Font corruption in AGI games

[Tektonic]

This problem has been bugging me for awhile and I've scoured the net and still haven't found anything - how can I fix font corruption with AGI games I'm running on my laptop?
All the menus and text boxes that pop-up in all my AGI games (KQ1-3, BC, Goldrush etc) have garbled, unreadable characters instead of the text. The weird thing is that when you move through the menu, the highlighted option becomes readable. I suspect this has something to do with the video bios, but I haven't managed to find any programs to fix this font corruption as of yet. Any ideas?

[robingravel]

Hi

I have the same problem when playing agi games in cga mode.

The only way to fix it is to make a bootable disk without config.sys and autoexec.bat.

Robin Gravel

[Tektonic]

I actually tried that already. Any idea on where I could get a video bios util to fix the problem, or alternatively what may be causing it?

[Nick Sonneveld]

Sierra's AGI support a few command line parameters.  You might want to try some to force it into EGA or CGA mode.  It might also help with the character corruption.

Display:
-c CGA
-r CGA with another palette
-e EGA
-h Hercules
-v Not sure.. i *think* it's some B&W VGA mode supported on some PS/2 computers

system:
-p IBM PC
-t Tandy
-s related to -v though


on the mysterious -v and -s notes.. I'm not sure which computer it is.. but there's an autodetect code that runs like this:

mov     ah, 0C0h ; '+'
int     15h
jb      loc_0_4408
mov     al, es:[bx+2]
cmp     al, 0FAh ; '

[Nick Sonneveld]

ok, after a quick search, I think it's just support for the PS/2 Model 30 and it's MCGA graphics adapter.  the MCGA was basically a cut down B&W version of the VGA card that was in the more expensive PS/2's.  Not really useful but I thought i'd bring it up anyways.

[Tektonic]

Thanks for that info - that's the sort of thing I was looking for. I tried out each switch and I get exactly the same thing no matter what I try. The video on my laptop is an ATI Rage Pro chip, so no doubt it's got cutdown font support or something. Whereabouts could I get a TSR to override this?

[robingravel]

Another idea:

Why not use the interpreter from another game or a demo interprete and use it to play your game depending the version of the interpreter the game uses it.

Robin Gravel

[Tektonic]

Nice idea, except this happens with every AGI game I have!

[robingravel]

Have you tried nagi to playing your games?

[Chris Cromer]

And if you can't get NAGI to work you should also try Sarien.

[Tektonic]

Sounds like a plan. I haven't tried Sarien out in awhile and haven't used NAGI before, so it looks like that'll be what I'll have to do. Thanks