Riven (& Myst) QuickTime troubleshooting, (PC versions) Options

[Jehon the Scribe]

Are you fed up with having to reinstall old QuickTime versions if you want to play Myst & Riven? I am.

Especially Riven DVD in Windows XP was causing headaches. Someone posted a possible solution on the old board, but it does not work (I suppose it only worked because he replaced his Riven DVD executable with the Riven 1.02 CD executable.

Anyway, I'm really sick of fiddling around with QuickTime and clutter my system with old versions, so here is my ultimate guide to get the games working without really installing older versions.
My solution is to give the games the old QT files they need by placing the files manually into the games' folders.
Note: If you don't know how to copy files and navigate through drives and folders, this guide is nothing for you.


MYST (original version)

This old version of Myst requires the 16 bit version QuickTime 2 (at least my copy of it does), and all of the QT2 system files are conveniently located in uncompressed form on the Myst CD in the INSTALL.QTW\BIN folder.

So just install the game but do not install QT2. After the installation, go to the Myst CD, INSTALL.QTW\BIN folder, and copy these five files to Myst's folder on your HD:


[*]DHIO_DH.QTC

[*]QCMC.QTC

[*]QTCVID.QTC

[*]QTIM.DLL

[*]QTIMCMGR.DLL

That's it. Myst runs without QuickTime, but it won't display any videos then. If you give Myst the above QT2 system files, it should work. No need to install that old 16 bit software on your flashy 32 bit WinXP system.
Talking about Windows XP, Myst needs a 256 color video mode, so check that option in Myst's compatibility tab.


MYST Masterpiece Edition

Myst ME comes with QuickTime 4. Luckily it will run with the latest QuickTime 6 without any modifications. You do not have to install QuickTime 4 from the Myst ME CD.
However, Myst ME checks if you are running a Windows NT based system (Windows 2000 and Windows XP are NT based). If yes, then it will quit with an error message.
On Windows XP you can simply change the compatibility settings of the game to Windows 95 or Windows 98/ME, and it will run. However, in Windows 2000 you cannot do that (or is there a compatibility mode, too?), and even in XP, there are some sound problems for me then. But there's a solution, a patch that can be found at http://www.mysterium.ch. It will make Myst ME run in Windows 2000 and Windows XP.


realMYST...

... does not use QuickTime.
In Windows XP, you might have to enable Windows 2000 compatibility mode for the game.
And if you don't see any videos (or cannot read the journals in the MYST library, because they are blank), make sure that you have the Indeo 5 video codec and Bink installed. (Use a search engine if you don't know where to download them).


RIVEN (CD version)

Update: Before messing around with QT files, first go to Riven's folder and open the file "mohawk.w32" with a text editor (eg. MS Notepad).
Find the line with "fEnableAudioProxy=true" and change it to "fEnableAudioProxy=false". Save the changes and try to run Riven. If it works, then you are done.

Riven CD uses QuickTime 2 like old Myst, but the 32 bit version. It will possibly work without QT2 if you have a newer QuickTime version installed.

Anyway, following my approach "give them what they need, but don't install the other stuff" I found out which QT2 files Riven CD needs:


[*]CMGR32.DLL

[*]DHIO32.QTC

[*]QTIM32.DLL

Furthermore Riven CD needs the QuickTime files bb_cvid.qtc, bb_dci.qtc, bb_mc32.qt, they are automatically created in Riven's folder by the Riven Setup program (not the QT setup, although they are QT files), so you don't have to care for them. Just don't delete them.

So.... how to obtain the three QT2 system files? I could give them to you, but I don't know if that's OK...
The way to get them is to install QT2 from Riven CD 1, go to your WINDOWS\System (or WINDOWS\System32) folder and copy them to the folder where you placed Riven.
After that you may delete QT2, at least Riven won't need it anymore. It just needs those three files from it.
Please read the additional notes below...


RIVEN (DVD version)

Update: Before messing around with QT files, first go to Riven's folder and open the file "mohawk.w32" with a text editor (eg. MS Notepad).
Find the line with "fEnableAudioProxy=true" and change it to "fEnableAudioProxy=false". Save the changes and try to run Riven. If it works, then you are done.

Riven DVD uses QuickTime 3. It will possibly work without QT3 if you have a newer QuickTime version installed. For example it worked for me in Windows 98 when I had only QuickTime 5 installed.
However, it did not in Windows XP, where I had to remove all newer QuickTime versions before installing the QT3 from Riven DVD. <_<

I found out that Riven DVD just needs the core component of QuickTime 3, namely


[*]QuickTime.qts

So you just have to place that QT3 system file into Riven DVD's folder.

Again, the question is how to obtain the file? I could give it to you, but you can just as well install QT3, grab the QuickTime.qts file from WINDOWS\System (or WINDOWS\System32) and copy it to the folder where you placed Riven. After that you can uninstall QT3 again.



RIVEN CD and DVD additional notes

While old Myst works when you place the necessary QT files into its folder, Riven CD and DVD don't, they will tell you that QuickTime is missing or out of date. Why?
The answer is that both versions of Riven are programmed to look for those QuickTime files inside of your System Directory. The System Directory is your WINDOWS\System (or WINDOWS\System32) folder. If the QuickTime files are not there, then Riven won't find them, even if the files are directly under its nose, in Riven's own folder.

That's why I programmed a patch. The patch makes Riven believe that its own folder is the System Directory, et voilà, it finds the QT system files that you placed there, if you followed my guide.
The patch can be downloaded here, and it works for both Riven CD and Riven DVD.


edit:
MYST III: Exile

Seems to work fine, no known issues (to me) yet.

[olorin]

About Riven DVD, I got it to work just fine simply by following the instructions on the old board. In fact, all I had to do was edit a single line of mohawk.w32 -
fEnableAudioProxy=false

And now it works fine for me...

As far as Myst is installed, I've only done realMyst, which runs fine with no tweaks.


edit: I mean, all I did for Riven DVD was fix that one line of mohawk.w32. No messing with Quicktime, no CD patch. Just that one line.