There is actually a possible reason going by what Tolya had said back in the linked linked thread. Since the two releases used different movie formats, with one being much more reliable than the other, it is possible that the Galaxy client is used to make the unreliable format more reliable to play, and running it without Galaxy would cause hiccups in the playing of the movies. No idea at all if that is the case or not, and a blue response would be much appreciated, but best way to get one would be a support ticket.
But feel free to not send one, Nightblair said they'd be contacting them themselves.

I've sent one, but so far no reply. I don't have the Riven in my library, but I hope that won't be a problem.

[emphasis added]

I read Toya's post before I made my previous posts, sounds more like a decision to keep the number of potential support tickets low, as I don't quite see what the issue was/is in terms of reliability in relation to the VOB format.

Aside from this and regarding the part I highlighted - how can/does the client ensure/achieve that?




No owning the game shouldn't be an issue, but I'd not expect a reply before the current sale ends.

Pure speculation on my part, so it is possible that nothing I say can actually be done.
The video format could be picky about the system's output settings, and work if the system has X settings but fail if it uses Y. If the video is sent to Galaxy though, and Galaxy only uses X settings for input, the system could use any kind of output setting that Galaxy is capable of producing and still play the videos. Think of it similarly to how DOSBox handles sound, it takes a sound signal meant for the PC Speaker, SoundBlaster or Adlib and sends a signal that your computer can actually produce.

Not sure I'm capable of explaining it atm, nor am I actually sure if that is possible (my guess would be that the overlay would be required to mess with the video). But it could be a potential reason for that choice.

My issue ticket to gog was forwarded to Product team.

Interesting topic. I see no difference between what the APIs return in terms of Galaxy builds and offline installers (at metadata level), so I'm curious to see how this plays out.

Still no other answer from support than the original reassigned reply.

It's a month since I've posted the support request. Still no answer.

That's the not very nice thing about it. Mistakes can happen. Not fixing mistakes within some reasonable time after they have been reported however... is more than a mistake. In this case it is a deliberate discrimination of web installers for one month.
Probably the build and deploy chains for Web and Galaxy installers are diverging too early. If there would be a common repository and description of game content and then scripts would create web or galaxy installers from them, you might be able to minimize such issues. They might have duplicated some part of this process for web/galaxy that are very similar but not identical anymore, therefore leading to different outcomes.

I'm just downloading Riven through Galaxy and standalone. I'll have a quick playthrough to check JMich's theory, but the details don't support the claim that the standalone installer is "inferior" to the Galaxy version, only that it's nominally different.

To be clear, the installed directory size of the standalone installer is 2.67GB. The Galaxy version of the game is 2.74GB. That's around 70MB to account for. The Galaxy version of the game includes a number of Galaxy-related metafiles (about 0.5MB), an empty folder called "_support" and a folder called "Divers" containing a file "QuickTime.qts" weighing in at around 6MB.

The MHK files in the Galaxy version weigh in at 2.73GB, while the standalone puts these at 2.67GB. A difference to be sure, but nowhere near big enough to the support the assertion that the videos of the DVD version are somehow "superior". I'll check the intro of both versions to be sure.

Edit: Right, a comparison will take time, given that I can't even launch the Galaxy version (the standalone version works just fine). That being said, the file Riven.ini does indeed confirm that the standalone is the CD version and the Galaxy version is the DVD version.

I don't know anything about this issue besides following this thread, but file size isn't the only important factor. The movie files from the DVD version could be just a little bigger, but still significantly higher in quality, depending on the encoding and compression.

Really at this point, regardless of whether one version is superior or not, the fact that GOG didn't deem it worthy to give any answer in a month is enough of a disgrace on it's own.

OK then. I've thrown both versions into the ScummVM developer nightly (the release version doesn't support Riven, the stable nightly has a bug regarding import of the files). I can confirm that there is a MARGINAL improvement of the DVD version over the CD version. As Urnoev and JMich correctly surmised, this is due to different compression methods.

The CD version has the videos refresh the entire screen, so there are compression artefacts all over the place, as you'd expect from a 1990s FMV game. The DVD version largely preserves a single key frame and only updates the areas of the screen where there is movement in the video (i.e. around characters who are walking and talking). This isn't an improvement in the quality of the video footage but simply a different approach to compression. The upshot of this is that backgrounds preserve greater detail in the DVD version. The downshot: the characters in the DVD version look like they're even more superimposed on the backgrounds than they did before. YMMV regarding preference.

Two important points:

(a) There is no difference in the still shots!
(b) Just because the game was released on DVD does not mean you are getting DVD-quality footage!

However, I will point out that the DVD version (1.1.0) does not work at all on Windows 10, and there is no known workaround for this other than to use the very unstable and unproven nightly build of ScummVM and to rearrange the files for it. The CD version (1.0.0) does work on Windows 10. So if anything, it's apt to say that Win10 Galaxy users are getting the shaft on this occasion.

That being said, I will concur with Breja on this one occasion and agree that it's absolutely disgraceful that GOG have made no statement on this matter.

Very interesting, thank you for the analysis ChaosFox.

Sounds like the actual difference itself isn't really significant at all, but I agree that it is weird that nothing has been done or said about this by GOG at all...

Thks 2 _ChaosFox_ 4 the analysis as well as Urnoev & JMich 4 the input. I also hv 2 agree that GOG shd hv @ the very least replied or give an explanation since a ticket was raised. That being said, i think the difference shd be minimal. Besides, seems only the standalone installer wld be playable on Win10 so GOG wld be wise 2 highlight this especially 2 those using Galaxy.

Edit: Just checked, GOG listed the game as playable up 2 Win 8 only so @ least Win10 users will be forewarned.