Gabriel
Knight I
Set Up Walkthrough
Requirements:
Gabriel Knight Sierra Originals
1996
or Gabriel Knight Version 1993
386 or better, Win3.1
4MB RAM Hard disk
VGA 640x480 256Colors
Mouse
MS-DOS 5.0 or above.
The General Drill
First let's take a look at the "General Drill"
Whenever I start a new game, especially an "older one"; I have always made it a habit to make sure my system is clean. (So let's clean house) Our cleaning products?? No, I'm not talking about special Orange Sprays or Pine smelly
disinfectants! I'm referring to the "3
Musketeers" of WINTEL Systems. They are:
"Disk Clean Up", Check Disc (the old Scan Disc in pre XP Windows based systems) and Defrag.
First, Let's do a Disk Clean Up (Don't know how?) GO to-->Start-->All Programs--> Accessories--> System Tools-->Disk
Clean Up. Empty out what you don't need ( you'll be surprised at what you can accumulate!) Shut down all extra
programs. (for those of you who know how to do this part...just skip onto the next area of the "Setup".) For those of
you who don't, the easiest way to terminate your TSRs (terminated but staying resident programs, also known as
background applications") is to right click on each of the little icons in the lower right portion of your
"Tool Bar" (located near your clock), As you right click on each of them you will get the option to either "exit", "close" or "unload". Do this
for each of them. Then, if you have a Screensaver go ahead and disable it.
If you haven't done the "Ole' Scan Disk"...(in XP it's called
"Check Disk") and Defragged recently here is a good time to
do it. Go to-->My Computer-->Local Disc "C" ("C" is mine but your Local Disc maybe assigned another
letter)-->Right Click-->Properties-->Tools-->"Check
Now..." ->Make sure that both boxes are checked-->
1.)Automatically fix file system errors and 2.)Scan for and attempt recovery of bad
sectors.-->Click Start. You can follow this same path to
locate your Defrag program as well or use Start-->All Programs-->Accessories-->System Tools-->Defrag Hard Drive.
Check your system by doing a "Ctrl, Alt &
Delete", this will bring up "The Task
Manager", If you have closed out all Windows Programs, the field under
"Applications" will be blank.
(Leave the field marked "Processes" alone. Yep, I know there are lots of interesting files in there...but your really
better off not touching anything in there unless you really know just what you are doing.)
You might want to check on your Video and Audio Acceleration at this time, make sure you set the video at the 2nd notch from the right --> and audio should be set to the 2nd notch from the right as well (I find that this is the best
setting for this adventure on MY system. Yours may be different, but this is always a good place to start and you can
increase or lower them as you see fit after the game is installed.)
I know this seems like a bother, but if you take the time to make sure your system is sparkling on the inside, you'll
have less headaches later. Remember a healthy XP is a happy one.
While
I do have this game running on Xp, it is not flawless. There
are a few glitches. These seem to be in regard to the
following:
When in Talk mode the person's face in the lower
right area is distorted.
You still need a
"slowdown" Utility for certain sections of the
game. I suggest "Turbo" or
"CPUKiller"
You can find more information about them
here.
... and while you can "save" and
"restore" it only seems to work from the
"map" (some weird cookies here!).
There is a wonderful article that gives some insights
as to how to set up your "save" feature
by saves
Steve
Metzler
But the game is definitely
playable. The Setup follows below:
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1.Change your screen resolution to 640X480 16bit true color before you even think about installing the game. You can do this easily by right clicking anywhere on your Desktop. So go ahead and Right Click:
-
Select: -> Properties -> Settings -> Adapters -> Advance ->
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When this screen comes up select: -> "List all Modes"
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Here you can select different types of screen resolutions, color choice (i.e.: 16bit -32bit, etc) and screen refresh rates. I chose 640X480/16bit/100Hertz ...you may want to experiment with this. I found that once done, I would have to restart my system. Then make sure that all start-up programs were either closed down or disabled.
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2. Next, load the CD (I have 2 different issues of this game, the one I did this with has "the hanging man" on it. and says "Sierra Originals" at the bottom. And has the promo for GK2 on it.) If you wish to try this with the original issue remember that you need to have a Vesa driver loaded.
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3. After putting in the CD into your Drive (mine's E:) Click on ->My Computer -> Double Click on your CD drive to view the files on the CD.
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4. For every .exe or .bat file that you see Right Click -> "Properties" -> "Compatibility" -> Check 640X480Screen Resolution and 256 colors -> Click "Apply" -> Click "OK"
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5. After that is done then Click on the "Sierra Setup". You can choose to either "test" or not. I did both and either one worked fine on my system.
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6. Once the install is completed, Open the new "WINGK1" (this name can vary) folder on your hard drive. Check each file by right clicking to see if any have a compatibility mode. (These will be .exe files) For those that do, make sure you click "256 colors" and "640x480 Screen Resolution". Click "Apply". Click "OK". Go back and copy the "Patch File" into you GK Game folder on your hard drive if they aren't already there.
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7. If you don't have them on your disc, get the Patches for GK1 (there are 2) GKCDpat.zip and GKpat10b.zip You can download them from "The Patch Scrolls"
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8. Install the patches to your game file.
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9. You should be able to access the game from your Start Menu->All Programs->Sierra->GabrielKnight1.
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10. Or you can drag the "Icon" to your Desktop (as I did) for easier access. The only other modification that I made is that before I loaded the game to play, I "dragged away" the "Task Bar" at my desktop. If you do this make sure that you have a shortcut to GKI on your Desktop where you can see it.
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11.Once you begin the game, all aspects will work....except for the save and restore feature...Save will only work from the "MAP". To set up the "Save Game feature, do it BEFORE you start your game. Go to --> your Gabriel Knight Game file. This will be either C:\GK1WIN or C:\Sierra\GKCD --> Right Click anywhere in the folder and select New --> Folder. Make a new one for each saved game you think you might need. Give each folder a memorable sequencial title. (ex. "saves0001" and so forth)
Steve has successfully tested 12 (I've made 18 but have only needed to use 7 so far)
You can read more about it here. (just click on the Steve Metzler link.)
So make sure when you want to save that Gabe gets his coat and heads for the nearest door. Get to the Map and then you'll be able to Save your game and name your save as well. It will also restore to that point too.
Note: There are other ways to play this game on XP as well. Some gamers swear by DOSBOX (although I don't use it for this game yet) and recently there is a new link which some say works perfectly:
(Thanks to Enrico Rolfi and Colin Snover!)
I hope that this will help..
...Inferno