Gabriel Knight 2 - English subtitles patch

laffer · Post by **laffer** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 10:07 pm

Have you ever been annoyed at the lack of subtitles in GK2?
I just finished writing English subtitles for the game, and using a patch by a very cool guy called kelmer, I could implement them in the game.

All I had to do was replace the Spanish subtitles in kelmers patch with English subtitles.
It was still quite a bit of work though - I had to extract all the messages from the game (they are in there, just not displayed) and copy and paste them all into these message files in the patch.

Also - the game does not contain any subtitles for videos, so I had to write all of those from scratch by playing the game and writing down everything they say. Had I known just how much is said in videos, I would probably never have bothered :p

Anyway, there are two GIGANTIC drawbacks -

* speech while viewing inventory items is disabled (yes, even when reading letters you might have in your inventory). It was like this in the patch I use for this, and I have no idea how to fix it. It would be really cool if someone could find a way to correct this!

* only works with the Windows version. Again, if anyone can fix this, it would be awesome!

Another minor drawback is that the game does not change subtitles very often, resulting in sometimes displaying big boxes of text, like this -

It's very rarely that bad, though.

Also, keep in mind that I wrote down every line from every video - meaning that there *will* be errors here and there in the text. I know the German text has a lot of errors, I don't know German.
If you play the game using this patch, please write down any error you see (both what it says and what should be said), so I can correct it.

Oh, and after you install it, you might have to edit the config file (RESOURCE.WIN) to specify your CD drive letter. It's at the very bottom of the file.

Finally, a few lines are still in Spanish (only unimportant stuff like the 'Change disc' screens).

NEW, UPDATED LINK! Fixed a few broken lines and such -
http://www.sendspace.com/file/puaold

Download it, run SETUP.EXE and specify your GK2 folder (and overwrite the files).

Here is what it looks like in action -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNv_Be6hoLg&fmt=22

Pogo{ · Post by **Pogo{** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 3:00 am

Wow, that is some awesome work! I'll have to dig out my old GK2 cd's and give it a try. I'm sure this will help many non-native english speakers, myself included as you really need to pay attention not to miss anything with no subs. I don't think i will mind the big chunks of text at all actually, but the lack of audio for the letters is a big disadvantage and i hope someone will manage to find a way to fix it.

Also, looking at your screenshot i thought this would be a good place to link to the GK2 installer availible at http://gkpatches.vogons.zetafleet.com/
Using this gives you the option to remove the incredibly annoying video interlacing, making the game look a LOT better. It also gives you the ability to install the full game to your hd, elliminating the constant disc-swapping.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your work! GK2 is one of my favourite games ever and it's great to see people still remembers it and even decides to do cool stuff like this!

laffer · Post by **laffer** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 5:19 am

Thanks!

Yes, the no speech while examining inventory items is a huge flaw. It's probably possible to fix, but I have no idea how to do so. I'm hoping someone with knowledge of how to 'hack' Sierra games will download the patch and fix that.

laffer · Post by **laffer** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 12:46 am

Did anyone try this out? Would be cool to get some feedback.

Maldoror · Post by **Maldoror** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 5:13 pm

Thank you very much!
This patch really helps, even though there's a few of Spanish words.

SuperDre · Post by **SuperDre** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 7:28 pm

Am I missing something? GK2 is available in english..

Longcat · Post by **Longcat** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 8:05 pm

Yes, but not with subtitles. Some people are hard of hearing you know.

Collector · Post by **Collector** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 8:05 pm

SuperDre wrote:Am I missing something? GK2 is available in english..

To be able to have both speech AND text. Useful for non native English speakers and those with hearing problems,or those that want to play the game with the sound turned down.

laffer · Post by **laffer** » Sun May 03, 2009 7:59 pm

UPDATE - a guy called 'Collector' on the Gabriel Knight forums created a very cool installer for the patch.

It now supports the patch to remove scanlines (included in the installer) and also works with the DOS version of the game.

You can grab it here -
http://www.sierrahelp.com/Games/Gabriel ... itles.html

Red_Breast · Post by **Red_Breast** » Sun May 03, 2009 9:00 pm

Good to see this all come together. I'm tempted to dig the game out to try it and I always love watching the moment when Grace turns up and Gabriel isn't there and she finds Gerde.

Freddo · Post by **Freddo** » Sun May 03, 2009 9:54 pm

Awesome to see it working with the DOS version of the game! Time to install it in DOSBox and try it out then!

EDIT: Didn't get it to work, got an error message

Can not find 999.pal resource.
If this is a CD-ROM game please
make sure that a CD-ROM is loaded.
If you continue to experience this dialog make
sure your CD-ROM drivers are loaded properly.

The weird thing is that it worked fine first when installed the game in DOSBox, but after I installed the subtitle patch I got that error. Can't find any 999.pal on any of the CDs either.

EDIT2: Got it to start at least when I did the large install instead of the small one. But it didn't show any subtitles for me and when I looked at an item in the inventory, the game crashed and gave me another error.

Error 99: Error loading resource 2000.msg
..\restype.cpp(72)
Script 64924(1954)

No idea why it happens, 2000.msg is located in the GK2DOS folder.

laffer · Post by **laffer** » Sun May 03, 2009 11:22 pm

That's really strange, I've played it fine here in DOS.
Maybe he made a mistake in the installer? The previous one I tried worked perfectly.

I'll test it out.

laffer · Post by **laffer** » Sun May 03, 2009 11:46 pm

Tested it, works perfectly here.

I first installed the game (large installation), then installed the patch to the same folder.

Then it worked perfectly. Don't know why it doesn't for you.

EDIT - recorded a video (it's on my junk account :p) showing how I install it and that it works here (sorry, no sound.. this desktop recorder won't record sound here) -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_xVLj_swQU

Collector · Post by **Collector** » Mon May 04, 2009 4:47 am

Try installing the game with this new installer:

New Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery DOSBox Installer

using your original CDs. If you don't want to keep the entire game on your harddrive, just run "GK2 DVD Prep Wizard.exe" in the installed folder and burn the resulting contents of the folder (complete with working AutoRun and new installer) to DVD. You can then install the game from the DVD with a minimal install (DVD required for the resources) or full install for CD/DVD-less play. The subtitle patch can then be applied.

Freddo · Post by **Freddo** » Mon May 04, 2009 8:11 am

Watched the youtube video and got it to work now, thanks!