King's Quest V: Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder Help

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King's Quest V Updates/Patches

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-1/CM-32L
Mouse

Audio Problems
- Poor quality or no sound
- Unable to initialize your audio hardware

Game Specific Bugs

Extras

Audio Problems

Audio problems are common in the later Sierra DOS SCI games. There's no single fix for all these games. You can try the Windows version, if running on 32-bit Windows.

Problem - Poor Quality / No Sound (Win9x and XP):
The game has no sound or the music is of poor quality.

Solution:
Play the game in DOSBox. It also will work with the MT-32 sound module, if you are fortunate to have one.

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 :
You must specify the full path to the RESOURCE.CFG when starting the game. Do not start the game from the game's main executable. If the game's folder is mounted in DOSBox as the C: drive, start it from the command line with:

sierra c:\resource.cfg

You can also automate this by adding it to the autoexec section of your dosbox.conf. Just remember -- you must specify the exact path to the RESOURCE.CFG file as DOSBox will see it.

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 in DOSBox instead of the Windows version. Install it with INSTALL.EXE in DOSBox, not SETUP.EXE in Windows.

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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