No sound on Kings Quest games

[Freddy5O]

I paid and downloaded the Kings Quest 4,5 & 6 package and also the KQ 7 & KQ8 packages from GOG (Good Old Games) and was playing Kings Quest 4 initially. I got about halfway through the game of KQ4 (Kings Quest IV) and ended up with no sound part way through. Luckily with KQ4 it was an older game and the correspondence was text based on the screen. So I could continue to play it throughout to the end without sound luckily. I finished it but I was unimpressed without the sounds of the game. It took away a part of the game that gave it substance. However now I have moved on to Kings Quest V and it doesn't give any text dialogue on the screen so when you lose sound you don't know what they are saying and you cant play the game. I started from the start and after all the dialogue was finished and I was just outside the friendly wizard house I clicked on a few things and eventually clicked on look window and had no sound. From there after I had no sound. I'm not sure what is causing this and am really annoyed at this. I re-started the game again and I did the same again and for now I can hear the sound but if it's anything like the previous Kings Quest 4 it may lose the sound after a while when I have save games and I am a certain way through the progress of the game and I don't want to lose any progress by restarting the whole game again. If this was to occur part way through it would be very devastating as I wouldn't be able to play anymore as I would not know what is going on. I am 48 years old and I hope you can fix any issue/s with these Good Old Games I miss them dearly. This is why I chose the website to pay and download these GOG's. I think someone else mentioned this on the internet also so I am not an isolated incident. I would prefer that someone fix this issue rather than a refund because isn't this the ideal of GOG ? That we can play the Good Old Games still ? I mean I haven't even got to KQ6 , KQ7 or KQ8 yet. Are they going to be the same issue ? Please ask one of your auditors to play a few of these games through and see if it does it to them too. And before you ask everything else work's with sound on all other windows games and also all other games current.
I tried to attach the DX Diag report (Both in .TXT & in .PDF foramt) but it is not allowed. But have attached a snip of what the CMD (DOS window) was showing after the issue started.
When I first load either of the KQ games. It uses GOG Galaxy which needs to be loaded and logged into first and then from what Ive read online I think it uses ScummVM emulator to play these old games.
I hope someone can help me please

[Freddy5O]

Sorry I picked another persons saved post image of there issue for the CMD (DOS result) after issue occurred.

My actual image below attached.

[Praetorian]

Hello,

Please note that this forum is not the support forum for GOG games. We do, of course, provide support for running the games with ScummVM, which includes many games that GOG ships bundled and ready-to-run with ScummVM.

So, the first thing I'd suggest is to make sure you're running the games with the latest stable ScummVM version, which as of yet is 2.7.0. That's because GOG ships most of these games with a ScummVM version that is quite old by now, and bugs encountered with that version may have been fixed in the newer one already.

Please also make sure that when the sound is gone, that the volume levels on the game settings are not muted -- which could indicate that you might have accidentally pressed a mute-key shortcut (or it could indeed be some bug). If they are muted, check if unmuting them restores the sound.

Next, bugs should be reported on the ScummVM bug tracker so that all developers can notice and track their resolution.
Here's some helpful info on how to report a bug on the tracker (but please test with the latest ScummVM first to be sure that the bug still persists):
https://docs.scummvm.org/en/latest/help ... _bugs.html

From a quick look on our bug tracker, searching using the Warning text from your DOS Shell attachment, I could find some relevant bugs (all have been closed by now -- 2 are for crashes so irrelevant to this issue, and 1 is for music missing so it could be related). In particular you could check this post/suggestion by bluegr:
https://bugs.scummvm.org/ticket/6726#comment:5

When reporting a bug for ScummVM, it typically helps to attach your log file (especially if it shows some 'error' text) and also a saved game file near the point (before) the issue occurs, especially if it always or mostly happens at a particular point.

DxDiag output is not usually required (I believe GOG is or was asking for this in their support tickets). But we need any additional helpful information you can provide, including the version of ScummVM you're playing with, and your Operating System (eg. Windows 10 x64, Ubuntu 22.04.2, etc),

Note: For attaching text here, you could use a free online site like pastebin where you can paste any text there and then post a link to it here -- pastebin is our go-to site for such matters.

[Freddy5O]

Hi Praetorian,

Firstly thank you for your reply. It was quick and more than anything I have gotten from GOG. I still have no reply from them. Very non-professional.

I have taken onboard what you have written and thank you for this information. I started with the SCUMMVM version. I will just explain something first.

Sorry for the long spiel. It's lot more effort typing then actually talking to get you point across.

I downloaded as I mentioned before from GOG a Kings Quest 4,5,6 Package and then a Kings Quest 7 & 8 package. I have a Window's 10 home (Now after free updates). From memory I was in the GOG Galaxy download console and I downloaded the game/s to C: and let it choose its own path and also the manual later as I couldn't play the initial KQ4 without the book codes etc. I either allowed it or it did it anyway and placed shortcuts on my desktop.
To play the game I started clicking on the shortcuts but nothing would work / load up. I then discovered that I had to load GOG Galaxy first for them to load up.
Then as you know what the story was from my previous post.
After having the issue I was doing the ol Google / search engine self help and reading anything I could find about GOG and the games and then that is where I found out about SCUMMVM being the converter / emulator for some of these games etc.

When you mentioned about the version it got me looking as it automatically loaded the SCUMMVM after I had GOG Galaxy running and then clicked on the shortcut on my desktop. I search in my Start Menu off all the app's / program's and found nothing of SCUMMVM. I was trying to see what version I was running ? After Googling again (Even though this didnt help). I managed to view the properties of the shortcut location and drill down further. By going to c:\program files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Kings Quest

[Freddy5O]

continued ...
It was only then that I had found the / a location of SCUMMVM. I clicked once on the application file and like you said it was version 2.0.0. When double clicked it loaded and I had some options to update etc. I choose daily and the game. and closed and re-loaded this again. After this it asked if I wanted to update to newest version. I did and got the updated 2.7.0 version. Which funny enough is now in my Start menu apps / Programs and it went to c:\program files\SCUMMVM

I will give this a try now with the updated version of SCUMMVM and see how it goes with the sound.

PS: I never pressed any mute sound keys. As with KQ5 it is a total mouse game. No typing and no subtitles. Maybe other games this might be a possibility.

Back in the day I had some DOS experience on the early PC's and Basic programming experience with the old Tandy TRS80's in the early days and from there on up but I am no programmer / coder. I tried to exhaust a few options before asking for help.

Thank you kind sir. I am grateful for any help . Lets see how we go.

Maybe GOG need to explain these things a bit to the more common people. Otherwise they don't stand a chance if they ever downloaded these games.

[Praetorian]

Since the new version went into Program Files, I think it's going to start from a "blank slate" and you'll have to start the ScummVM launcher, "Add the games" by pointing ScummVM to each of the folders where GOG's King's Quest games are installed on your system and then launch them from ScummVM.

I guess using the auto-update system works like that, meaning if you try to update a "GOG portable ScummVM folder" it will just install the new version "centrally" as a normal application (I am not sure I have tested this myself before). But this means that the ScummVM folder that comes with GOG's installation is still there inside your games' folders and it's still the old version, and also that any game shortcuts that GOG's installation has created will still use that old version.

Note that another way would be to manually "update" the GOG ScummVM folder (ie. the "scummvm" folder within your KQ games folders). This could be done by manually downloading the proper zipfile version of ScummVM for your Windows from our downloads page and then extracting that on top of the GOG scummvm folder, overwriting its contents. And in this way the existing GOG shortcuts for the game would use the new version (the old version would be overwritten and thus gone).

Personally, I actually prefer to have a central ScummVM installation that I can keep up-to-date and have all my games added there and launched from there, rather than multiple "scummvm" folders inside each game installation folder.

Here's the official ScummVM documentation (for version 2.7.0) to get you started. Let us know if something is confusing or unclear, and also if this new version has resolved the issue for you:
Start page: https://docs.scummvm.org/en/v2.7.0/
Adding and launching a game: https://docs.scummvm.org/en/v2.7.0/use_ ... games.html

[Freddy5O]

Thanks once again Praetorian,

Yes you are correct once it was updated and installed it was a blank slate and to start with I initially had to add a game into the central SCUMMVM new installation. For now I've only got KQ5 in there but I will add the others as I go.
Instead of using those short cuts on my desktop I just click on the start menu and scroll down to find the SCUMMVM folder. Open that and click on the app to load the SCUMMVM hub. Then click on the game and click start and away we go.

Like you said it seems more practical to load them from the central hub and also to keep that one updated. Rather than all of them in each folder.

I played some of it last night and so far I have not encountered the issue at the moment.

I don't put a lot of hours in but bit by bit I'll play and see how we go. Fingers crossed.

[Raziel]

@Freddy5O

Hold Shift in the Launcher and click on "Mass Add".
Point the directory browser to C:/ and let ScummVM find and add all your installed games automagically...

[Freddy5O]

Thanks Raziel, Thats a good tip

[Freddy5O]

Hi all,

SOUND DROP OUT / NO SOUND CASE SOLVED!

I'd like to say a big thank you mainly to the initial responder *Praetorian* for his rapid response and his expertise. You have solved my issue and in a very timely manner and I thank you for this. Since following your advice I have always had sound on these games.

Even though it is not your issue and I am in no way implying this against you but some people are not computer savvy like me and expect to pay and play these games without anything other than a mouse click to load. GOG should be updating their downloads with the latest SCUMMVM installers. Or these installers should have an update check.

I still to this day have not had / heard anything from the company GOG (Good Old Games) which I purchased this game through. When I had this issue I used their support link page to contact them. I don't think I will purchase any more games from this company due to their lack of interest in my issue after taking my money for an old game. To be honest they are lucky I don't broadcast these conversations to a larger audience to show other people the lack of customer service.

BTW I am a customer service agent for a very large global company.

Regards,

Old time gamer~