Finally finished GK Beast Within!

After several problems getting it to run and help from wonderful GBers,I finally reached the end-I enjoyed the story and especially the characters. The acting was perfect as well as the music-I can understand why this game appears on so many "favorites" lists.
I would like to find and play GK3-will it run any better since it's newer(1999)?

Congratulations bigmamma1!

I'm not sure about GK3, whether it will be easier to get it to run. Nine years is still a long time ago. Are you going to take the plunge right away and try it?

Way to go bigmamma! Glad you finally were able to play it!

GK3 imo was the best of the lot. Great location, good voice overs and characters, puzzles were good moving around the game took a bit to do when i first got it but i got used to it the more i played and ended up really liking the moving system etc.

I agree with GK3 being the best of 'em.
It has some serious issues (like the horrible graphics), but it supplies such a solid game, with genious puzzles and plot, I forgive it

GK3 should run fine on XP, just make sure to set it to Windows 98 compatibility mode (you might need to set the installer to compatibility mode as well, or it'll think you're using NT, which was not a supported operating system).

GK3 came out when xp was out i think, i know i didnt have to mess about with stuff to get it working on xp pro. So you will be fine.

A lot of people had a lot of difficulty getting GK 3 to run in XP. Here is a forum that discussed ways around a lot of the issues. I found it when I was having nasty graphics problems with the game. The solution required removing a driver from win32. then of course replacing it when done with the game. I don't remember the details, too long ago. but this site offers plenty of tweaks etc.
GK

As for being the best of the three, nawww I thought it was the worst. But that's what makes for lively game discussions.

I was enjoying the problem where almost everything on screen was black. Not everything but 70 percent of the screen. this was the answer I found on the above forum.

"Update : Try renaming c:\windows\system32\mpeg2dmx.ax to something else i.e mpeg2dmx.old and then start the game again. When you're finished playing, rename the file back to mpeg2dmx.ax."

That worked and the game ran fine after making that change. Like I said there are a lot of assorted problems. 8 pages worth of them. chances are if there is an answer you can find it there. good luck

I think GK3 is the worst, too.

If you have FFDSHOW then you will have to remove it to play the game.

Game is good but graphics are abysmal. The ugliest game ever made.

Hi bigmamma1

Glad to hear you enjoyed GK2 so much and interesting to read the different opinions on the GK series as a whole.

My own rating would always have Sins of the Fathers as the best, Beast Within runner up and Blood of the Sacred last.



Cheers.

Mad

Hi,
Gabriel Knight 3 will run on xp, just set to compat mod 98. It runs just fine on my older xp,(yr 2001) but with the dual core you have to disable one. (something I haven't learned as yet) That's why I'm keeping my older computer with xp. If an old 98 came along that still worked and I could get it to run would buy, just for older games. Maybe the graphics aren't the best but Jim Carey's voice acting and the story line makes it worth playing.
Charllotte

Glad you enjoyed the game bigmamma - it's one of my favourite AGs of all time.

GK3 was the 1st one I played in the series a few years ago - my partner managed to get it working for me in XP & I got through the game but I did have a few problems.

I started to replay it a few months ago on my newer & better XP system - I had no problem with installation or playing it & the inferior graphics didn't bother me but I had forgotten how awful the interface is! If you can cope with it, it's well worth it as the story is so compelling - after that I just had to have the 1st two games!

Well, maybe GK3 is the worst of the series. Maybe. But still a great game, one of the best of all time. Play it, you won't be disappointed.

Albert

Hello Everyone-
Thanks for all your comments about GK2- I guess I'll hold off on GK3 for now-have too many other unplayed games that do run on XP. I do have a 64MB WIN 98 "puter, but havn't fired it up in about 3 years-never seem to get the time to set it up and life goes on. Cheers

PS: Who were your favorite minor characters in Beast Within? Mine were the American tourists, the Smiths and Commisar Leber, the police chief.

My favorite is Von Glower *swoon*

And Gabe, of course.

Charlotte, hi,



Well, we have an article at the top of the Glitches & Patches forum that tells you exactly what you need to know in this regard: how to disable the second processor for only the applications you want to disable it for

The article is called 'Legacy Games & Hyperthreading', and here is the direct link to it:

http://www.gameboomers.com/Members/legacygameshyperthreading.htm

That article was written before the advent of dual core, but everything that applies to hyperthreading also applies to dual core

Just concentrate on the part of the article that applies to using the 'imagecfg' utility, and you're away!

Regards,
MetzO'Magic

I personally loved GK3. I'd always been interested in the Templers, the Masons, and the whole mystery surrounding the "lost treasure". Jane Jensen was way ahead of Dan Brown in bringing us this facinating story, and there's a lot a genuine research involved in the game. I'd recommend it to anyone who has a computer that will play it.

Thanks Metzo,
I've been using your help for some of the older games. I will try this. I have a list of older ones, yet to buy or play. I have played all three GK's and all four BS's. So looking for some other interesting games.
Charllotte

Playing Byzantine, Dead Reefs, UnderCover

I just replayed this (well on the end sequence now). It's been several years but it's still one of my favourites.

I was reading in one of the walkthroughs though about a premature alternate ending. Has anyone tried it? I didn't keep a saved game at that point so I'll have to replay from the beginning to check that out!

Grr... I had forgotten how tedious the endgame was until attempting it last night about 10 times before I gave up. If there's anyone who's totally stuck on the end game but just want to see the ending I found a youtube video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=auAy-aRiyvA

You'll miss one key task at the very end but at least you'll see the ending.

Many thanks for that link, Misa--what fun to relive those last moments in a wonderful game...

After playing all 3 again within the past few months, I think GK2 is definitely my favourite. It was great to see the characters brought to life by actors. Such a shame that we will probably never see a GK4 (or a GK3 novel!).

I agree, Misa--after finishing GK3, I spent quite a bit of time searching around until I found copies of the two novels that I could afford (some of the prices being asked were hairraising!!). I was surprised, and disappointed, to discover that there had never been a third one--I suppose the sale of the first two wasn't great enough to warrant investment in the third...

I bought both novels back in the day after play GK1 & GK2.

Have you read Jane's book Millenium Rising (also known as "Judgement Day")? It's very good and would make a great adventure game too!

Hi misa,
Thank you much for the link to the youtube video for the ending to GK2: The Beast Within. I never got to see the ending when I played the game years ago when it first came out because there was some kind of a glitch with the werewolves in the maze at the end and the screen went crazy. I only read about the ending in the walkthrough. Even so it still was one of my favorite games. I liked Gabe and Grace that much!