Pepper's Adventures In Time Help

Opening Theme

Pepper's Adventures In Time Updates/Patches (none)

Pepper's Adventures In Time's original requirements:

MS-DOS 3.3 or Windows 3.1 or greater
286
2 MB RAM
9 MB Hard drive space
VGA
SoundBlaster, AdLib, Roland MT-32/LAPC-1/CM-32L/CM-64 or General MIDI
Mouse

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

Speed problems
- "Out of heap" Error

Extras
- Pepper's Adventures In Time Manual (PDF file) [523 KB]
- Pepper's Adventures In Time Knowledge Test (PDF file) [170 KB]
- Pepper's Adventures In Time - The Life and Times of Ben Franklin (PDF file) [3.82 MB]
- Pepper's Adventures In Time Spoilers
- Pepper's Adventures In Time UHS File (ZIP file) [13.6 KB]
- Pepper's Adventures In Time Walkthrough
- Pepper's Adventures In Time Spoilers
- Pepper's Adventures In Time Demo (ZIP file) [527 KB]
- Find it on eBay
- Google

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 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

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 an updated driver,AUDBLAST.DRV (sb16drv.exe).

Solution 4:
Try installing the Windows version

Speed problems

As with many of the Sierra VGA games, Pepper's Adventures In Time has a speed bug. This bug can also be avoided by playing the game in DOSBox. If you can't or don't want to use DOSBox, you can try using a Slowdown Utility. Here is a list of problems with solutions/workarounds.

Problem - "Out of heap" Error:
You receive a "Out of heap space" error near the beginning of your game (many encounter it when first seeing or talking with the Uncle in the attic)

Solution #1 (preferred):
Play using DOSBox. Even the Windows version can be played in DOSBox if you install Windows 3x in it, first.

Solution #2:
Use a Slowdown Utility.

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