Jack to return.
- If you timed it wrong, the game would hang later when you used the cigar. This too appears to have been a scripting bug.
- A workaround was added to keep music from playing over a cutscene that already had its own music. As far as I could tell, this was also a scripting bug.
- Solving some puzzles did not award you any points. Now this one was definitely a bug in ScummVM. Three different bugs, actually.

I don't know how to convince GOG to update the game with a more recent ScummVM, though. I've had very little luck when I've contacted them about other such things in recent years...

I read the thread at GitHub, but....That's actually the problem, if there's enough interest in a game (read sales), it will be updated by GOG . If not, it's in the dark and left to the players to update the backbone themselves. As an Example I may mention the not related "Tale of Monkey Island" which was delisted and didn't get any update for about a year or two..not until it was relisted a while back.
As a side note, this behavior does not harmonize very well with their motto, now does it?

There were two games I tried to get them to update: One was Zork III, where the game will exit to DOS if you die in some particular ways. GOG's "autoexec" script will close DOSBox as soon as the _zork3.com program finishes, giving the impression that the game crashed. I suggested adding a "pause" so that the player would have to press a key before the game exited. GOG's response was to point me to my own workaround.

The other, more serious one is that the version of Phantasmagoria 2 they are selling is missing some sounds and/or spoken lines, probably as a result of using a buggy tool to merge the audio files from the original CDs into one single file. I know I'm not the only one to tell them about that, but they insist that there must be some unspecified technical or legal reason why they can't fix it.

I guess GOG got rid from the scummvm 2.1.0 versions because they are some kind of transition versions. I have hopes in the update of some titles with the upcoming 2.2.0 version because it should have nailed more problems (already solved in 2.1.0 iterations) in a lot of Sierra games specially in the later SCI versions. And other engines, of course.

So. Now I try to think positive and consider that it can be a good thing to be in the safe/stable side. To have the games in the better state possible without creating new problems.

Greetings

Yep, we are all positive thinkers I guess and by all means, it's not like we can't fix it ourselves...if need be. Still, being part of a community like GOG, we expect some effort, an effort which is not effectuated to the fullest under their own motto...just like @eriktorbjorn points out.

One very important thing, when using ScummVM 2.2.0 with Zork Grand Inquisitor and if you want to see the DVD movies:

Use the 32-bit-Version of ScummVM, not 64-bit!!!

The 64-bit-Version of ScummVM will just crash when the MPEG videos are selected in the games options.

Strange, I've been playing the game on Linux with a 64-bit version of ScummVM without any problems. Some Windows-specific problem, perhaps?

Maybe, I am not sure.

From what I was reading on other forums (including the native ScummVM forum), it might also have to do with compiled binaries.
Maybe the library for playing MPEG files, which is compiled into the standard Windows Binary of Scummvm isn't compatible with Windows 64 bit?

I can confirm this behavior when using the 64-bit version of ScummVM 2.2.0. When just replacing the contents in GOG's ScummVM directory with the x64 version it will hang and crash just after seeing ZGI's mousepointer and as @Phoenix1points out, trying to do it manually ScummVM will crash when selecting MPEG videos.

Using the x86 version works great even though the terminal window repeats "No accelerated IMDCT transform found" for each video hinting at an error (liba52)

Apparently there's not any real advantage in using the 64 bit version of ScummVM over the 32 bit one, at least for now, in general. I did ask the question in the forum.

Thank you :)