Quest for Glory III: Wages of War Help

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Quest for Glory III Patches/Updates

Quest for Glory III: Wages of War's original requirements:

MS-DOS 5.0 or Windows 3.1 or greater
286 or better
640 KB RAM
7.5 MB Hard drive space
EGA, VGA
AdLib, Disney Sound Source, General MIDI, Pro Audio Spectrum/Plus/16, Roland MT-32/LAPC-1, Sound Blaster, Thunderboard
Mouse

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

Speed problems

Game Specific Bugs
- Loping, Shaman Arm Waving

Extras

Audio Problems

Audio problems are common in the later Sierra DOS SCI games. There's no single fix for all these games.

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, Quest for Glory III: Wages of War has some speed bugs. These bugs 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 - Laibon's hut:
In the Laibon's hut, the Laibon repeatedly says, "For what have you come, friend of Rakeesh?" This causes your Honor to decrease rapidly, because the Laibon says that about every second instead of about every minute.

Solution #1 (preferred):
Apply this patch by NewRisingSun. (You may still want to play the game in DOSBox.)

Solution #2:
Play using DOSBox.

Solution #3:
Use a Slowdown Utility.

Solution #4:
Talk to the Laibon as quickly as you can. Discuss all important topics before saying good-bye.

Problem - Thief Conversation:
Thief Conversation repeats.

Solution #1 (preferred):
Apply this patch by NewRisingSun. (You may still want to play the game in DOSBox.)

Solution #2:
Play using DOSBox.

Solution #3:
Use a Slowdown Utility.

Problem - Simbani Initiation:
An error strikes during the Simbani initiation at the ring-on-the-tree contest. The error message says something like, "Oops. You did something unexpected."

Solution #1 (preferred):
Apply this patch by NewRisingSun. (You may still want to play the game in DOSBox.)

Solution #2:
Play using DOSBox.

Solution #3:
Use a Slowdown Utility.

Solution #4:
In the control panel, set the speed to maximum and detail to minimum. Move the cursor over Yesufu's head or the other Simbani's head and hold down the Enter key or repeatedly click the mouse button.

Game Specific Bugs

There are a couple of bugs the game has that are not speed dependent.

Problem - Loping, Shaman Arm Waving:
Several problems, including looping, and Shaman endlessly waving arms.

Solution #1:
Apply this patch. Updates game to version 1.1.

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