sciviewer

Well... The binary is not new. It has been on Geocities for a while before they cancelled the service. The only difference from v1 is AGI support.

Sorry, the source code is no longer available. As for the binaries, feel free to grab the latest version (v.2, SCI and AGI support, 2008/08/08) before rapidshare deleted these files. First come first served... https://rapidshare.com/files/71253982/sv_gui.zip https://rapidshare.com/files/2603234143/sv_cli.zip

A bunch of CLI tools is available at http://www.geocities.com/sciviewer (for those who's sick and tired of extracting resources one by one ;-)).

Not too much... A few people asked to add a support for Yamaha FB-01 and Casio CT-460/MT-540. Feel free to download and give it a try :-).

Yep, I've already figured this out. Seems to be the one of a kind (and hard to find these days).

Email usually works fine. The address is on the bottom of the web page -- to keep the spam at acceptable level :-).

An update is available at http://www.geocities.com/sciviewer/sv1.zip . Nothing new, just fixes for some reported bugs. Comments/suggestions are still appreciated :-).

Just wondering... Does anyone know anything about SCI games that have resources like CDAudio (*.CDA), Bitmap (*.BIT) or Translation (*.TRN)? Don't have anything like that in my collection :-(.

A small update that allows to select picture palettes for view resources -- http://www.geocities.com/sciviewer/sv1.zip. Hopefully it doesn't break anything else ;-).

I see. Will try to find one of them... By the way -- does it help to set the graphics version to 0 manually and disable automatic version detection?

It looks like some players do not understand negative values in time division (SMPTE). I've changed the units in exported files to PPQN, so they should be playable by old-fashioned players as well. Feel free to refresh your copy. Which game/resource are you talking about? All the 1.0 games that I have use 256-color graphics. The only exception is QG2, but it seems to be ok...

http://www.geocities.com/sciviewer/sv1.zip -- now has "Extract" menu item enabled by default.

Must be LSD ;-). Actually it enables some useful features (for testing and debugging purposes, of course). One is an "Extract" menu item that tries to save a resource in the SCI format. The problem is that it's not always playable by the original interpreter. For example, some graphics resources may have the same encoding scheme (and therefore the version in SV terms) but different headers. Sierra always changed something. That's why this feature is not supported (although it saves a lot of space when somebody sends me a problematic resource). Not all media players work well with SMF v.0 files containing "system exclusive" messages. Try to export patches and sounds separately, although it may not always help. Some "regular" sound resources will still contain SysEx messages (such as pan) when MT-32 patch is selected (even though it's not uploaded).

Just uploaded the new version with limited export support: http://www.geocities.com/sciviewer/sv1.zip. Feel free to give it a try. While exporting sounds make sure that you've selected the right patch (to be used for instrument mapping) and "Upload" checkbox (if you want it's initialization part to be exported as well). The same is true for pictures: an appropriate bitmap, palette, etc. must be selected before exporting a resource. W. Y. S.(or H.) I. W. Y. G. This version also has debug asserts removed (since no one wants to provide me useful information anyway).

That's expected. Hardware device holds SysEx information until it's reset or powered off. Software emulators usually clear it when a device is closed after a playback. I'll try to see if it's possible to keep the device open all the time without interfering with other programs that may want to play something. P.S. It seems to be pretty easy to redirect a MIDI stream to a file, so stay tuned ;-)

Try to play with "Versions" dialog. As far as I was able to find on the internet, the "Conquest" game uses SCI 1.0. Try to force the graphics to "Version 1" and disable automatic detection. Please also e-mail me the 999.pal file (copy/paste it's hex dump if it does not appear in the directory separately). Please check "Settings -> Version info" to see if the sound version is 1. Please make sure that your system has the correct MIDI output device selected in the "Settings -> Preferences" dialog. "System default" means "MIDI mapper", so make sure that it's set correctly in the control panel when using this option. Check the volume settings for MIDI synth. Please note that SV does not provide any sort of emulation. It just remaps instruments in according to the patch you've selected and feeds the MIDI stream to the windows sequencer. In other words, you must have an appropriate device (i.e., MT-32 or GM synth), a correspondent patch (1.pat for MT-32 clones, 4.pat for GM) and an appropriate sound track in order to get the correct sound. Patch must be uploaded to the device (at least once for an external synth and every time for a software based one). Windows uses GM, so SV will not play the sound correctly if the game was designed without GM support (started to appear st SCI 1.1). You may try to install MT-32 emulator driver, or even buy an used MT-32, although it's much easier to find a digitized soundtrack somewhere :-).

When you've found a bug or a "feature" that should be compiled out (like MFCs debug asserts), try to collect as much information as possible. This includes (but not limited to) the OS/SP version (i.e., "Hasta la Vista SP2"); the resource you're trying to view ("1234.p56"), the error message that you've got (the entire text, not just "abort-retry-ignore"), etc. I can not afford to buy all the games and spend the eternity trying to guess what the problem was...

Oops... Don't have the TP game to debug. That's why it's not in the supported list :-). As for SQ4, you can still try to open the game directory (that contains RESOURCE.* files) on the original CD. In most cases you don't even need to install the game. At least this should work with the "anniversary" collection.

I'm not a windows expert, but I don't think that it allows applications to access AdLib at the register level. I thought about adding some FM emulation by remapping everything to a "sine wave" sound, but it's not available in all GM devices :-(.

NRS uses picture format that is different from "official" games. Though it's legal from SCI point of view, it confuses SV's version detection algorithm. Try to play with "Settings -> Version info" dialog, i.e. set graphics to 1.1 and disable automatic detection.

Looking for enthusiasts to try new SCI resource viewer. Comments/suggestions are welcome...