Even though I didn’t look at the code, I have the feeling that 86Box only emulates transfer speeds, but not access time. I also tried to emulate slower drives with 86Box since they allow setting transfer speeds as well. Instead, I read through many, many datasheets of various CD-ROM drives. This meant I couldn’t rely on measurements alone. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go down to double-speed since the drive wouldn’t go slower than 4x. This tool allows you to throttle your CD-ROM drives by enforcing lower reading speeds. Fortunately, this generic drive is compatible with Jörg Fiebelkorn’s CD-Bremse. The oldest system I own is a Pentium III with 500 MHz, featuring a 16x Philips CD-RW drive and a 48x “generic” drive.
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The main issue is that I don’t have really period correct hardware at the moment. While the implementation was pretty straight-forward, it was not exactly easy to get the timing right. I enable the new loading time simulation at around the 50 second mark. It should be pretty obvious that this is clearly not how the game should be played. The first half of the video shows the previous without any loading times behaviour. In order to show you the difference, I prepared a small video. After activating this feature, it adds a delay between the different screen transitions in order to simulate the loading times of a real CD-ROM drive. Looking for a way to improve the experience, I recently implemented loading time simulation to ScummVM. Even though I’m obviously not forced to take advantage of the instant loading, the feeling that I can do this is affecting the experience in a negative way for me.
Now, you are not forced to slowly explore, but you can simply run through the game. by playing the games with ScummVM, then you might notice something is off. When you play the game on original hardware, then the loading times seem perfectly fine since you expect them.Īs soon as you eliminate the loading times at all, e.g. due to character movement), this does not apply to Myst. While many adventure games are limiting playback speed on their own (e.g. Everything tells you to slowly explore while making sure not to miss any hints you need to solve the puzzles. However, it really feels that your are not supposed to rush through the game.
I’m not sure if this was even part of the original design concept. The game basically forces you to slowly walk through the worlds of Myst. On the next move, it needs to load yet another image. Since each time you move through the game, your computer needs to load the next image. Myst uses some pretty clever compression techniques and an optimized file layout on the disc. Furthermore, RAM constraints made any caching of the datafiles impossible. Since even the largest hard drives had a capacity of around 1000 Megabytes, installing the game wasn’t an option. This means access times of 80 to 200ms as well as a blazing transfer speed of 300KB/s under ideal conditions. The original Myst was released in 1993 on this incredible new format called ‘CD-ROM’, allowing for a whopping 650 Megabytes of storage.Īt that time, CD-ROM drives were slow – like double-speed slow. In my opinion, the immersion these games provide is partially created due to technical limitations.
#Scummvm rom set series
Needless to say that especially the first entries in the series – the original Myst and its successor Riven – are truly remarkable games. To me, the Myst series feels like an immersive trip to another world – it is truly something different compared to your average point-and-click adventure game.
#Scummvm rom set how to
The only way to get a working patched version is to find a physical DVD and rip it.įor those looking to get t heir copy working, search for "run riven on newer pc scummvm" and you'll find a short reddit post detailing how to get it set up.Ever since I discovered the Myst series back in 2005, I’m in love with it. I believe in some ways it actually surpasses the original Myst, as many puzzle clues are conveyed through storytelling and the narrative.įor those that don't know, the digital ports (on Steam, GoG, etc) are based on the bugged unpatched 5-CD version of Riven - one of the bugs is progress-blocking and you have to look through spoilers to fix it. Sure, the graphics aren't the best but they also aren't terrible. It was well worth the time and effort to get a working DVD copy set up. So I hunted down the DVD version on ebay, ripped the files, and brought it into ScummVM. I always wanted to revisit Riven, as I last played it over a decade ago.
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