King's Quest V: Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder Help
King's Quest V: Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder's original requirements:
MS-DOS 5.0 or Windows 3.0 or greater
386 or better
2x CD-ROM
2 MB RAM
19 MB Hard drive space
VGA
Sound Card W7DAC Pro Aud Spectum, SoundBlaster, Sound Source,Thunderboard or MT-32/LAPC-I/CM-32L
Mouse
- Audio Problems
Audio Problems
Audio problems are common in the later Sierra DOS SCI games. There's no single fix for all these games. If
there a Windows version you can try it, first.
Problem - Poor Quality / No Sound (Win9x and XP):
The game has no sound or the music is of poor quality.
Solution 1 (preferred):
Play the game in DOSBox. It also will work
with the MT-32 sound module, if you are fortunate to have one.
Solution 2:
Use VDMSound. The game work well with
VDMSound. The sound will be as good as your audio hardware, and as with DOSBox, it works with the MT-32 sound
module.
Solution 3:
Play the game with FreeSCI, a third party Interpreter
for Sierra's early SCI games.
Solution 4 (DOS/Win9x):
Install DOS drivers for your soundcard. Without DOS drivers installed you won't have sound in a DOS window
in Windows 9x. If you can't find DOS drivers for your soundcard, there is an alpha
(developmental) version of VDMS that you can try.
Problem - Unable to initialize your audio hardware:
On starting the game you get the message:
Unable to initialize your audio hardware
This error is timer related. It only occurs on computers faster than those of when the games were originally
released.
Solution 1 (preferred):
Play the game in DOSBox. By playing your
game in DOSBox, you can avoid this and other timer problems. Even the Windows version can be played in DOSBox
if you install Windows 3x in it, first.
Back when computers came with a "Turbo" switch (a sort of speed switch,) Sierra's workaround was
to turn off the Turbo switch to start the game, after which you could turn the Turbo back on. If you have
your cycles in DOSBox set too high, you may still encounter this problem. You can mimic the turbo switch solution
by lowering your cycles (Ctl+F11) before starting your game. You may raise the cycles back up after the game
starts (Ctl+F12).
Solution 2:
Patch the old audio driver with GOSiERRA
or SBSIERRA.
Solution 3:
Use the updated driver, AUDBLAST.DRV
(sb16drv.exe)
Solution 4:
Try installing the Windows version
Game Specific Bugs
There are a couple of bugs the game has that are not speed dependent.
Problem - Problems Restoring Game
There is an extremely rare restore problem in King's Quest V.
Solution:
Apply this patch.
Problem - Problems Saving Game
There is an odd bug with playing King's Quest V in DOSBox. When trying to save the game, you
will receive the message:
"This directory/disk can hold no more saved games. You must replace one of your saved games or use
Change Directory to save on a different directory/disk."
Solution
:
If you click the "Change Directory" button and then just click "OK" it will let you save.
Problem - Heap Space Error:
In King's Quest 5, almost everyone gets an OUT OF HEAP message after activating Mordack's machine (Windows
version). Here is the most common way to try to get past it:
Solution #1:
In the game's Control Panel, raise the SPEED to maximum and lower the DETAIL to minimum. Then play the game.
After doing the detail-speed thing above, for some people, it helps to save the game right before throwing
in the cheese, reboot the computer, and try to get past it. For others, it only works if you don't save at
all after getting Mordack's wand. Just run to the laboratory and do the wand machine sequence.
Solution #2:
Try the DOS version instead of the Windows since this Heap Space is more of a Windows Memory Swap error. Install
it with INSTALL.EXE, not SETUP.EXE.
Solution #3:
Download a copy of the KQ5
SAVED GAME to get past this annoying error. The game is saved right after the wand machine finishes
its animation sequence, so you aren't missing much at all.
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