Running Old OS 9 Games in OS 10.4.1

[awd829]

Okay, so I am not completely new to Mac's, but have been using them for around 3-4 years (but only in a graphic arts environment). So, I got a little nostalgic for some games that I grew up for, and when I bought them off of e-bay, and tried to load them on my 12" Powerbook G4 (1.33ghz, 1gig ram), it loads up the classic "window", and the game kinda starts, but all I then get is a distorted view of the window, the colour seems very off, and I can't really see the game, it is the shadows of it, and I see my OS X desktop in the background. It is really weird... so the games that I am trying to load are, "Sam & Max, Hit the Road", "Day of the Tentacle", and "Full Throttle".. Lol, I know they are horrid games, but I really want to be able to play these, and I don't know if they will even work on my Powerbook since they are super old, and they were originally designed for OS 8.X. I have played with colour and resolution settings, and still no go.. So, any help would seriously be appreciated..
Thanks,
Dearinger

[yellow]

It's possible that they simply won't work in Classic. If other Classic apps work just fine, I'd say this is likely the root of your problem. How to fix? You cannot, sadly.

[kc0arf]

Hi,

It is unfortunate that some things can get just too old to work properly. You might need an old computer to run older things after all. The people with Windows computers see the same thing.

Christian

[kristoferw]

I was having the same problem trying to play Sam & Max. I found this program Scumm VM

http://www.scummvm.org

I only tried it with Sam & Max, but it says it works with other LucasArts games.

[blecch]

Actually, you can run the original Mac versions of Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max hit the Road under Classic in Mac OS X 10.4.2 (Tiger), if you do the following:

1. Turn on dock hiding - this is so the dock won't overlap the game when you play.

2. Start up the game - your screen will go ugly, and the game music will start.

3. Hit escape to pause the game.

4. Open up system preferences, and switch to 640x480, millions of colors. (Note: you have to do this *after the game starts*.)

5. Switch back to the game, e.g. using control-tab

6. Select "resume game" or "restart game" from the menu bar.

7. The game will switch to 640x480, 256 colors and will run!! Yeah!!

8. After quitting the game, switch back to your preferred video mode.

This is a bit ugly, but it works. It's a bit of a thrill to run the original, 1994 Mac version on OS X without having to resort to ScummVM. Also, the embedded Maniac Mansion should be playable from within Day of the Tentacle (ScummVM won't do it - you have to extract it separately.) The above method should also work for other games which use the same Mac version of LucasArts' SCUMM engine.

Of course, if you have the PC versions of the games, then you need to run ScummVM or a DOS emulator!!

Alternatively, you can reboot into 9.x and give it a try.

Good luck, and have fun!

[sm0kejaguar]

I tried your method, and it worked great, except there is no sound . . . any ideas??

[sm0kejaguar]

I tried this, and it works great, but theres no sound or music . . . any ideas on why? Please help. Thanks.

Actually, you can run the original Mac versions of Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max hit the Road under Classic in Mac OS X 10.4.2 (Tiger), if you do the following:

1. Turn on dock hiding - this is so the dock won't overlap the game when you play.

2. Start up the game - your screen will go ugly, and the game music will start.

3. Hit escape to pause the game.

4. Open up system preferences, and switch to 640x480, millions of colors. (Note: you have to do this *after the game starts*.)

5. Switch back to the game, e.g. using control-tab

6. Select "resume game" or "restart game" from the menu bar.

7. The game will switch to 640x480, 256 colors and will run!! Yeah!!

8. After quitting the game, switch back to your preferred video mode.

This is a bit ugly, but it works. It's a bit of a thrill to run the original, 1994 Mac version on OS X without having to resort to ScummVM. Also, the embedded Maniac Mansion should be playable from within Day of the Tentacle (ScummVM won't do it - you have to extract it separately.) The above method should also work for other games which use the same Mac version of LucasArts' SCUMM engine.

Of course, if you have the PC versions of the games, then you need to run ScummVM or a DOS emulator!!

Alternatively, you can reboot into 9.x and give it a try.

Good luck, and have fun!