New players may find it convenient, and legal, to buy the Steam or GOG "versions" of the games and use them to speedrun. However, after a few runs they may wonder why their times are not competitive with the other runs on the board. This is because the Steam and GOG "versions" use an emulator named "ScummVM" as a means to play the game on a modern computer. If you were to download the files for the game and run the sierra.exe executable in the folder you will get a prompt from Windows stating "This app can't run on your PC" meaning that dos based applications do not run on a 64-bit PC natively. Unless you have an old 32-bit PC knocking about, then an emulator is necessary, but why is ScummVM not suitable for running King's Quest VI? Here are a few points of interest: First of all I would like to address something: you may notice that I am putting "version" in quotation marks when I refer to GOG and Steam. This is because GOG and Steam are distribution platforms selling digital "distributions" of these games. These distributions come bundled with an emulator that has been configured to work on modern PCs, as according to them. These are not "versions". Versions of Dos games refer to revisions of the engine, game's code, and localizations done by Sierra. Here is a link to a wiki page listing all the different SCI (or Sierra Creative Interpreter) engine games and their respective versions: https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Sierra_Game_Versions#SCI_Games A: ScummVM artifically throttles, or sets the cpu it is emulating to a certain mHz, which makes it fine for a casual experience, but not for speedrunning. Why is that? Certain tricks, such as the zips require a certain speed to be fully utilized. At slower speed you will see Alexander's legs moving very fast, and that is good, but it isn't as fast as he could be. Using DosBox ECE set to max cycles and dynamic core the zips are nearly instantaneous, which is what you would want with a speedrun. B: While somewhat unrelated to the GOG or Steam releases of the game, our customized for speedrunning version of ScummVM, dubbed "Quan's ScummVM" as it was customized by community member UrQuan, exhibits a bug on faster CPUs when climbing the cliffs of logic. With the "Enable speed throttle" option in ScummVM disabled, holding enter when climbing the cliffs of logic on even a 4th gen intel processor will cause Alexander to constantly stumble and give the all too familiar "Woah wait a minute" voice line. Thus, we do not use this version as it only works on slower CPUs.

For these reasons, and more, we in the KQ6 speedrunning community prefer to use DosBox ECE (Enhanced Community Edition) for running the game. We have specific configurations to the .conf file to maximize speed and ensure as much stability as possible during speedruns. If you wish to buy the game legally and use it for speedrunning, then a little setup is required. Fortunately, there is a guide posted under "Guides" on this page to help get you setup doing so.

In conclusion, the GOG and Steam "versions" confusion is something that is always going to be present when talking about these games, but hopefully this post helped mitigate it. Speedrunning these old dos games is not quite as "plug-n-play" as console games, but with a little knowledge and light education it can be done easily and without many problems. Personally, I wish that we could have one emulator that was PnP to run every King's Quest game, and ScummVM would be my choice for that as it is open sourced to anyone wanting to make their own version, but we currently do not have someone in the community with the knowledge and experience to do so. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

New players may find it convenient, and legal, to buy the Steam or GOG "versions" of the games and use them to speedrun. However, after a few runs they may wonder why their times are not competitive with the other runs on the board. This is because the Steam and GOG "versions" use emulators named "ScummVM" and "DosBox" as a means to play the game on a modern computer. If you were to download the files for the game and run the sierra.exe executable in the folder you will get a prompt from Windows stating "This app can't run on your PC" meaning that dos based applications do not run on a 64-bit PC natively. Unless you have an old 32-bit PC knocking about, then an emulator is necessary. So why are these distributions not suitable for running King's Quest VII? Here are a few points of interest: First of all I would like to address something: you may notice that I am putting "version" in quotation marks when I refer to GOG and Steam. This is because GOG and Steam are distribution platforms selling digital "distributions" of these games. These distributions come bundled with an emulator that has been configured to work on modern PCs, as according to them. These are not "versions". Versions of Dos games refer to revisions of the engine, game's code, and localizations done by Sierra. Here is a link to a wiki page listing all the different SCI (or Sierra Creative Interpreter) engine games and their respective versions: https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Sierra_Game_Versions#SCI_Games

A: These distributions are meant for a casual experience. They were configured as such by individuals (or even an individual for the DosBox distribution) to cater to the casual audience. The configurations were not mandated by any Sierra employees, but Our goal in speedrunning is to complete the games as fast as possible, and as such we have researched the best emulator and configurations to meet that end.

The following two points will be focused on the GOG distribution as Steam comes packed with DosBox 0.74, but is still pertinent as the version and configuration conflicts with what is used for runs.

B: ScummVM artifically throttles, or sets the cpu it is emulating to a certain mHz, which makes it fine for a casual experience, but not for speedrunning. Why is that? Certain tricks, such as the mashing movement tech, does not work quite as well in ScummVM due to a longer pause when getting the "X" cursor.

C: ScummVM is an old emulator with many MANY patches thrown into it over the years that have make subtle changes in the games. These are not readily apparent upon a casual playthrough, but they will once you spend a good enough amount of time speedrunning. As well as patches fixing old glitches there is also the possibility of bugs that were inadverdently left in the code that were never fixed. For example: the spots where the out of bounds glitches were routed in the speedrun cannot be performed as the paths that Rosella takes were patched to not be traversed; however, as a result there are other out of bounds areas that she CAN access, but they do not save as much time as those patched. That was just one example of both a patch and bug in ScummVM, and could be many others in there, but we currently do not have anyone in the community who could go through it's code with a fine toothed comb to pick them all out.

For these reasons, and more, we in the KQ7 speedrunning community prefer to use DosBox ECE (Enhanced Community Edition) for running the game. We have specific configurations to the .conf file to maximize speed and ensure as much stability as possible during speedruns(KQ7 is still a buggy mess). If you wish to buy the game legally and use it for speedrunning, then a little setup is required. Fortunately, there is a guide posted under "Guides" on this page to help get you setup doing so.

In conclusion, the GOG and Steam "versions" confusion is something that is always going to be present when talking about these games, but hopefully this post helped mitigate it. Speedrunning these old dos games is not quite as "plug-n-play" as console games, but with a little knowledge and light education it can be done easily and without many problems. Personally, I wish that we could have one emulator that was PnP to run every King's Quest game, and ScummVM would be my choice for that as it is open sourced to anyone wanting to make their own version, but we currently do not have someone in the community with the knowledge and experience to do so. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Segmented runs are now banned for this game. The reasoning for doing so is as follows:

1. I have written a guide on how to get the game properly set up so it will run in 3dfx set to 800x600, omit the "copying files to hard drive" loading screens, circumvent crashes, and run in a borderless window set to whatever resolution you want. I have currently ran through the game multiple times with this setup and it has not crashed on me once.
2. It was discussed in the King's Quest Speedrunning discord that segmented runs are better used as tech demonstrations and route examples. They are relics of the past where game capture software was rudimentary at best (ala SDA days); this is no longer the case with OBS being widely available.
3. The biggest concern is free reign to splice and fake a run. I would rather circumvent this, and any suspicion, entirely by banning editing of a run.

Runs will now be obligated to have a livesplit window present or be livestreamed without ANY editing of the recorded run. Any run thought to have been modified will be immediately invalidated and the runner considered for permanent run rejection on the board. The current two segmented runs will be removed and the runners asked to submit new runs that are single segment.

Any questions or discussion can be done on the discord server linked on this page.

I have an old route for this category that Anerag gave me, but I am sure it is outdated by now. I intended to run the category, but unfortunately never got around to it. I am more than willing to dive in now though. Anyone have an updated written route? Thanks in advance.

Necessary: Set cycles=auto to cycles="X" where X is your chosen value. ems=false; fixes the crash that would otherwise cause the game to crash at arbitrary times.

Highly suggested: fullscreen=false autolock=true (can be toggled on/off with ctrl+f10)

Suggested: fullresolution=desktop (makes it your desktop's current resolution) windowresolution=something somewhat smaller than your desktop's current resolution. output=opengl aspect=true; will make the window 4:3 rather than 16:9 like most modern displays scaler=normal2x; scales the resolution 2x for a clearer picture

(OPTIONAL) Music options: MT32 emulation makes the music and sound effects a lot more engaging, lively, and amazing. Here is how to get it working: NOTE: MT32 emulation only works on KQ 1 SCI, 4-7. Download MUNT: https://sourceforge.net/projects/munt/ Download Roland MT32 roms: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5j-_ZMS8_UoY2MxOWRmMzktZmZhOS00M2EwLWFkZGItODNmODY4ZjU5Y2Vi

Extract the roms to any directory. Run MUNT and go to options => ROM configuration. Change the directory to where you extracted the ROMs. Select MT32_CONTROL.ROM and MT32_PCM.ROM In DOSBOX config search for "midiconfig=" and change it to "midiconfig=1" Launch DOSBox and a notification should come up stating: "Connected Application: DOSBox.exe mt32emu-qt.exe" Go to the game's directory and open up resource.cfg. Change soundDrv=ADL.DRV to soundDrv=MT32.drv

Google "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis iso" and go to the first link provided. http://www.scummvm.org/frs/scummvm/2.0.0/scummvm-2.0.0-win32.exe is the download link for ScummVM. Once downloaded, installed, and opened, click options and tick the "aspect ratio correction" option. This will make the video 4:3 aspect ratio instead of 16:9; there is an auto splitter in the works and this will be necessary for it to work. Next click Add Game and go to where you extracted the zip of the image. Another dialogue for game specific configurations will come up, but you can just hit ok to go past that. It should be perfectly set up from there. It is recommended to play this in either fullscreen or a maximized window. I personally play in a borderless fullscreen window using a program called "Windowed Borderless Gaming". I will link this in a separate thread a long with instructions if anyone is interested. You should be all ready to go with this.

What are the cycles set to for the two current categories? Are max cycles allowed? If not, could they be for a separate category? Is there a written route or any type of resources available? Thanks in advance.

Anyone have a discord server up for this game? I'd like to get back into running it and wouldn't mind bouncing ideas off other runners or getting help with the newer tech/strats.

If one doesn't exist yet, then I'd be happy to make it myself and set it up.